SELL YOUR FRANCHISE’S VALUE PROPOSITION BY BRINGING IN TONS OF EVIDENCE.
Most people do not trust sales messaging, at least not right away.
Study after study has found that people do not like advertising. In fact, consumers have to come “hate ads so much that they are paying to avoid them,” as The New York Times writes.1
Perhaps even worse than “not liking” advertising, especially for franchises needing to get the word out about their brands and their offerings, four out of five customers (83%) don’t trust it.2
Trust is critical to making buying decisions. Without confidence in the purchase or investment, people simply won’t buy.
For franchises, this situation presents a double whammy.
First, franchisors need to attract franchisees. Advertising is a way to do that, but franchising itself is a competitive field, full of grandiose claims and offerings that many potential buyers don’t buy.
Second, both corporate and individual franchisees need to attract customers who are willing to open their pocketbooks.
In a marketplace of intense skepticism, the secret ingredient to success is building trust. That requires content that proves your claims.
Content separates itself from strict advertising by being informative and engaging. It’s also widely considered more trustworthy: fully 95% of B2B buyers, for example, consider content to be trustworthy when they’re considering a potential purchase.
But what are the best ways to do this
In This Paper...
1: Introduction
2: Case studies & Success Stories
3: Testimonials
4: Reviews
Case studies prove your ability to generate successful outcomes for customers and clients. They are evidence of accomplishment.
Start building trust by presenting success stories. In fact, case studies are useful across all stages of the sales funnel: 71% of B2B buyers cite case studies as one of the most influential types of content in the awareness stage (when potential customers are first discovering your business and its offerings) and 77% during the evaluation stage (when that prospective customer is doing research prior to making a buying decision).3 In turn, nine out often buyers say that success stories like case studies positively influence their buying decision.4
Part of what makes case studies so effective is that they bring the solution to life. They translate sales claims into storied achievements. They create a narrative in which prospective customers can see themselves, and they paint a vivid picture of problems solved and pains relieved.
The story aspect is key. “Companies must understand that data will be remembered only if presented in the right way,” says Think with Google, the market research branch of Google itself. “And often a slide, spreadsheet or graph is not the right way; a story is.”5
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Case studies mean different things in different situations. |
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For Franchisors For Franchisees |
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Case studies are a great format for franchisors to speak to potential franchisees. Your target audience undoubtedly has an entrepreneurial spirit and ambitious goals for themselves, and you can use case studies to illustrate what they can achieve as a successful franchisee of your brand. This can attract potential franchisees and help convince them to choose your offering over another’s. But case studies can do even more in this situation: they can be educational. They can help a potential franchisee understand how to be more successful by showcasing the tactics that worked well for others. They can illuminate and showcase your franchise’s culture and how it stands out in the marketplace, which can ease the eventual onboarding process. |
How effective a case study is for an individual franchise depends entirely on the nature of the business offering. Case studies will tend to be less useful for commodity goods sold in a retail environment, or for foodstuffs sold by foodservice operators. They are better suited for higher priced goods and services, particularly in B2B operations. So, while a restaurant is not likely to write a case study about enjoying a meal, other hospitality franchises, like “the best hotels”, might find case studies useful. For example, they can be used to make a business case to corporations looking for partners to host employees at company events and during business travel. The case study can showcase how much the company would save over other options and/or the other benefits they would enjoy. |
Testimonials offer another form of proof for skeptical prospects. Even better, they let your partners and customers do your selling for you.
Testimonials allow your organization to sidestep altogether the question of the trustworthiness of your own claims. Nine out of ten people trust other customers more than the business itself in making claims; testimonials speak directly to these skeptics.6
And they work! Including testimonials on a website sales page, for instance, can increase conversions (the number of buying decisions) by 34%.7 In some cases, customer testimonials have been found to increase conversion rates as much as 380%, or nearly quadrupling sales.8Testimonials are also associated with a 62% increase in revenue.9 In other words, if customers – or potential franchisees – have greater confidence in doing business with you thanks to the testimony of voices they trust, they’ll be willing to spend more.
How you handle testimonials makes a big difference, however. For example, they need to be visible and close to the call-to-action to have maximum impact.
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Best Practices for Testimonials |
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Ask the right customers |
Highlight the real value |
Use video testimonials too |
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First, ask the most impactful people possible. Recognizable names and brands will hold more sway. Likewise, people in leadership positions will be more influential than entry-level workers, even if it’s the staff on the front lines that might have the most to say. Sometimes, the name is not going to be recognizable no matter what, but you can add some description that will help. For example, a testimonial from a franchisee that owns several locations might be more impactful than one who only owns a single location. |
Second, a testimonial has to do the same work as any other piece of marketing content; the fact that it’s coming out of a customer’s mouth does not change that. That means you want the testimonial to hit the specific benefits and competitive differentiators that set your franchise apart. You might want to ask for a longer statement than you actually need so that you can edit it down. In editing, you don’t want to change the testimonial, but polishing it into a shorter and more impactful version is fine. |
Third, don’t forget video! Video testimonials can be particularly powerful. According to content marketing platform HubSpot, 88% of marketers say video has given them a positive ROI in 2020, a huge jump from the 33% who said the same thing in 2015.10 That reflects the growth in video’s popularity with buyers. As with case studies, video testimonials bring the statement to life. The key is to legitimize what the customer is saying and reinforce the impression that this is a real person speaking in a heartfelt way about their actual experience with your franchise. |
Reviews are another form of user-generated content that let others do your selling for you through a highly credible format that people genuinely trust.
People place a tremendous amount of faith in online reviews. Almost everyone finds reviews to be more credible than other forms of content, and 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they do personal recommendations.11 In fact, nearly two-thirds (59%) of online shoppers regard reviews as equally trustworthy as reviews from friends!12
That’s partially because reviews typically go farther than testimonials by incorporating more information, including potentially critical comments. As a result, they are often more informative and balanced.
Indeed, don’t worry if your total portfolio of online reviews includes a small number of negative reviews. Believe it or not, having a few critical reviews is actually helpful to building trust. That’s because consumers become skeptical again if reviews are perceived as too good to be true. Specifically, studies have found that the optimal average review rating falls between 4.0 and 4.7. Above 4.7 stars, businesses hit that “too good to be true” range.13
Reviews cultivate trust specifically because they can include criticism and complaints; that’s why they’re perceived as being more honest.
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Reviews can speak to different audiences. |
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For Franchisors Trying to Attract Franchisees For Franchisees Trying to Attract Customers |
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Everyone would prefer to be part of a successful team; the potential franchisee will be more attracted to a franchise with a successful track record than otherwise. If you can gain some reviews from other franchisees or business partners in the meantime, so much the better. In fact, review sites are excellent for franchisees researching potential investments because they can save a ton of time and money in making use of a portal that has already gone through the filtration process of finding the best franchises. |
Good reviews just plain spark more business. Customers who interact with reviews are 58% more likely to buy, according to Big Commerce, and spend 3% more on average per order.14 Even just a few reviews can make a big difference; in fact, having just five reviews for a product or other offering increases the likelihood of purchase by 270% compared to a product with no reviews at all. By getting reviews from their customers on franchise ranking sites, they can improve their sales revenue, conversion rates, etc. |
Note, however, that reviews introduce a challenge other forms of trust-based marketing don’t: the franchise has less direct control or oversight over them. This is why an organized, consistent review and reputation management program is so vital to making sure reviews work in your franchisee’s favor, and not against them.
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Best Practices for Reviews |
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Have a company-wide view so you can see the whole organization. |
But make sure there are individual listings for each location or individual franchise. |
Organize your review response protocol so it’s consistent across the brand. |
Pay attention to both the best and worst franchise locations. |
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5 6 7 8 |
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Learn from the best and disseminate the lessons throughout the organization. |
Attend to the franchises with the worst review ratings; address any issues. |
Make sure your review request process drives reviews to the right franchise. |
Promote your review site listing to make it more visible and easier to access. |
In conclusion
Fostering trust in your franchise is the key to growing your franchise both by attracting new franchisees and bolstering your client base. Building trust, in turn, pivots on your franchise’s ability to prove its claims. By deploying the content formats and marketing avenues that specifically credential and support your sales pitch with overwhelming evidence, you can instill confidence in potential customers and business partners and cement the idea that doing business with you is, well, good business.
Refences
1 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/business/media/advertising-industry-research.html
2 https://statuslabs.com/reputation-management-stats-2019/
3 http://www.hawkeyeww.com/view/2013/fall/3-keys-to-b2b-success.php
4 https://dimensionalresearch.com/
5 https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/data-measurement/tell-meaningful-stories-with-data/
6 https://www.wyzowl.com/testimonials-statistics/
7 https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/whats-changed-with-social-proof-in-2019
8 https://www.powerreviews.com/blog/exploring-how-reviews-affect-conversion-rates/
9 https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/customer-testimonials/
10 https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/state-of-video-marketing-new-data
11 http://searchengineland.com/88-consumers-trust-online-reviews-much-personal-recommendations-195803
12 https://www.techrepublic.com/article/78-of-people-believe-online-reviews-about-your-business-are-reliablereport-says/
13 http://spiegel.medill.northwestern.edu/online-reviews/
14 https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/customer-testimonials/
