Having the right marketing plan can make the difference between your franchise being a success or failure, says Sarah Carlile Founding Director of Coconut Creatives.
Prior to creating your marketing plan, it is important to clearly set out what it is that you want to achieve. This will give you a thread to work to and follow throughout and make sure that your team all know what it is you are trying to achieve and by when. Doing this will prevent you from wasting time and money on the things that may be less effective in your recruitment process. Read Part 1 to get advice on how to set your objectives.
The general rule of thumb is that you’ll obtain one to two franchisees per 250 leads. This conversion rate means you’ll need to have a robust marketing plan in place to ensure you attract the right individuals through the right channels.
Here are just a few of the marketing channels available:
Social media
Networking events
Word-of-mouth referrals
Your website
Franchise recruitment websites.
Identifying the right communications channels for your franchise
I’d recommend researching some of your existing franchisees to build 2-3 profiles of the ‘perfect franchisee’, allowing you to understand the ideal types of individuals, highlight key communication channels and understand key aspects that appealed to them.
Don’t worry if you don’t have any franchisees just yet, you can still create an accurate profile that predicts their behaviour during their purchase journey.
Consider the seasonal influence of your marketing channels – when the major franchise exhibitions are and how you’ll experience a peak in enquiry levels.
Integrating the decision-making process into your marketing plan
According to the Business Dictionary, the consumer-decision-making process is as follows:
Identify needs
Collect information
Evaluate alternatives
Make the purchase decision.
Once an individual has decided upon the franchise route, they’re likely to explore different types of franchises, levels of investment, profitability and so on.
When buying a franchise, the individual is committing to a lengthy contract with the franchisor, a large investment fee, additional start-up costs and adapting their whole lifestyle. We’ve found that it generally takes between three to six months for an individual to make the final decision.
The franchisor needs to lead individuals through each stage, providing them with resources to resolve any of their queries. Consider your current lead management process and how it aligns with the research you’ve gained from your existing franchisees. Plan what information you’ll provide at each stage and what aspects you could develop that will help to build trust between you and your prospects.
Earn your QFP points by booking on to our Franchisor Workshops! Each one worth 250 points!
Coconut Creatives is delighted to announce that we have received Qualified Franchise Professional (QFP) qualified event status from the bfa! This means that you can now attend our workshop programme as part of your own QFP training.
Each day of our workshops is worth 250 points and will count towards your overall QFP qualification. Our workshops are available to attend throughout the year and in both the North and South of the UK to make it easier for you to come along and work towards your QFP status. We’ll teach you everything you need to know about franchise recruitment and give you a strategy and techniques that you can take away to implement within your own franchise.
QFP status will give you formal recognition of your professional approach to franchising. At Coconut, we want to share our own knowledge and over a decade of experience with you to help you develop your understanding of the franchise industry.
QFP status demonstrates that you understand the complexities and best practice in franchising and have invested time to continuously develop your understanding.
Benefits of QFP:
Industry-wide recognition
Increasing franchising knowledge
Improved business effectiveness
Demonstrable competitive edge
Increase value to your business
Enhanced career opportunities
The next workshop, ‘How to Motivate your Franchisees’ will be taking place on 14th April 2016 and places are filling up fast so don’t forget to get in touch and book your place.
Please contact us on info@coconutcreatives.co.uk or 01725 511 673 to book your place on our next workshop or find out more about our programme throughout the year.
The New Year is one of the most important times of year to focus on franchise recruitment. Use this time to take stock of where you are now and where you’d like to be this time next year!
To help you on your way to a super successful 2016, watch our video to see our team’s top tips for the year ahead…
Setting the right objectives is the first step to creating a successful franchise recruitment marketing strategy, says Paul Clegg, Director at Coconut Creatives.
The first step when devising a marketing strategy is to identify your objectives. These need to pinpoint where the business is now, what you would like to achieve and within what time frame. Be clear and direct in your aims about what you’d like to achieve for the year ahead.
I recommend using SMART objectives as part of your marketing strategy, these are specific, measurable, realistic and timely giving you specific goals which have a much greater chance of being completed or achieved than more general goals. It is important to consider the following six questions when setting your objectives.
Who is involved?
What do I want to accomplish?
Where – identify a location
When – establish a time frame
Why – specific reasons or purpose for a particular goal
By answering each of these questions, you make sure that your objectives are more specific and anyone who reads them will know exactly what it is that you are trying to achieve. Your objectives for recruitment determine everything. They determine how much money you should be spending, what routes to market you have available to you and how many leads you need to meet those objectives.
‘I want to increase the number of franchisees in my network’ is an example of a non-smart objective. It doesn’t state how many franchisees you are aiming to recruit, a time frame or a benchmark. An example of a SMART objective would be ‘I want to increase the number of franchisees from 25 to 35 in the next 12 months’ because it states where the business is now and in what time frame you want to achieve the goal. This objective is clear and will ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to your franchise recruitment marketing plan.
Identifying whether or not you can achieve this goal is just as important as setting it. According to the latest NatWest/bfa survey, the average ratio from prospect enquiry to fully operational franchisee is one in approx 86 for larger systems (20+ franchisees) and one in 77 for smaller franchises (<20 franchisees). Looking at larger systems, that’s one new franchisee for every 86 leads that you generate. This can help you to look at your objectives and work backwards from there.
The SMART objective provided above aims to recruit 10 new franchisees over the course of 12 months so that means you would need to generate a minimum of 860 leads (if using NatWest/bfa survey stats) in order to achieve this objective. Whether this is achievable or not depends on your resources and budget.
Look for Part 2 on how to turn your objectives into an integrated marketing plan
Want to know more about franchise recruitment in 2020? Contact us today to book a strategy meeting so that we can talk through your goals and help you achieve them!
Buying a franchise is an intense decision-making process so it is important that as a franchisor you understand this process to help you convert as many leads as possible says Sarah Carlile, Founder of Coconut Creatives.
It takes an individual, on average, around three to six months to decide whether or not to buy a particular franchise. The decision-making process is long and is not based on prospects having read just one magazine article, attended one exhibition or visited your website for a quick browse.
Prospective franchisees embark on a journey that will probably involve a combination of all those things and more so it is important to understand their journey so that you can provide the right communication at the right time. This way, you can ensure that you stay ahead of the competition by successfully converting some of your leads into franchisees.
What is involved in the decision-making process?
It is often useful to regard your prospects as consumers who are looking to buy a product, in this case they are looking to buy your franchise. Doing this will make it easier to analyse your prospects’ decision-making process.
According to the Business Directory, the consumer decision-making process can be defined as the process by which consumers:
Identify their needs
Collect information
Evaluate alternatives
Make the purchase decision.
Each of these sections of the process will be different depending on your target audience. The decision-making process can be influenced by psychological, economic and environmental factors, such as culture, group and social values as well as how the individual feels at the time. To understand the factors affecting your target audience, I recommend that you research your existing franchisees and their decision-making processes, allowing you to find out which communications affected their decisions.
A franchise is at the high-involvement end of the consumer decision-making process because a large amount of money is being invested and the individual commits to a minimum five year relationship with the franchisor so it is important to them to make sure they’re making the right decision. Investing in a franchise involves taking a leap of faith and trusting that what they have seen and what they have been told by the franchisor will actually work for them.
In many cases it is not just the decision of the individual but it also involves the opinions of their support network which usually consists of their close friends and family.
There is a lot for your potential franchisee to consider and so the stage they are at in the process when you receive their initial enquiry will determine how long they take to make a decision to join your network, what type of questions they ask you and, indeed if, they decide to rule you out and move on. Throughout this process the individual will be seeking counsel with their family and friends and taking on board other people’s opinions. Buying a franchise is a more emotional decision than taking a job as an employee as the individual is investing a large amount of money. They need to trust you to help them build their business, so building rapport from day one is vital in helping them towards making their final decision. It is also important to set the ground rules of operating your franchise at the outset, so that you and your franchisees know what is expected of the other in order to achieve success.
Want to out more about understanding the journey of prospective franchisees? Contact us, we’re happy to share our expertise!
Many franchisors jump in and allocate their franchise recruitment budget without taking the time to really understand their ideal franchisee profile, causing long-term problems.
Whether you have a brand new franchise opportunity or a 100-strong network, taking the time out of your everyday workload to research and compile an accurate profile of what your perfect franchisees are like and how they behave during the recruitment process is an invaluable exercise.
This will save you many problems in the future, as it will not only give you an insight into where your budget will be best allocated to generate franchise prospects for the best return on investment but also ensures that you attract the right messages and, therefore, successfully grow your network.
Build at least 3 perfect profiles for your franchise brand
There is never one perfect franchisee profile for each franchise brand so whilst a franchisor might think they know what they are looking for in a franchisee, these are likely to be general ideas rather than built on strong research and proof.
If you already have a network of franchisees, I recommend selecting your top 10 performing franchisees and undertake some research to find out a bit more about them; their skills, age, expectations, background, personal interests, media consumption and their journey to purchasing your franchise.
If you don’t have any franchisees yet or if you think you don’t have enough to obtain an educated set of results, you can extend your research to some of your hottest prospects who have been through a substantial amount of your recruitment process.
Based on your findings, you will be able to create at least three profiles of your perfect franchisees. These profiles do not have to be set in stone and some elements from profile three could be merged with elements of profile two (and so on) but getting them down on paper will give your franchise recruitment marketing strategy a focus.
What to do when you know who you are looking for
The profiles you create can help you with finding places to advertise and with what messages, to make your franchise attractive to people you already know could have great success with your company and who share traits or interests with your top performing franchisees.
If you uncover some similar traits then act on them within your recruitment process. Here are a few examples:
Tailor your Discovery Days– if you have lots of franchisees who play golf then host a discovery day at a golf club in a region you wish to recruit. If your franchisees have to have great networking skills and need confidence in presenting your product or service, design specific tasks during the day to discover whether or not they possess these skills.
Integrate case studies– prepare a bank of case studies of current franchisees so you have at least one that each of your perfect prospective franchisees can relate to.
The time you take in getting the basics right will pay dividends. Taking a couple of days to assess your perfect franchisee profiles every six months will end up saving you and your franchise recruitment team several hours each week in dealing with unsuitable candidates.
If you want to find out more about finding your ideal franchisees, contact us.
