Unlocking Success: A Guide to Developing an Integrated Marketing Strategy for Franchisors

BY JOSHUA ALLEN, CFE

COMPANY BIO

Location3 is the premier partner driving digital transformation in franchising. Founded in 1999, we focus on helping our partners optimize their own data and technology systems, drive brand awareness, increase units and customers, and maximize revenue potential through excellence in digital marketing. Our local marketing platform (LOCALACT) gives business owners the technology and support needed to manage their digital presence and understand local marketing and advertising performance across search, social, video, audio, display, and more.

In today's rapidly evolving business and technology landscape, franchisors are faced with the challenge of breaking down barriers in marketing tactics to develop a sophisticated, integrated marketing strategy that maximizes data usage, leverages the right technology, optimizes media planning, and aligns brand strategy with local franchisee marketing. By better understanding and adapting to the growing complexities of the customer journey, franchisors can drive more brand and market awareness, acquire new customers, and boost bottom-line revenue.

Start by Optimizing Your Data, Technology & Measurement Approach

Data is the foundation of any successful marketing strategy and having the right technology to both gather and analyze large volumes of data is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Franchisors that have invested in robust data analytics tools and platforms to gather actionable insights across their franchise network are already ahead of the curve. However, it’s easy to acquire technology and capture data. The challenge lies in both ensuring the technology in your stack is complementary and that the data gathered provides actionable insights that relate to your broader business goals. A well-integrated technology stack empowers franchisors to streamline marketing, advertising, operations, and finance to drive efficiency. Combining the powerful, customer-rich data in your CRM with marketing insights and sales or revenue data will allow you to create a better understanding of what’s working and what isn’t with your current marketing. The rapid rise in adoption of Customer Data Platforms (CDP) is not by accident, as these platforms can further eliminate data silos, provide clarity in how customers interact with your brand, allow you to further personalize the customer experience for all target audiences, and reduce reliance on third-party data in favor of first-party data and customer profiles. If your organization isn’t quite ready to onboard a CDP, you should focus efforts on developing closed-loop data environments that allow you to clearly identify where prospective customers are coming from, the online and offline actions they’re taking, and what percentage of those ultimately convert.

Create Alignment with Your Customer Journey

The modern customer journey is intricate, involving multiple touchpoints across various online and offline channels. By developing even baseline marketing attribution models, franchisors can improve efforts in mapping this journey and better identify key moments where they can influence customer decisions. By understanding customer needs, pain points, and motivations, franchisors can create personalized marketing experiences that resonate with their target audience in realtime using automaton and machine learning. Implementing technologies like customer journey mapping and attribution, marketing automation, technology-driven media mix modeling, and personalized content delivery can help franchisors deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time, leading to improved brand awareness and location awareness, increased customer acquisition, and revenue growth.

Balance Brand Strategy with Local Activation

While maintaining a consistent brand identity across the franchise network, successful franchisors also empower individual franchise owners to tailor their marketing efforts to local market needs and preferences. Providing franchisees with comprehensive brand guidelines, creative assets, and localized marketing resources is essential. Implementation of technology like centralized marketing automation systems allows for consistent branding at scale, while supporting execution of localized marketing that drives customer action and creates efficiency in resource allocation among teams. For franchisors that have a dedicated ad fund, consider the “70-20-10” rule, with 70% of your ad fund dedicated to proven marketing and advertising, 20% dedicated to testing new channels and tactics that have potential, and 10% for testing unproven channels, tools, and tactics to gain better insight into your customers and market opportunity. Another powerful approach that often proves successful is committing a portion of your ad fund to be distributed equally to owners for marketing spend, thus incentivizing incremental spend by owners and maximizing brand awareness and customer acquisition.

In Summary

To create a more integrated marketing strategy, begin by focusing on optimizing your data and measurement approach and technology stack. This will provide actionable insights related to your customer journey, inform media buying plans, and help you strike a more cohesive balance between brand strategy and local tactics. In doing so, your marketing programs will be more efficient, your teams will be more agile in adapting to market changes, and your return on marketing investment will increase. n

Location3 820 16th Street Suite 300

Denver, CO 80202

Phone: 720-763-3151

Email: hello@location3.com

Website: Location3.com