Best Franchise Marketing Ideas For 2023

Looking for the Best Franchise Marketing Ideas for 2023?  Here at Lead PPC, we do our best to keep up with the latest franchise marketing trends so that you don’t have to.  We have worked with over 200 franchise brands since 2010, and we work exclusively on providing best in class franchise marketing services for both franchisors (primarily franchise development and national consumer marketing campaigns) and local franchisees.  Our main focus here at Lead PPC is franchise leads and franchise lead generation.

We are a best fit for franchisors or franchisees looking for the following services or concepts:

• Franchise Marketing Ideas
• Best Franchise Marketing
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• Franchise Marketing Agency
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• Restaurant Franchise Marketing Agency
• Franchise Marketing Best Practices
• Local Franchise Marketing
• Franchise Marketing Lead Generation
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In this article, I’ll seek to discuss franchise marketing ideas that will work for either “Franchise Development” (the process of franchisors acquiring new franchisees) or “Local Franchise Marketing” (the process of franchisees acquiring new customers for their franchised location).

Franchise Marketing Idea #1: Rotate Your Content

The best example of franchisors rotating their content is probably going to be Crumbl cookies.  At the time of writing this article, I’m in the process of purchasing 8 Crave Cookies franchises in the midwest.  I would have probably gone with Crumbl if I got in a few years back, but they now have 900+ locations and 700+ franchisees, and they only allow for new franchisees to get 1 franchise location, so there isn’t much of an opportunity now for new franchisees.

What I love about Crumbl, Crave, and Dirty Dough is that they have a rotating WEEKLY menu.  So, every week you have new content that plays very well on social media with beautiful pictures of yummy fresh new cookies each week.

If you take a step back and look at the kind of content that works best for influencers on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, it’s going to be things like:

• Daily or Weekly Food Recipes
• Daily or Weekly Workout Routines

The same trend persists even in the video game space with content creators on Twitch and YouTube.  Many of the most popular ones play brand new games that are released each day or week so that they are casting a wider and wider net and showing their viewers something that they have never seen before and isn’t stale.

While this might be harder for franchise brands that aren’t restaurants such as services franchises or education franchises, it’s still doable.  Think about the home improvement space.  What is on TV or HULU there?  People love seeing shows of home makeovers.  Now think about shows on TV like Pet Hospitals, Alligator Removals, etc that take an otherwise dull industry and turn it into a captivating story.  Will the dog or cat live after being rescued?  Will the the alligator bite the person who is trying to remove it?

People love a fresh new story and a connection with people and personalities.  If you don’t love your own content, try repositioning it until you do.  Rotating your content will go a long, long way.

Franchise Marketing Idea #2: Use More Videos

I have a relatively small YouTube channel in Korean with about 23,000 subscribers.  It’s kind of a bizarre town with a mix of videos where my family tries various Korean things like this one on Korean Podaegi that has 2M+ views:

Or this one on Korean Japchae that has 1M+ views:

Or this one where I rap in Korean that has 180K+ views:

If there is one thing that I’ve learned throughout this process of being a YouTube content creator, it is that video content builds a connection that text or pictures simply cannot.  It’s the same reason why people say hello to celebrities on accident thinking that they or a friend.  It’s also now more likely that you will reach out to me here at Lead PPC if you watch any of these videos above now that you have seen me, watched me and my family, and built some type of a human connection.

The same is true for franchisors and local franchisees.

If you’re a franchisor doing franchise development marketing, the people that need to be in your videos include:

• Founders (Meet The Founders Video)
• Existing Franchisees (A Day In The Life Video)
• Staff (Discovery Day Video)

At a minimum, these should be a part of your email and/or SMS follow-up drip sequences.  You may want to include 1-2 of them on the Thank You Page of your web form funnel after someone has become a lead and hopefully booked an appointment with you online via Calendly or something similar.

If you’re a local franchisee, do what you can to push corporate to make more good videos and use that as a part of our content.  If it’s allowed for your franchise brand, don’t be afraid to take control of your own local videos and add that personal touch to your franchise marketing so that people in your local area can connect directly with you.

Another brand that I really like and almost pulled the trigger on purchasing is called CupBop, which is a Korean BBQ QSR.  I might do it later on, but if I ever owned one of these I would have something like a “Korean Word Of The Day” where I post a new Korean word on social media, teaching them the language and then provide some type of a discount locally if they come into our restaurant, used the secret word, and bought something.

Be creative.

Franchise Marketing Idea #3: Book Appointments Online

I’ve gotten to the point anymore to where I often times won’t even follow up with leads that come through our website if they don’t book an appointment with me through Calendly.  Around 90% of all of my web form leads book a call after they fill out the web form, and those that don’t usually aren’t that serious about engaging.

We encourage all of our franchise brands to replace their Thank You page with a Calendly meeting invitation so that they aren’t just getting leads, they are getting scheduled, prepared appointments.  The same goes for certain local franchise marketing strategies for brands like home service franchises or education franchises.  You want to get that appointment booked right then and there.

Franchise Marketing Idea #4: Don’t Use Non-Franchise Marketing Agencies

Franchising is such a niche space that if an agency hasn’t done it before, they will probably not figure it out with you.  Or if they do, it’s going to be super expensive.  No joke, we get lots of phone calls regularly from franchise brands who are at $1,000+ PER LEAD on Google or $20,000+ PER SALE on Facebook for franchise development lead generation because they are using some agency that doesn’t know what they are doing.

To help you out in this area, I have an article called “Top 80 Franchise Lead Generation Sites For 2023” that is all about franchise lead generation specifically in regard to finding which franchise marketing agencies, franchise portals, franchise broker networks, etc are actually any good.

High level, these are the franchise marketing agencies that are good at franchise development lead generation:

If you’re looking for franchise marketing agencies that are good at local franchise marketing, this is going to be the list of the ones to look at:

Once this article has indexed more, I’ll come back and add some additional ideas around using Google Local Ads (GLA), various ad networks, and other strategies that are very important.

If you’re interested in speaking with us here at Lead PPC, please fill out our Contact Us form.  The form will allow you to book a call with us directly online via Calendly after you fill out the form.  Trust me, it will be worth the call.