Franchise Sales Leads

What Are Some Of The Best Ways To Generate Franchise Sales Leads

If you’re seeing this article, it is probably because you are responsible for franchise sales leads or PPC for franchises within your organization, and you are looking for either more franchise leads or higher quality franchise leads.

There are lots of places that you can source good franchise leads.  Ideally, almost all of your leads would come from either close friends, customers, or referrals from existing franchisees.  Some franchises actually operate this way completely, but most do not.  And, even those that do would probably grow more quickly if they opened up the flood gates and allowed for other types of franchisees to enter their system.

So, where are some good places to find high quality franchise leads.  These days, over half of all franchise sales that are closed originated from the internet.  So, that’s probably a good place to start.  Big trade shows, such as IFA can still work, and then there are franchise broker networks, which can be super expensive from a Cost Per Sale perspective but also can drive significant volume.

I’m not a franchisor, but if I was, I would focus most of my efforts on the internet.  I would start with Google and Facebook.  If Google worked well for me, then I would open up Bing.  And, if Facebook worked well for me, I would do some strategic advertising on LinkedIn.  I would also do YouTube remarketing (since it only costs about $0.01- $0.03 per view on YouTube).

Advertising on Google is pretty straight forward.  Put yourself in the shoes of someone who wanted to inquire about your type of a franchise.  What would they type in.  Usually, it’s very common terms such as “Healthy Food Franchise”, “Pest Control Franchise”, “Child Education Franchise”, or whatever type of franchise that you have.

Most franchisors have about 10 or so keywords that people type in that are spot on.  Any time someone types in those phrases, you will want to be #1 or #2 in Google.  For instance, for our company, if someone types in “franchise leads“, “franchise lead generation“, “franchise development leads” or anything along those lines, we typically show up #1.  And, we are willing to bid out anyone else (up to a certain point) in order to be there.

Then, there are your competitor terms.  These are the brand names of your competitors.  So, if you’re sushi restaurant, it would be the names of other sushi restaurants that franchise (or people think might franchise) plus the word franchise at the end.

Competitor terms are great because even though the search volume is usually pretty low, the leads can be extremely targeted.  When I was the Chief Marketing Officer for a franchisor out of California years ago, we would advertise on the names of our competitors plus the word franchise constantly.  When these leads came in, we called them as quickly as humanly possible, because they were like gold.  The conversion rates were really high because those people had high intent and were shopping to see which franchise within that niche market they wanted to invest in.

Facebook can be another fantastic avenue to focus on.  The Cost Per Lead (CPL) is usually about 1/2 to 1/3 the price of Google.  And, although the leads are not always as high quality as Google, you can win off of volume alone.  And, you can reach audiences that may never take the time or have the thought to search about you on Google.

I think it’s a good idea to use a mix of images as well as videos on Facebook.  Sometimes the right video can speak a million words to the right person.  I know even for myself, sometimes I will see a really cool video on Facebook about an event that I’m interested or a product that I’m a fanatic about (comic book movies, video games, etc.).  And, when I see something like that, I suddenly go into research and buyer mode.  Your franchise can be the same way.

Do you like what you’re reading but just want someone to do it for you so that you can close more deals?  No problem.  Feel free to reach out, and we’ll help you out!