Franchising is one of the greatest ways to expand an already popular brand. It offloads most of the logistics and management tasks to franchisees without totally robbing you of the profits.
Apart from this, more franchisees expand your business and brand name’s reach without forcing you to open up more stores to reach new markets. Starting up a successful franchise business, however, takes some hard work and dedication.
It can take you years to success if you don’t know how to franchise your business right and reach out to more franchisees faster. Here are some things you can do to make things better for the business.
1. Have a popular and respectable brand
Successful franchises are popular and respected. The masses need to associate your brand name with exemplary service in your niche. This will give you the loyalty other people will be willing to tap into when investing in that niche.
Building this reputation before you start selling franchise rights is critical since it not only gives you bargaining power but also ensures that your franchisees will make profits the moment they set up shop. You should also ensure that anyone who partners with you upholds your market standards to avoid tarnishing your hard earned reputation.
Delivering quality service will naturally influence the kind of reviews you get from the masses. These reviews will come in handy when your franchisees are setting up shop in new areas and reaching out to new markets.
2. Have a strong public relations wing
Public relations are a great indirect marketing tool. PR campaigns range from press releases, sponsorship of local events, giving back to the community and hosting interactive sessions with your customers.
You can release newsworthy articles via blogs or press release sites hyping upcoming branches of your business, talking about an event you are sponsoring or even a new solution you will be offering.
While this doesn’t aggressively tell customers or franchisors to look into your business, you will soon be a household name hence making your franchise a more lucrative option to any interested partners.
3. Run promotions
If you have been keen, you will notice that most successful franchisors in the market run occasional promotions to create hype around their business or products. These could be:
- Buy-two-get-one-free offers
- Customer appreciation dinners
- Midnight madness sales
- Kids-get-freebies offers
Such promotions and giveaways are a great way to draw new customers or give existing customers a reason to come back for more. As a franchise, you should set up such offers to drum up more following to the brand and offer incentives to your franchisors that will make synchronization of such offers possible across all shops in town.
For instance, if you run a midnight madness sale every last Friday of the month, all branded stores, franchised or your own, should honor the code.
Marketing your franchise is all about making it a lucrative business to customers so that franchisors find a reason to partner with you. Once you have this following, it will be easier to have other people partner with you to open up new frontiers.
