The Internet has propelled franchises to conquer new market and recruit more franchisees. How to wisely use the Internet to benefit your franchise business?
Inspired by Mark Siebert’s article, here are 10 ways to grow your franchise using the Internet as a medium, tool and strategy to ace the competition:
- Use the Internet to lower your budget in franchise marketing
The Internet allows franchises to grow and expand on a shoestring budget. For less than $500, you can get a decent website that can easily look and function better than Subway’s website (Subway, in my opinion, has a sub-par website design considering the big name.) Just add a couple hundreds of dollars to a few thousand to get you a good social media marketing campaign, press release distribution, search engine optimization (SEO) and link building – all to better expose your franchise and franchise website. - The Internet speeds up franchise marketing operations – you need to focus on multimedia contents and live streaming contents more.
With digital contents – articles, videos, press releases, etc. – and live streaming contents, such as the conservative webinars and the innovative in-store live webcams, a new franchisor can set a firm ground in franchising and establish a strong brand quickly. - Partner with sites offering franchise opportunities listing
There are hundreds of websites promoting franchise opportunities – franchise directories, blogs and forums to name a few – that can be accessed by a potential franchisee easily. List yours and get more leads, quickly. - Set up an Intranet for easy internal collaboration
Franchises can use Intranet (a private and exclusive network connecting the franchisor and franchisees) to collaborate, internally – Important information, discussion, and reports can be shared easily from an Intranet. Moreover, the intranet can aid a franchise company in franchisee and staffs training – Trainees can access training materials online easily. - Build a customer mailing list
This is a traditional but effective method in Internet marketing. You should encourage people to join your mailing list through your franchise website, so that you can entice them with ‘insider’ information, promotions and specials – all are aiming to convert mailing list subscribers into loyal customers. - Outsource to establish your presence online
Here is the good news: You can dominate the online market with a tiny fraction of the big guys’ budget for Internet marketing campaign – one, most important, way: outsourcing. Outsourcing to the right partner can get you quality services at a low (even extremely low) price tag. The key is obviously your ability to spot the ‘chosen one.’ - Use social media more
This is probably the most important tip of all – The Web 2.0 is here to stay – Use social media or die. Twitter and Facebook are two of the fastest growing social sites today – Finding the right way to use them for your benefits can get you multiple, residual, benefits: buzz marketing, community building and branding.
Do you have anything to add to the list? Please share yours by commenting on this article.
Ivan Widjaya
e-Franchising
