Building franchise network sales though social media – Developing your plan

Now that you have thought about it and had a couple of website meetings and started a few social media sites with some great posts for your franchise business you can just sit back and watch the leads flow in. That's what you have been lead to believe isn't it?

Of course it's not as simple as that and is in fact in most cases a slow burn marketing activity that builds momentum over months if not years.

Where to start?

Someone asked me recently about their franchise social media strategy and if they had a modest budget £2-3,000 a month to spend on something that is very important to the business then how should they best invest it. My answer was that they had 2 choices; do it yourself or get someone else to do it for you. I would recommend the former as using your own voice is always more genuine and informed. Spend the money on staff resource but take one very important step first; understand your overall business and target audience to then formulate a strong marketing campaign. Most franchise businesses I meet need help with this stage.

Get Help with Set-up

Work with a good business marketing franchise consultant to help you frame the process.

1. Get some good strategic advice. 2. Keep working on your marketing in-house as much as you can with advice when required. 3. Consistent training for management, staff, franchisees and staff of franchisees.

Your Strategic Sales Funnel

There are no sales without marketing your products and services. However any business' marketing efforts will similarly not last for long if they don't end up with franchise sales at the end. The whole process needs to be mapped out and worked on in detail to understand the flow of customer enquiries and the direction they take.

Key Sales Questions Required

• - Where do your customers first hear about you?
• - Are you able to capture the information about your customers that you'd like to?
• - What is the current customer journey and what does it ideally need to be?

It is only after you have a tried and tested feel for these answers that you can start turning them into a internet marketing plan that yields results.

The old cliché 'to fail to plan is to plan to fail' is true!

Connect with Richard Dancy Franchise Intelligence Senior Consultant