A recent report found that franchisees spend as much as 50% of their time trying to bring in business and find new customers. That is a huge chunk of time spent on only one part of your Franchise business! When it comes to local franchise Marketing, some franchise owners wonder if there is more they should be doing. That’s why we have compiled this list of 4 tips for improving your local marketing strategy.

#1 Research Your Competition

In order to know how to market your franchise locally, you need to understand your competition. Take stock of the other businesses in your area to see what your company is up against. Research these companies online by visiting their websites, review sites, and their social media accounts to see some of their online marketing strategies

If you can, visit some of your competing businesses in person, and maybe even try their products, to really understand how they operate. Take note of their cleanliness, busy times, customer service, and marketing strategies to get ideas for your own franchise.

Here are some ideas of questions to ask about these other businesses:

• How many competing businesses are in your area?
• What products do they offer? How do their prices compare to yours?
• What can you see they are doing that seems to be working?
• What are they doing that doesn’t seem to be working?

Knowing about your local competition can help form the building blocks of your local marketing efforts.

#2 Use Local Online Tools

As a franchise owner, you are part of a bigger system on a national or international scale—that’s probably part of what interested you in franchising in the first place. You know that your brand has a large following online, and company-wide marketing efforts draw attention to your brand as a whole, but you need to draw attention to your location specifically.

Building a presence on local online tools has a huge impact on marketing your franchise. Make sure that you are on Google, Yahoo, Yellow Pages, Yelp, mapping apps, and a variety of others. Pretend you are a customer, and search for your business like you would search for any other business. Use that criteria as the basis for building your local presence.

#3 Location Specific Social Media

Once you have ensured that your customers can locate you online, start getting active on social media. Facebook is the bread and butter of local Franchise Marketing, because that is where many of your clients spend a lot of time online, but be sure to utilize other social networks as well to reach a wider audience.

Make sure to keep a consistent look for your online presence. Social media accounts should all have the same picture, and you should use the same name, address, and phone number on all local online tools. Even small differences like “Boulevard” and “Blvd.” will register on search engines, so keep things completely uniform.

#4 Get Involved in Your Community

As a business owner, you are a pillar of your community. Get involved in a visible way! Show your customers, neighbors, friends, and family that your business is dedicated to being part of the neighborhood by having a booth at the fair, volunteering at the animal shelter, and participating in the community in the dozens of ways that come up each year.

You can also get out in your community with local marketing efforts. These efforts include taking an ad out in the city newspaper or the morning radio program. These smaller scale channels reach a different group of people than social media, and make you truly part of the local scene.

When you own a Great American Cookies franchise, you have access to world-class marketing teams. These teams can help you develop a winning local franchise marketing strategy. Download our ebook to learn more benefits of franchising with Great American Cookies.

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