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What Franchise Marketing Trends You Can Expect in 2024
Written by: Tyler Morris
Last Updated by
Marina Longo: January 20, 2023
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A major cost of owning and operating a franchise is the marketing fee. Typically it ranges anywhere from 1.5% to 5% depending on the company and industry. Franchise marketing ranges from signage and branding within the restaurant, to billboards and digital advertising. The trends have changed significantly over the years.
Franchise Digital Marketing
Digital marketing plays a major role in franchise marketing today. It is constantly evolving, and given consumer shopping trends have changed drastically since the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic digital marketing is more important than ever. Americans today turn to delivery and easy takeout options more than ever. Digital marketing is essential for franchises in the Food And Beverage Industry to survive.
At the heart of digital marketing lies Google. Google has been the king of search for decades now. It is reported that when making a search the companies in the top three search spots receive 93% more calls, clicks, or requests than brands not listed there. If a brand is not even listed on the first page of Google search results, they can completely forget about getting any traffic this way.
This leads to drastic competition and brands fighting on a daily basis to be at the top of the Google search results. The competition is fierce and takes far more than just hiring a good digital marketer. For example, if you are a new Chicken franchise trying to grow reputation online, imagine all the other companies attempting to be in the top 3 results when someone Google’s chicken sandwich. Chick-Fil-A, McDonald’s, KFC, Popeyes, Dave’s Hot Chicken, and countless others are investing numerous resources to be among the top results. It is going to take more than a few strong digital marketing employees to be able to compete against the best of the best.
Another major component of these major brands is the amount of capital they have at their disposal. For instance, McDonald’s recently acquired one of the most famous franchises, Caspers Company. McDonald’s is famous for doing this given their immense influence in the food and beverage industry. Moreover, this enables McDonald’s to have a stronger influence across the industry and online. By owning multiple different franchises when searching for a menu option online McDonald’s is able to strategically place several different of its brands as a search result. Online searches are heavily influenced by the consumer given their shopping trends, digital searches, location, financial background, etc. Digital marketing is the most important component, and is simultaneously the most complicated.
Franchise Incentivized Marketing
Another major component of franchise marketing is incentivizing customers. This helps drive continued traffic through the doors. Moreover, it is also a great tactic to help increase traffic during slow hours, or have customers try struggling menu options. For example, Dunkin often offers additional points within its mobile app if customers order specific menu options. Meanwhile, since chains celebrated national french fry week, in July McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, etc offered major deals and discounts on fries. As a result, it causes customers to shop for burgers, sandwiches, nuggets, drinks, increasing revenue on more expensive menu options.
Another major aspect to franchise marketing are giveaways. This causes people to gain excitement for the franchise in the chance of receiving a free item. Krispy Kreme has recently been giving away gift cards worth a free dozen donuts to random customers. Krispy Kreme is one of the most recognizable brands and the personal touch of giving away a free gift card creates additional excitement for the donut chain.
Franchise Sponsorships
Many franchises use celebrities to help grow their brand recognition. Subway recently partnered with 7 time superbowl champion Tom Brady. Brady is famous for his extremely healthy diet and lifestyle. Brady is 44 years old and continues to play at the top of his game. This helps legitimize his TB12 lifestyle and diet method. Subway sponsoring Brady and having him appear in commercials and online advertisements allows the brand to market itself as having fresh ingredients. Brady famously does not eat bread making the advertisements comical as almost the entire subway menu contains bread.
Franchise Social Media Advertising
Online platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok have completely redefined advertising. TV ads while still a major part of society are an outdated marketing technique. The young generation religiously uses social media. Platforms such as Tiktok and Instagram Reals have allowed people to become ordinary individuals to become famous online. This is a new method of advertising as many franchises and major corporations will sponsor individuals for their products and logos to be included in videos.
Conclusion
Franchise marketing continues to change at a rapid pace. Digital and social media advertising are continuing to adapt and it takes a strong team of digital marketers to be able to have brands stay in the top three results on Google. Ultimately, franchise marketing is highly complex and once taking a deeper dive the high marketing fee for most franchises begins to make perfect sense across all industries. For more information about franchises be sure to check out Vetted Biz.
