How to Plan a Successful Inbound-Marketing Strategy for Franchises

Savvy business owners, franchisors included, are turning to the Internet and social media to strengthen

marketing and branding campaigns. The end goal of course is to increase lead generation and sales at

the local level, as well as create brand awareness. However, it is nearly impossible to do this effectively

without franchisee participation and support. As franchisees are already looking for ways to market

their businesses online, and franchisors must ensure compliance in terms of regulation and

branding, local online marketing must be approached with care.

As a franchisee, you have limited control over your online presence to limit the risk of compliance issues

for the franchisor. However, your franchise agreement likely does leave some room for you to craft your

own inbound marketing strategy that will not only produce the results you are looking for, but also

maintain compliance with the terms of your franchise agreement.

Determine the End Goals

Before you can develop a plan of action, it is necessary to understand what you are attempting to

accomplish. Create a plan you can update as you go. You do not necessarily have to invest in outside

help, but make sure to get answers to important questions such as:

What types of content is my target audience interested in?

Where can I find my ideal customers online?

What am I trying to accomplish?

What metrics can I track to see how successful my efforts are?

Focus on Lead Generation

Your franchise needs qualified leads more than anything else. Chances are, you have a local website for

your location. Talk with your franchisor to determine what you can do to the website yourself, and learn

more about how to manage it on your own. Make sure the content is locally relevant and unique to the

area as well as unique to what you would find on other franchise and oriented websites. Make sure the

content focuses on clear calls to action. If you fail to address these issues, you will have a much more

difficult time building traffic and converting leads into paying customers.

Register Your Business with Local Directories

Local directories such as Google Places™, Bing®, Yelp®, and Yahoo® can help boost your local franchises

website in the search engine results pages. The inbound links to your website from these trusted traffic

sources will not only help boost your overall search engine ranking, but will also help your customers

find you. Many people search these directories to find a variety of things. Plus, because they are

typically free for you as the business owner, there is no reason to avoid them.

Harness the Power of Analytics

Analytics tools will help you find out more about what your website users are doing when they visit your

website. You can find out a variety of details including: how long someone spends on a page, where they

came to the page from, the keywords being used to locate your website, where they are clicking on the

web page, etc. All of this information can be used to determine the successes and failures of your

inbound marketing approach. When something is going well, you know what to keep doing. If you notice

something is not going as well as intended, you can take the necessary steps to adjust your marketing

strategy to change the results.

Optimize Conversion Rates

Your conversion rate is the proportion of website visitors that turn into paying customers. The higher

your conversion rate, the better. Optimizing your conversion rate doesn’t always have a clear-cut plan of

action, but here are some things to review:

Do you have a clear, easily located, call to action (CTA)?

Is your site user friendly?

Are your websites’ graphics relevant, and well-placed?

Are your search engine optimization tactics working?

Adjust Marketing Strategies as Needed

If you found a great marketing strategy, use it as long as you possibly can. However, just because

something works now, does not mean it will work forever. Keep an eye on those analytics, and make

adjustments to your marketing strategy when needed to ensure you have a consistent flow of new and

repeat customers to generate revenue for your business.

As a franchise owner, take advantage of any corporate marketing dollars that are available to you. If you

are not ready doing this, you are missing out on the chance to grow your local franchise. These funds are

basically free money from your franchisor dedicated to marketing and growing your business in your

local area. You can use these dollars to build your inbound-marketing strategy, and you should be. These

dollars can also be used to reach out to marketing specialists, as approved by your franchise agreement,

to help you succeed.

See more at: http://clicktecs.com/how-to-plan-a-successful-inbound-marketing-strategy-for-franchises/