Franchises often have a problem appealing to their customers at the local level. While they may have built a name for themselves in their country or region, they may find it increasingly tough to attract local customers. This can make it difficult for them to expand their business. All of these problems can be overcome through strategic local marketing for franchises.
What you need to do is to come up with a plan built around your goals, in this case, local customers. Your plan has to be streamlined to confront their uniqueness and offer them what they want specifically.
To break into your target local market, read below some of the requirements of a result-driven local marketing strategy for your franchise.
Know Your Target Audience
Knowing and understanding your target audience are two important factors to your marketing strategy. Every business or franchise has specific people they target. So it is important that you know the people you are going for.
You may have to carry out a survey or poll on your existing business to find out things like demographic (age, gender, income levels of your customers), psychographics (the attitude and behavior of your customers), pain points (problems your customers want to be solved), and consumption habits (how your customers like to buy things).
Understand The Customer’s Journey
The relationship between your customers and your brand at any specific point is important. Knowing what your customer knows about your brand can help you to reinforce some opinions while countering others.
To better understand their journey, you have to understand that not all customers who discover your business would patronize it. In addition, you should understand that not all who patronize it a first time would come back for more.
At this point, you may have to draft what is referred to as a “sales funnel”. This helps to study your customers at specific stages, allowing you to recognize problems and know what needs to be done.
Sales Funnel
A good sales funnel is divided into stages – all centered around the customer’s experience and relationship with your brand.
Usually, a sales funnel includes;
– Awareness – this is the point where the customer first became aware of your business and what you do, often through TV ads or online searches;
– Discovery – when the customer learns more about your business and products;
– Evaluations – this is when the customer is considering buying or patronizing you or a similar business;
– Intent – this is when the customer first patronizes you. This is a critical point as their first experience may inform them of returning or staying away for good;
– Purchase – this is the buying process;
– Loyalty – whether the customer would return to your business again or not. This is largely within your control and formed based on the customer’s first experience in your business.
The entire process can happen in one hour, one day, or could take up to a month or more.
Assess Your Competition
There is no doubt that you would face some competition in the local market and this can give your business a hard time. Some of the people here may be loyal customers of your competition and you would have to do a lot to win them over. Know the competition’s strengths and weaknesses and their mode of marketing their business – then use it to improve your own business, giving yourself the upper hand.
Get Content
Once you have the right information, you should now bother yourself with creating engaging content that would not just sell your business but also inform and teach your customers as well. Putting this content up on your website and social media pages will help to convert visitors into customers.
Breaking into the local market can be simple or complicated, depending on the approach taken.
