7 Franchise Local Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Local marketing is essential for every retail business, especially in franchising. It is an on-going process that starts even before you open your franchise outlet.

Local franchise marketing missteps can hurt your business prospects. Here’s how to avoid some of them.

Mistake 1: Choosing Filter-sensitive Locations

Google filters duplicate location addresses in order to prevent repetition. If your franchise is in the same address as your established competitor, it is likely that your address may be blocked from the local listing.

Choose a location for your franchise that is away from filter-sensitive locations.

Mistake 2: Overlooking the Local Community

Always involve the local community in your business.

Local community involvement is an opportunity for you to attract local prospects that may convert to leads in the near future. Involve local community interests in your social media conversations, marketing, and sales promotions as well.

Mistake 3: Using Just One-dimensional URL

In the future, you may have an opportunity to expand your franchise business.

That’s why it is good to have a generic franchise domain name rather than focusing on a single aspect of your business.

Mistake 4: Not Using Your USP

The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of a franchise helps to rightly target your prospects.

Your value proposition is the one that projects you as different from your competition. On Google searches, the relevant keywords from your USP help in bringing your ads to the top of search results.

Mistake 5: No Local-specific Digital Presence

Nowadays, a strong and compelling digital presence is important for every franchise, to attract leads.

If your franchise is not registered with local business listings like Google My Business, Yelp, Yahoo, etc. then you are losing a lot of potential franchise leads.

Mistake 6: Forgetting the Importance of Online Reviews

Most of your prospects look for online reviews before connecting with your franchise. These reviews hugely influence their buying decisions.

Winning online reviews alone is not enough. It is important for your franchise to respond to them, especially if there are negative comments as well.

Mistake 7: Not Focusing on Existing Customers

Attracting new franchise leads should definitely be a priority for improved Returns on Investment (ROI), but that should not be at the cost of taking your existing customers for granted.

Remember, your customers too have great potential, when it comes to referring new leads.