How Regional Developers Can Spend Their Franchise Marketing Dollars More Effectively

Every brand wants to spend their marketing dollars more effectively.

When it comes to getting franchise leads, efficiency is king.

But when you’re a franchise development professional, especially a regional team member, allocating your marketing budget can be tricky. Many factors come into play, such as:

• The size and history of the brand you work for
• How the larger organization operates at the corporate level
• Your individual needs, abilities and preferences as a salesperson
• The degree of freedom and flexibility around your annual budget

We were chatting with a few of our clients recently, one of whom is a regional developer of franchise development. Tom told us that he wanted to make sure his marketing dollars were spent in the region that he was actually working in:

Tom’s remarks echo one of the great advantages for small businesses working with a portal like FranchiseHelp. Since the typical franchise opportunity seeker fits a narrow description, we keep it simple. We don’t require our brands to buy a much larger market than they are responsible for marketing to.

FranchiseHelp standardized being able to search by state, and since then we implemented technology to target the finer layer of zip codes. This is crucial for regional salespeople that don’t have responsibility to grow their brand nationwide. We set up their campaigns so that they’re only getting leads within their specific geographic responsibility. This service is also available to franchise home offices with two or more area developers, with complete hands-off routing of leads to the appropriate salesperson.

Now, if you’ve worked in the industry for any significant period of time, you know that many franchise lead generation portals don’t allow for this kind of filtering. They require brands to actually buy the whole state, or even a whole part of the country. FranchiseHelp filtering engineering gets down to the precision regional developers need, and our system can also exclude sold areas.

But for us, FranchiseHelp is more of a partner than a portal. Our goal is to help our brands spend their marketing dollars as effectively as possible to get to those closed deals. Especially our small business clients working with smaller budgets. They might spend fewer of their marketing dollars with us, but what they do spend, pays off.

Think of it this way.

Have you ever downloaded an app, bought a piece of software or subscribed to a platform that had too many features that ultimately overwhelmed you? To the point that you were paying for an abundance of technology muscle you would never use?

It’s frustrating.

Or have you ever wanted to join a gym so you could play basketball twice a week, but the salesperson kept droning on and on about how your membership dues give access to the pool, track, weight room and laughing yoga classes? To the point that you were reconsidering your membership?

It’s not only frustrating, but it’s an inefficient investment.

You’re spending valuable dollars on things you don’t even need.

If you’re a regional developer and want to spend your marketing dollars more effectively, here are our recommendations:

1. Make sure you’re using a growth partner who can set up a lead program that will work for your specific business and goals. Regardless of size and geography.
2. Focus on marketing tactics that are technology based and hyperlocal. Only invest in personalized and relevant outreach to potential candidates in the local communities you're responsible for.
3. Choose the portal with the sharpest filtering system in franchising. Plus, FranchiseHelp’s automated phone and email verification helps improve your contact rate and give you the best chance of having more meaningful conversations.

Remember, closed deals is the name of the game in franchise development, and getting there efficiently is paramount.

Allocating your marketing budget can be tricky, so be sure to consider all the operational, geographic and technology pieces before you invest your marketing dollars.

Scott Ginsberg is Head of Content at FranchiseHelp. He is better at spending his dollars than saving them.