What do you need to think about now that you’re going after completely different markets? How are your customers in one place different from those in another? How can you build a community in multiple places and ensure that your brand remains consistent?

There are a few important pieces you need to consider in order to avoid common mistakes when it comes to marketing your franchise or new business locations.

1. Not Having Separate Subdomains, Subdirectories or Landing Pages

First of all, to ensure that your local rankings and discoverability are possible, setup a new web presence for each and every franchise or business location. On each of those landing pages / sub-directories / subdomains, you can then produce unique content, and list any business information that is relevant to the customers in the area.

This is helpful to your website visitors and potential clientele, but also to the search engines, who will then have a specific listing and address for each location. What areas do you service? What are your business hours? What is your business address?

2. Being Afraid to be Unique

Although you need to keep in mind the consistency of your overall brand, you also need to get over your fears of also being unique in every place that you service customers. What makes you stand out in each and every city? Do you offer different products and services in each place?

Regardless, highlight community involvement, testimonials from local customers, and special offerings available to differentiate your business from others. Make sure to update your local listings so that you can be found in each place! Also, don’t forget to also provide news that is relevant to each specific location, through ongoing blog articles for the city that is serviced, and even talk about the people who make up the team.

3. Forgetting About Your Customer’s Differences

What are your customers like in Western Canada vs. the East Coast of the United States? What about small towns versus large metropolitan cities? Make sure to speak the ‘dialect’ of each of your potential audience members, as sayings and ideas will be different depending on where you are in the world. A common phrase in one place could completely stump a person in another, even if they both speak the same language.

Try to understand the differences between people in each place, and ensure that you’re publishing relevant content to your buyer personas.

4. Not Nurturing Your Leads

While a website visitor may sign up for more information when first crossing your path, they may not yet be ready to buy what you’re offering. Don’t pass up on the opportunity to continue to keep them up to date on your company – produce ongoing content and special offers to keep your business top of mind.

Or, if you’ve already got yourself a customer, but have new products or services available over the seasons, keep everyone informed. Perhaps you’ve helped with cleaning the windows of a commercial building during the summer, but now that it’s the winter, it’s time to discuss snow removal. Or it may have been awhile since the customer has come back for a repeat purchase. It’s easier to get a customer to return than to find a whole new one! 

Address any differences in seasonality and location and don’t forget to tell your audience what those are!

5. Ignoring Reviews

There are a number of online reviews sites, such as Yelp, Google, OpenTable and others, specific to various industries. It’s important to listen to what people are saying about your business in each and every location that exists, so that you can address any negative buzz around the web and continue to make improvements in future. Don’t ignore that valuable feedback – respond as needed and ensure that this comes back to the head office so that larger structural issues can be addressed that may come up for other locations or franchises.

You want to be able to not just maintain good customer service and a positive brand experience for end customers, but for other potential franchisees as well. In the end, this is what will help your overall business grow.

Summary

To summarize, Common Mistakes in Marketing your Franchise or Multi-Location / Service-Area Business Include:

1. Not Having Separate Subdomains / Subdirectories / Landing Pages
2. Being Afraid to be Unique
3. Forgetting About Your Customers Differences
4. Not Nurturing Your Leads
5. Ignoring Reviews

Now that you understand more about what common mistakes to avoid with your Franchise or Multi-Location Business, make sure to check out our recent blog posts covering more useful inbound marketing tips for franchises.

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