How Franchises Market Their Brand

Franchise opportunities always come with effective marketing system. In fact, franchises have developed a unique system for marketing the brand. It’s a pyramid structure, with three tiers - national, regional, and local. Smaller or newer systems often have two levels - local and regional, depending on the reach of their franchisees.

Each of these tiers has a different message and function. At the national level, the message is: buy my brand. At the regional brand, the message is more urgent: buy my brand today. And at the local level, the message is even more urgent and specific: buy my brand today from me.

In the best case, these three messages will be consistent and targeted to the right customers. For example, a national TV ad may promote your brand’s new flavoured coffee drink. Its underlying message is: Buy my new drink. At the regional level, a TV ad playing in your local market offers a discount on this new drink for a limited time. (This adds the urgency needed in a regional campaign.) Also at this regional level, franchisees can develop a newspaper insert with a coupon for the drink and the addresses of the franchisees. At the local level, individual franchisees can post the offer on the sign in front of one’s shop and display a poster of the drink behind the cash register. Franchisees can even hire people to distribute coupons or samples anyplace there’s foot traffic, such as the sidewalk, mall, or a special event.

In this way, customers see a consistent message and have an incentive to act on this message. Kurt likens this to a three-legged stool in which each leg supports and reinforces the other. If one goes missing, the entire campaign is in danger of collapsing. Franchisees can opt out at the regional or local levels, but they’d just be working against their best interests.

This system seems to be pretty unique to franchise systems. For example, a chain coffee shop may not offer this type of flexibility to the managers - not owners, as in franchising of their local units. In a national chain, all marketing decisions are made by the corporation, and they must be carried out by their outlets. In franchising, individual franchisees or groups of franchisees can develop marketing techniques that will work in their local market, which is usually defined as the area within three to five miles of the franchise or three to five minutes from it. For example, if you’re in a resort town, you may place spokespeople on the boardwalk, which attracts lots of tourists. If you live in a commuter town, you can post ads in subway stations or trains.

As a conclusion, “There’s nothing else like this system. And when it works, it exceeds anything a corporation can do.”

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