In this ebook you'll learn about how to take a converged media approach to marketing your franchise brand. Whether you're a franchisor or franchisee, utlizing seach, social, local and mobile strategies is best practice in today's saturated marketplace.
4. Empowering Your Franchise Brand Through Search, Social, Local and Mobile
It’s time to empower your Franchise brand and more importantly your franchisees.
In our multi-channel, data driven society it’s no surprise that the buyer’s journey is
fragmented. It’s imperative that your message is clear, consistent, and gets through
regardless of the channel or medium consumers are engaged with. The consumer
has full control. With their attention fragmenting across different channels through
search, social, local and mobile, the savvy Franchise brand that adopts all four will
connect more often with the “empowered buyer”. This buyer is armed with information,
multiple devices and has greater access to your brand. Enabling franchisors
and franchisees to reach customers exactly where, how and when they want the
information, regardless of channel, medium or device, online or offline, should be
the focus in 2013 and beyond. So how do you do this effectively? A Converged
Media strategy for your Franchise Brand is the key. According to Altimeter Group’s
Jeremiah Owyang, “Converged Media utilizes two or more channels of paid, earned,
and owned media. It is characterized by a consistent storyline, look and feel.”
The three main components are:
1 Paid Media: Pay Per Click,
Studies have Display, Banner Mobile
PPC Ads; essentially anything
shown that more that requires a media buy.
Owned Media: Your website,
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than 60% of location pages on your website
or franchisee sites, local search
the buying cycle
listings, blogs, social media
is over by the time presence and content marketing.
This category includes anything
your prospect that doesn’t require a media buy.
Earned Media: SEO and Local
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reaches out to SEO visibility, social mentions
shared by users, user generated
your business. content, online reviews,
community forums, and media
that isn’t controlled by
your brand.
Franchise brands that do not integrate and align their paid, earned, and owned me-
dia, are at a significant disadvantage. They must look at different ways to effectively
collaborate with agencies and vendor partners, shift budgets, and put appropriate
metrics in place for these new and evolved marketing initiatives. No single medium
can stand-alone!
Franchise brands need to focus on the content to match the needs of their target
audience. For example, if you are marketing through B2B paid or owned media, the
consumer may visit your website, download a white paper, watch a webinar, interact
on social media, see your print ad, and then disappear only to come back 6 months
later to give you a call.
Local focused content is also important. If you are a local franchisee, your local
landing page should have content that reflects the opportunities specific to the
geographic region. They need to be highly relevant to the geo-location and
customer’s needs.
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5. Five Surefire Ways To Maximize Your Brand Through Search, Social,
Local Mobile!
1. Align Your Search Content Marketing with the Buyers’ Journey:
The Convergence of Search is here to stay; just ask Google! Google now professes
that marketers can reach their ideal customers and connect with them anytime,
anywhere and from any device through Google Enhanced Campaigns. According
to Guardian Professional’s Simon Jacobson, “This is the most significant devel- Recent studies
opment to paid search since the shift to an auction-model.” This convergence will
take effect in all active Google AdWords campaigns later this month. Your market- have shown that
ing message will layer across all devices, including mobile, tablet and smartphones
while automatically aligning with desktop campaigns. For example, a local restau- combining social
rant franchise may now advertise using a message on desktop-devices for table
reservations in their area, or by using a location based click-to-call ad on a mobile signals into
device for carry out orders. Savvy Franchise Brand marketers must be able to
search strategies
seamlessly create smarter ads for those “empowered consumers.”
Social media marketers now have a huge may improve
opportunity to impact SEO rankings and
search rankings
increase revenue generated through
organic search. Recent studies have up to 45%.
shown that combining social signals into
search strategies may improve search
rankings up to 45%. Optimizing both SEO
and Social should be a key driver of your
company’s overall earned media strategies
in 2013. Your content’s likes, shares,
re-tweets and +1s are the new links. The
importance of social signals in search are
gaining more and more relevance.
Any business that wants to rank well on Google absolutely needs to be using
Google+. According to Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land, “It’s so integrated Remember that
with everything that Google is doing.” It will pay big dividends in the new search
ecosystem if you focus on your social media content as a way to improve SEO 80% of the people
ranking of your franchisor and franchisee websites.
who interact
We recommend that your Social Media Manager should work with your “SEO Ninja”
more often. This will create synergies in terms of sharing content and learning with your content
together. Measuring and managing this correlation has been proven to work
according to Jim Yu from BrightEdge, author of “How Search and Social will hit the aren’t ready to
fast forward button in 2013.” CMO’s and Marketing Directors need to collaborate
and integrate their vendors to maximize paid, owned, and earned media to drive make a buying
effectiveness, cultivate influencers, and cut through the clutter.
decision.
Smart franchise brands have established themselves as content creators with their
own loyal readers. Successful content marketing programs now deliver engaging
content — from blogs, videos, and info-graphics to case studies, podcasts, and
webinars. It’s more imperative now than ever to have a fully developed content
marketing strategy. This will allow you to heal your prospects pain points, answer all
of their questions, and allow them to learn more about your company or opportunity
and to push them further towards making a purchase. Remember that 80% of the
people who interact with your content aren’t ready to make a buying decision.
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6. Capturing their contact information is important so you’re able to nurture to them
over time and move them further down the buying cycle. The mantra “everyone is a
publisher” really can’t be contested anymore. Franchise brands need to make this
work both from a local and global brand perspective. Do you have compelling and
sharable content on both the B2B and B2C sides of your franchise that appeal to
Amazon and these empowered consumers?
Netflix caused Remember that your franchisee’s potential customers are in different stages of their
buying journey. One could be just starting out doing local research. Another could be
many competitors comparing multiple businesses. When potential franchisors or potential customers of
your franchises initially start their search online for a solution they should easily find
like Borders and your company’s engaging “top of the funnel” content that ultimately reaches a wider
audience. For others that may be further down the buying cycle, you need to have
Blockbuster to checklists, comparative charts, case studies, free downloads, buying guides, and
testimonials to appeal to the buying stage they’re in. All of the content that’s produced
close completely.
should be set up to capture the information of the interested person as well as be
The inevitable will easily sharable across social networks. This social and search ecosystem, even
though considered by some as complex, is aligning at lightning fast speed.
soon happen in
Several driving forces are behind the evolution of Social and Search. Social is being
the Social Media consumed with a local concentration and in multiple formats. The social engagement
paradigm is becoming more dependent on the quality of the content and the
landscape. accessibility of the content. It is important to note that for SEO opportunities Google
will heavily weigh your comparative charts or blog posts over your competitor’s
content if people are interacting with it and sharing it on social media. This doesn’t
mean that you shouldn’t have a keyword strategy. In addition, you must include the
direction of Search that increasingly relies on social data in the years to come. You
should also consider creating content that is both useful and easily sharable by your
ideal customers with a focuses on local initiatives when appropriate.
There is no question that scalability is a huge issue in the Franchise industry. As
much as we would like to rely on someone at the corporate headquarters or in each
local franchise to write strategic, engaging content, we can’t. Having a blanketed
content marketing approach is no longer a smart strategy when it comes to franchise
marketing. New, fresh, local content is the way to go. It’s imperative to work with
partners that specialize in content development for franchise brands and that are
able to scale to each of your locations.
Ever heard of the term “closing the loop”? Closed loop marketing is a franchise
brand’s best practice that gives you, as a franchisee or franchisor, insight to where
your best and most profitable channels are. It allows you to directly tie revenue to
your social media efforts, video marketing, traditional or any other channel where
you’re marketing. Hubspot is one our favorite tools to use for this process.
2. Create a Fully Integrated Social Business
It wasn’t long ago when “.com’s” were the rage and the
market came crashing down. Many companies weren’t
seeing the ROI they were expecting and just played with
their internet marketing efforts from that point forward.
Others took full advantage to grab online market share i.e.
Amazon and Netflix caused many competitors like Borders
and Blockbuster to close completely. The inevitable will
soon happen in the Social Media landscape. Whether
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7. you’re a local franchisee, a CMO for a Franchise Brand, or somewhere in between,
If a large
it’s obvious that social media is here to stay. What really is Social Media? Social Media
is a subsection of earned media. Earned media ultimately takes full advantage of franchise brand
word of mouth, social proof, customer generated content and relationship building.
These opportunities help your business stand out from competitors, lower your paid doesn’t have a
advertising, and help your brand stay top-of-mind to franchise prospects and local
customers alike. To empower your Franchise Brand through Social, make sure Facebook page
you put these on your to do list:
for their local
• Social Search
franchisee, odds
Facebook’s Graph Search is just one of the many changes that are happening on
the search front. Slowly your social network is becoming a greater determining are they won’t be
factor when searching on Google, Yahoo and Bing. What does this mean to
franchise brands? It means that the days of just managing a single Facebook or returned in the
Twitter account are gone. Now, brands with only a single Facebook page miss
out on many of the benefits of having a page for each physical location. If a user search results.
does a graph search for “Sub Sandwiches in Orlando”, Facebook would return
results for local franchise pages from the user’s network that have been endorsed
by either him/ her or the user’s social network. If a large franchise brand doesn’t
have a Facebook page for their local franchisee, odds are they won’t be returned
in the search results. Franchise brands should immediately consider a local
approach to their social strategy.
• Strategy
Before a brand decides to “go social”, a complete social media strategy must
be in place. In the franchise space, this will encompass both your franchise
brand (overall brand voice) and your many locations. If done right, you will be
able to measure the effectiveness of your strategy across all locations, grow your
franchisor/ franchisee base and generate new revenue. This process involves
creation of social media policies, content marketing calendars, multi-location
management, organic/ paid measurement, analytics, consistent tweaks
and more.
To streamline the process, we at Integrated Digital Strategies (IDS) have created
the “Five Phased Approach” to implement social media into franchise brands.
It contains an ever-changing strategy to turn franchises that have touched the
surface of social into fully integrated social businesses.
• Community
Having a community strategy with your franchise opportunity not only helps market
your franchise opportunity; it also helps build a close bond between your current
customers and your franchise. For example, if you’re a commercial cleaning
franchise and you want to attract more franchises in regions you don’t exist, you
can utilize social media to start combining the appealing entrepreneurial mentality
of your target market alongside your cleaning opportunity. For your customers,
you could offer discounts and exclusive content to the members of your community.
One of the keys here will be to start up conversations on social channels with
these people and get them engaged with your website. You may later start
nurturing them with email content by tying in the social network effect by having
their interactions with your community amplify out to their network.
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8. • Amplification and Advocacy
Building community and setting up social strategies are obviously great things to
do for your brand. In addition, you must develop a strategy to measure and
reward your biggest advocates? Make sure you have a system in place to find
your social media influencers and advocates so you can interact with them
differently. These people are important when they extend the reach of your
messaging by helping you grow your fan base exponentially. They also act as
a defense against detractors when sharing their opinions offline. We suggest
that you hold local meet up groups for your biggest local advocates, send out
surveys, ask them questions, create content that only they can access or engage
with them for case studies.
• Listening
All too many franchises that are actually using social media are only using it to
If you haven’t blast out their message. Millions of people are on social channels, engaging in
conversations relevant to your local car wash franchise, looking for a franchise
thought about opportunity like yours. They’re also telling you what they like and don’t like. You
should be listening to these conversations and engaging with these people to
local search HELP them with their daily lives. In turn, they will follow you and share your content.
optimization for There are also numerous people talking about your franchise right now. Are you
responding to them? Do people have a positive or negative sentiment towards
your franchise, your brand? What kind of review strategy have you set up to monitor all of your
locations? Listening will provide insights that you may immediately use for your
you’re leaving franchise? Target your social listening into other communities similar to your fran-
chise and listen to what people are saying. You’ll be surprised what you will learn
thousands of about your target demographic or competitor by just putting your ear to the wall.
dollars in revenue 3. Implement A Clearly-Defined Hyper-Local Strategy
each month to According to Google, 20% of all Google
searches are performed with local
your local intent. In addition, 40% of Google
mobile searches are local. These
“mom pop” two statistics provide evidence of the
importance on the effect of local
competitors. search. The exponential growth of local
and mobile search and usage will push
Franchise sites to optimize for mobile
searches. Make no mistake, it is
imperative to also understand local
search to have the most significant impact on your marketing strategy. If you haven’t
thought about local search optimization for your franchise, you’re leaving thousands
of dollars in revenue each month to your local “mom pop” competitors. Some of
the biggest opportunities in front of Franchise Brand websites are optimizing for local
searches. The IDS’ “Empowered Local” Search solution seamlessly automates this
process in 5 easy steps. However, if you are doing this on your own, here are some
questions you should be asking your web developers or search marketing partners.
• Does each location page show up for your respective geographic search queries?
• What on-site SEO techniques have been done to each of our 500 location
landing pages?
• Is there robust, local content for each franchisee location and target area served?
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9. • Is your local franchisee found faster on the Franchise Brand site?
• Will it be found faster by the search engines?
• Are your title tags optimized for each business name and service?
• Does your franchisee landing page have their local phone number in a
prominent place?
• Does your franchisee include their full business address and is it easy to find
both for the user and search engine?
• Is the phone number published with their business name and address consistently
across Google+ Local, Yahoo, Bing Local and IYPs?
All of these factors will greatly enhance your organic rankings
and possibly be picked up in Google+ Local as well.
Remember the user experience when interacting with
your Franchisee’s location page. Additions such as an
embedded Google Map with driving directions will help
bring in some in-store offline traffic. From URL
naming structure to footer “NAP” (Name, Address,
Phone) information, it’s important to ensure that the
search engines know that all of your hundred+ locations
are optimizedand the users that are searching locally and
through the mobile web may find them and choose them.
Over the past few years Google, Yahoo and Bing have responded to user demands
by inserting more localized filters to their results. For instance, if you’re signed into
Google, you’ll receive tapered results to the location you’re in on your social network.
Social sharing and local verification of your Google+ Business page can have a
significant impact on your rankings. Remember, Google is converging their Google is
ecosystem by combining Google+ Local with Google Places pages. We are seeing
converging their
first hand what Social and Search ecosystem will do across the playing field. You
will soon learn more and more about Google Authorship, validated authoritative ecosystem by
content coupled with trusted support of your business profile. These are important
considerations and a must in your hyper-local strategy. combining
Where does social media come into play with a hyper-local strategy? The lines are Google+ Local
blurred between Social, Local and Mobile. People are checking your local-mobile
franchise page, looking at Facebook nearby to see what local places their friends with Google
like, checking into your locations using Foursquare, rating your franchises on
Google+, and re-tweeting your content on Twitter. All of these social actions now Places pages.
have influence on the local search results. This influence will increase in the years
We are seeing
to come. Social Media is where your customers and potential franchisees are
interacting on a daily basis. You must have a presence both nationally and locally first hand what
with a strategy in place that includes clearly defined goals.
Social and Search
Don’t forget consumers have the last say expressed by Likes, +1s, Check-Ins,
Reviews and Recommendations. This requires a strategy to consolidate in a ecosystem will
scalable manner to build trust and authority in your franchisees business. As of 2013,
Google will actually try and guess your locations. In many instances, however, the do across the
information collected from your location data sources are inaccurate and could be
sending people to the wrong location. Google will also disqualify your local location if playing field.
it picks up a P.O. Box as your local address. It is important to consider if you have 5
locations or 5,000, you need to engage an internal Local SEO professional or hire
an agency to manage the local search optimization of your franchise locations.
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10. Google, Facebook and now Apple have set the battleground for local businesses
and franchisees for years to come in local search. Is your Franchise brand ready for
the challenge?
4. Connect Your Brand To Mobile Consumers
With the rise of mobile usage in local search and the
introduction to Apple maps, the shift is clearly moving toward
mobile. Franchise brands that optimize their sites for local
and mobile will see a significant increase in relevant and
high-converting traffic to their mobile optimized website.
Taking some simple steps in optimizing your desktop site
for the mobile web will increase traffic and positively impact
same store sales. According to Cisco, mobile device
connections will hit 10 billion by 2016.
Did you know?
• There are over 1.1 billion smartphone subscribers around the world
• There are over 5 billion mobile phone users
• There will be more mobile devices on earth than people.
• And of those 10 billion mobile devices, at least 1 billion of them will
be smartphones.
Smartphones are now outselling PCs. With that many people walking around brows-
ing, searching, and purchasing on their mobile devices, website that are not opti-
mized for mobile searches will be left in the dust. Franchise brands and multi-location
business need to have a mobile strategy. When it comes to local search, mobile is
essential. How much do you think consumers care if the site they click on is mobile
friendly? According to 2011 Compuware study, 60% of mobile users expect a site to
load in 3 seconds or less. If your site is not mobile optimized, you won’t get the call.
If you get your franchise site (and more importantly your franchisee’ sites) mobile
optimized, they will be more visible on the mobile web. Consequently, your Franchise
brand appears more credible and more engaging and will make it easier for the local
consumer to interact with your products and services. This enables consumers to
learn store hours, directions, store locations, click-to-call, contact information, and
more. All of this improves customer loyalty and increases same store sales.
According to Adobe, 63% of mobile users prefer mobile sites when making a
purchase due to ease of accessing important information.
It is important to employ a mobile website content management system that will
manage hundreds of mobile sites from one central interface. When products change
or special offerings are promoted, you are able to update seamlessly across your
franchise network. Analytics are essential in this strategy as franchise brand
marketers look at mobile data, conversion statistics, keyword rankings for mobile
searches, and competitor’s performance. Mobile consumers are increasingly
becoming the lifeline for in-store sales. Take advantage of this opportunity to get
into the mobile ecosystem. Your royalty income will grow and your franchisees will
enjoy greater satisfactions.
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11. 5. Choose The Right Team To Partner With!
It is time to
Now is the time to become empowered as a Franchise Brand. The media landscape
will converge in 2013 and not stop. Evaluate your digital marketing initiatives and breakdown the
decide which partners, vendors and agencies are in a strong position to represent your
brand within the converged media evolution. It is time to breakdown the “silos” within “silos” within your
your marketing team and make sure your vendors collaborate and integrate their
specialized disciplines. Remember, no single marketing can stand-alone anymore! marketing team
If you’re interested in learning how to navigate through the convergence of Search, and make sure
Social, Local and Mobile, the team at Integrated Digital Strategies (IDS) is here
to work with you every step of the way. We provide a scalable and innovative your vendors
digital marketing solution that is built around Converged Media. We partner with collaborate and
best-in-class digital experts in all disciplines of Search, Social, Local and Mobile.
We know that each client’s digital strategy is different and we will work closely with integrate their
you to create a custom designed strategy while empowering your franchise brand.
To learn more about our complete digital marketing solution of Search, Social, specialized
Local and Mobile, visit our site: www.iDigitalStrategies.com or call 1-800-836-9097
to speak with a digital marketing consultant today. disciplines.
NTEGRATED
DIGITAL STRATEGIES
Your Complete Digital Marketing Solution
About the Authors
Joseph A. Mohay
Joseph Mohay is Chief Digital Officer at Integrated
Digital Strategies (IDS) a Boston-based Digital Marketing
agency that empowers Franchise Brands and Multi-
Location businesses through Search, Social, Local and
Mobile. Joseph has over 10 years of digital marketing
expertise and has worked hand in hand with local buinesses
both domestically and internationally. Joseph is a thought
leader in Local Search and has a keen understanding on
how to effectivey market franchise businesses inside of the
“Local Search Ecosystem.”
Dustin DeTorres
Dustin DeTorres is the Director of Social Media Marketing
for IDS. A a global B2B marketing and social media expert,
he has been connecting people and products through
technology for more than a decade. The foundation of
Dustin’s experience stems from a traditional sales an
marketing background with a focus on generating revenue
for B2B sales organizations, local businesses and franchise
brands. Dustin is a Certified HubSpot Partner and Inbound
Marketing expert.
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