3-Step Content Marketing Strategy for Franchises

Content marketing for franchises is very different from marketing a most other businesses. While many companies only have one location to market, franchises have multiple branches and storefronts that cater to different regions and customers.

Though content marketing is one of the most successful strategies for driving business to your company, it does have unique challenges when dealing with franchises.

Content marketing for franchises takes a lot of time and effort due to the widespread nature of franchised businesses—but when you get a plan in place, content marketing can do wonders for your business!

If you’d like to talk to a content marketing expert before reading on, contact us at 888-601-5359.

Why is content marketing important for your franchise?

Content marketing is useful for franchises for several reasons.

First and foremost, it allows you to connect with potential customers without directly selling to them right away. Instead, you can provide useful information so that their first interaction with your brand is helpful and informative.

Content marketing can also help establish your brand and create brand awareness. Although many customers are likely already familiar with your brand if your corporate marketing team runs large-scale ad campaigns, your content can help you build a reputation beyond that as being helpful and trustworthy.

Content like your customer testimonials and portfolios (depending on your industry) can also help show potential customers what your branch or location specifically has accomplished.

How to manage content marketing for a franchise

Content marketing for your franchise isn’t just a one-step process. There are several components that go into making your marketing efforts successful. Here are a few that we have analyzed.

Website structure

One of the factors with the biggest impact on your content marketing strategy is whether your franchise uses one website for all of its locations, or if each storefront has its own individual site.

If you manage a branch of a specific location, but don’t have the ability to make changes to the main site, you’ll need to launch your own site before using content as part of your marketing strategy.

Marketing team

Although a lot of your content will likely be similar, you may need a small marketing team – or at least one dedicated copywriter – to create unique content for each branch. Re-using the same content on multiple sites can cause duplicate content issues, meaning that if you have separate sites for different locations, you’ll need new content for each one.

Analytics setup

Analytics can get complicated for franchises, and your setup depends on whether you have one site or several. Unlike one-location businesses, all the franchise branches will need to be tracked in order to keep tabs on how they are performing independent of one another.

How to create a content marketing strategy for your franchise

It’s often difficult for content marketing to work unless you first begin with a strategy. From our years of experience, we have found a few steps that produce a strategy to help your content marketing plan flourish.

1. Set concrete goals

Before you begin to use content marketing for your franchise, you must set clear goals. It is important to plan out just what you want to accomplish so that you have something to strive for.

There are a handful of tactics that WebFX employs to drive traffic and conversion goals via content marketing.

One way to increase traffic is by creating up-to-date, newsworthy blogs and articles. It’s important to set a goal to regularly add content to your blog that will help to keep potential customers on your site.

A key to completing this goal is to share your blog on your company’s social media platforms.

Speaking of social media, another content marketing goal should be to share a majority of your tools and knowledge via your company’s social media platforms. This is one of the best ways to get your company name and services spread, so it is a goal to update it often with current information!

Producing infographics is another objective that will help your content marketing strategy thrive. Colored visual infographics increase people’s interest by a staggering 80%– which means they are much more likely to read the information if it is in an infographic!

This makes infographics a no-brainer for content marketing.

2. Do keyword research

Keyword research is important with any marketing plan your company puts into place.

The purpose of keyword research is to come up with content that your viewers want to read. Instead of concentrating solely on ranking for specific keywords, search engines will much more appreciate if you are writing for your audience.

Tailor your keywords to information that customers interested in your service would seek. For instance, if you are running a custom kitchen service, one of your keywords should probably be countertops, or cabinets. These are keywords that your customers would be searching for and keywords that search engines would like, consequently, raking you higher in search results.

Be sure to research the keywords you chose to analyze their popularity, competition and competition that are also currently ranking for that keyword.

3. Choose your formats

You can create content in many formats, including text, graphics, and video. One of the first steps is choosing which of these you want to incorporate into your strategy.

As content marketing specialists, we recommend beginning with text-based pages. These are free forms of content which work well when you are just starting your efforts.

After your written content is off to a good start, you can consider branching out to the different formats such as graphics and video.

Keep in mind that different kinds of information work better with different formats. For example, statistics work particularly well with infographics, since it is an at-a-glance kind of presentation. Personal company tips or a vlog is better presented in a video format to match the more personal nature of a blog opposed to an article.

What your content marketing efforts can include

There are many types of content you can create to help your franchise grow and reach new customers. Here are a few we’ve seen work particularly well:

1. Articles that offer information about your services and your industry as a whole.
2. Blog posts with timely information about your company or industry.
3. Testimonials submitted by loyal customers. The value of someone offering their praise to your company is invaluable to potential customers!
4. Videos that engage your visitors and show them what to expect from your products or services.
5. Infographics that catch readers’ attention and present information in a fun and exciting, visual way.
6. Calls-to-action that encourage visitors to pursue further reading or contact you for more information.
7. EBooks offer potential client’s access to useful information about not just your services in particular, but about the kind of work that you do and why it’s important.
8. Webinars and video blogs help conversion rates because they are personal (at some level) and offer information that can only be offered through your franchise; especially if you film members of your company.

Ready to start using content marketing for your franchise?

If you’re ready to start content marketing for your company, contact us today to get started! Call 888-601-5359 or contact us online for more information on our proven content marketing strategies from WebFX.

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