June 15, 2020 5 min read

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Marketing is one of the most important controllable factors in any business. Great marketing will yield amazing results and poor marketing will not. Unfortunately, most business owners don’t know the difference until the money is spent, which is too late to adjust.

Building Trust Again

The biggest takeaway from interviewing many franchisors and owners over the last few months is the fact that the consumer must feel safe and trust a business before they will return. You can no longer attract them with the lowest price or even the best quality if they don’t feel safe. Your marketing messaging must communicate all that your business is doing to make for certain that your customers are going to be safe. Communicate this a lot to make sure you are building the trust with the customers in each market.

We have more marketing options and better tracking than ever before. So why are most business owners reporting that their marketing is less effective today than it was back in the good old days?

It appears that marketing has become more complicated as the technology expanded. We used to have very targeted media options such as the local newspaper delivered to a region. If this region was near your local business, you could place a print advertisement in that paper and the readers would learn about your business and stop by or give you a call. Now an ad on the internet can reach people all over the world, but your buyers may not be on the internet. You also have far more competition online, so how do you stand out? The modern business owner needs to use all of the available marketing tools and strategies to stand above the competition.

Related: Fight for Your Franchise Challenge, Week 10

The Marketing Poles

We coach our clients using the analogy of the fisherman in the boat. The business owner is the fisherman, and the six poles represent the different subcategories of your marketing-plan arsenal. The best way to catch the most fish is to have all six poles in the water at all times. You can try different bait (messaging, media, offers, calls to action) and at different depths (markets, regions, demographics) and track and tweak for better return on investment (ROI). What I usually find when we do a marketing evaluation is a business owner that is putting all of their focus on one or two poles, such as internet and/or advertising. This only reaches the prospects that use those media options. To stand above the rest, you want achieve a “Zenith Marketing Department” with all six poles in the water to catch the most fish.

The internet has not replaced all other marketing media either. Some younger marketers believe that digital marketing is the only way to go. Digital marketing is great for certain segments and certain types of business products and services, but you will miss out on some buyers if you ignore the other offline marketing options. For example, a creative, targeted direct-mail campaign can be very effective with the right message, offer and prospect list.

Here are some of our Franchise Bible Coach marketing tips that you can implement to get a better ROI:

Create a comprehensive marketing plan that includes all six categories (poles), as well as departmental goals and KPIs, budgets and projected ROI proformas. Franchisors should have a marketing plan for consumer marketing to be used by the franchise locations and corporate units and a separate marketing plan for franchise recruitment. Commit to having all six poles in the water at all times. This doesn’t have to break the bank either. There are creative and inexpensive ways to use the different categories to find new customers. Make sure you have systems to monitor all customer traffic and leads so you can track and tweak to continuously get better ROI. Meet with you marketing team on a regular basis to check results against the marketing plan and adjust as needed.

This week on our Franchise Bible Coach Radio Podcast with Rick and Rob, our guest was Amy Freeman, co-founder and CEO of The Spice and Tea Exchange. Amy shared her marketing and leadership strategies that have enabled them to grow a strong franchise brand. You can listen to the entire podcast by joining the fight to receive your free weekly emails. Sign up now and access the past sessions at www.franchisebiblecoach.com.

The Fight for Your Franchise Challenge coaching videos are now hosted on Entrepreneur.com, and you can subscribe for free. This gives you access to our content, as well as other great resources offered by Entrepreneur. Click here to set up your free account. Older sessions are available on the Franchise Bible Coach website (www.franchisebiblecoach.com) under the "Weekly Content" tab.

Related: Fight for Your Franchise Challenge, Week 9

This week, build out an awesome marketing plan that includes all six poles so you can catch more fish than ever before, and remember to make sure your customers feel safe. You are doing amazing things out there to keep business moving forward, so give yourself some well-deserved credit and remember to keep fighting the good fight!

Source: Entrepreneur

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