Franchise Your Business
Local store marketing works when franchisees stop treating it as a collection of one-off promotions and start building visibility, reputation and relationships in the communities they serve.
Franchise brands have a built-in marketing advantage: national scale combined with local ownership. But having both doesn't automatically mean they work together.
Corporate can invest in brand awareness, digital infrastructure and sophisticated advertising campaigns, but ultimately, customers have to choose a specific location. For franchisees, that means winning the searches, recommendations, reviews and community relationships happening within a few miles of their businesses.
In 2026, local store marketing is increasingly happening both online and offline, and the strongest franchise systems are helping owners connect the two.
Jennifer LoBianco, chief marketing officer of Best Life Brands, has spent decades in franchising, beginning with a marketing role at Century 21 Real Estate. “Working closely with franchisees early in my career taught me the importance of listening and understanding their local-level challenges,” LoBianco said. “I prioritize creating marketing that resonates with franchisees before engaging other audiences.”
For many consumers, their first interaction with a franchise location happens before they ever see the physical business.
Google describes a Business Profile as a company's “local storefront” across Search and Maps. Complete information, accurate hours, photos and review management can all help consumers find and evaluate a nearby business. Google says local rankings are primarily determined by relevance, distance and prominence, with review volume and positive ratings among the factors that can contribute to prominence.
That makes basic local digital infrastructure one of the most important components of LSM.
LoBianco sees Google Business Profile, reviews and customer surveys as particularly powerful tools for franchisees. “A customer's true brand perception is formed after the service they receive, whether through word-of-mouth, reviews or surveys,” she said.
At Best Life Brands, the corporate team manages some of those responsibilities on behalf of franchisees rather than simply giving owners instructions and expecting perfect execution.
“We recognized that unmanaged reviews and stale content can harm their business, so rather than just providing tools, we actively manage these areas for them,” LoBianco said. “Positive reviews are paramount for local search traffic, and we are committed to helping franchisees optimize this area.”
Reputation management has also become increasingly difficult to separate from customer acquisition.
BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found that 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, while 85% said positive reviews make them more likely to use a business. Consumers are also looking across multiple sources, using an average of six review sites when evaluating local businesses.
Reviews frequently lead somewhere else, too. After encountering positive reviews, 54% of consumers said they visit the business's website, while others continue to additional reviews or social media before deciding what to do.
For franchisees, that means the customer experience and the marketing funnel increasingly overlap. “Control the controllables,” LoBianco said, recalling advice from her first CMO. “For franchisees, this means focusing on what they can directly manage, particularly their service level, which dictates brand reputation.”
Franchise systems can make another mistake by treating localization as little more than adding a city name to corporate creative.
A franchisee has access to stories corporate doesn't. They know the employees customers see every week. They know the community organizations nearby, the clients they have helped, the local events people care about and the partnerships that make sense in their market.
“There is significant untapped potential for franchise brands and franchisees to use web and social content to truly differentiate themselves,” LoBianco said. “Since national corporate-level efforts can only do so much to promote a local business, franchisees need to determine what localized content they can create, with our support, that will genuinely resonate and differentiate.”
LoBianco said some franchisees work with local influencers, while others create content highlighting their clients or services. What matters is that it gives customers a reason to see the location as part of their community rather than simply another outpost of a national company.
That distinction has become more important as consumers search across more channels. BrightLocal found in 2026 that 84% of consumers had searched for a local business online in the previous three months, and three-quarters used multiple channels during their most recent local search.
The franchisor's role isn't to run every local marketing activity from headquarters. It also isn't to hand an owner a 75-page marketing manual and wish them luck.
Modern franchise systems need to determine which activities should be centralized, which should be localized and where franchisees need templates, technology or direct assistance.
Corporate might manage listings, paid media infrastructure and brand standards while providing franchisees with customizable social content, community partnership ideas, review-generation systems and guidance on where their time is most likely to pay off.
“Every day involves strategizing for direct-to-consumer marketing, referral partner marketing and franchisee marketing,” LoBianco said. “This is both challenging and exciting, as we are constantly figuring out how one program impacts all audiences or how to adjust a strategy to fit everyone's needs.”
The goal should be to remove friction from local execution without removing the franchisee from local marketing.
Perhaps the biggest mistake a franchise brand can make is treating local marketing as a smaller version of national marketing.
Build the digital infrastructure centrally. Protect the brand. Help manage the repetitive work that franchisees aren't best positioned to handle. Give owners usable tools and show them which activities produce results.
Then leave enough room for the person who actually lives in the market to be local.
Want to learn more about how 1851 helps franchisors grow their franchises with confidence? Visit www.1851growthclub.com and see what we can do for you.
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