The 3 Most Damaging Marketing Mistakes New Franchisees Make

Let’s face it, everyone believes that they are an expert at marketing—that is, until they are in the trenches and actually responsible for performance.

Sometimes things don’t go as planned, and you have to deal with the repercussions. Yet mistakes, even the ones that seem massive, can usually teach us an important business lesson. Fixing a blog post or a story with a spelling or accuracy issue is one thing, but when you exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding of best marketing practices at the franchisee level, it can be much harder to smooth over the effects.

We asked two franchise marketing experts for the three biggest marketing mistakes they see from new franchisees. So if you are a new franchisee, or unsure if your marketing campaign is going well, take a moment to make sure you are avoiding these truly damaging mistakes:

Duone Byars, Director of Marketing for Christian Brothers Automotive Corporation

1. Feeling the pressure to say “yes” to every sales representative that comes through your door.

"As soon as the doors open (if not before), franchisees are overrun with advertising sales representatives who claim to have the perfect solution they need to get customers coming in the door. Most of the time, the representative adds urgency, saying the offer is only for the next three days. Our advice to franchisees is to take your time and carefully look at these opportunities. Ask yourself, 'How does this contribute to our goals?' Also, determine whether this tactic will help you reach your specific target audience and confirm that you have a method for measuring your return on investment. Finally, remember that the offer won’t truly go away. If it’s a viable advertising solution, you can call them back when you’re ready to give it a try. You may miss an issue of a magazine or monthly mail drop, but there’s always next month. Don’t be pressured by their sense of urgency."

2. Not “activating” a local sponsorship.

"If you sponsor a local sports team, don’t stop with just a banner on a wall or an ad in a program book. Those are nice brand awareness tactics, but they are often cluttered with other companies trying to do the same thing – building awareness. This causes you to get lost in the clutter. Go a step further by having a table or booth at the event and pass information or promotional items out to the people you are trying to attract to your business. Also, if you sponsor a hole in a golf tournament, don’t play in the tournament. You should be at 'your hole' meeting your potential customers."

3. Not tracking your marketing efforts.

"If you don’t track coupons, mentions, clicks to your website, phone calls, or any other metric that you can apply to a marketing tactic, how will you know it works? At the end of the year, when you are setting up next year’s marketing budget, the goal is to have metrics that will help you make an educated decision of whether to keep that marketing tactic or go a different route in the new year."

Danessa Itaya, Vice President of Marketing for Maid Right

1. Not balancing your marketing plan.

"Being in the service industry, people always ask what comes first; the chicken or the egg? Do I award unit franchisees before I get customers? Or vise-versa? We tell them that they need to do both, aggressively right out of the gate. The most common mistake I see is that they worry about being able to service customers, so they don’t turn on their consumer marketing until after they have their first unit franchisees. Once they have their new franchisees, they now need customers, so they shift their unit franchisee marketing investment to consumer. But it takes a little time to build momentum, and so the unit franchisee becomes discouraged and possibly even leaves. And so they shift the money back to Unit Recruiting and no consumer marketing because they again fear they can’t service the customers. And it becomes a big roller coaster effect. We encourage them to build a marketing plan that will balance that effect."

2. Not giving marketing enough time to get real data to determine impact.

"Naturally, they get nervous when they invest thousands of dollars into a marketing medium and want immediate results. We’ve seen some print options take three to four months to ramp up, but then remain fairly consistent in lead generation. Evaluating after only one or two months of data isn’t a true picture. We recommend that they build out a 1 year marketing plan. This plan can be fluid and tweaked based on offers, location, or messaging, but consistent for at least 6 months. We want them to monitor results, but not make too many changes until there is enough data."

3. Signing long-term marketing contracts.

"We encourage our owners to try it for six months and then evaluate at that point if they want to re-up for another 6 months. Some vendors will entice you with lower pricing for a longer contract; however, getting stuck in a three year contract for a lead source that doesn’t generate for you is even more expensive!"

Nick Powills, CFE, founded No Limit Agency in 2008 and serves as Chief Brand Strategist for the Chicago-based firm. No Limit is a full-service communications agency that establishes and elevates brands by bridging Public Relations, Social Media, Marketing, Advertising, Digital, and a lot of creativity, to best strategize well-rounded and successful campaigns for 50+ global franchise brands. By presenting visionary ideas and building real relationships, No Limit is able to create effective media branding strategies to help companies grow. Nick currently leads a staff of writers, media strategists, designers, social media experts and digital producers in an office think-tank where brands are humanized for strong, compelling media stories. Prior to starting No Limit at the age of 27, Nick spent four years working at a franchise PR agency where he mastered the art of building rapport with media outlets and creating newsworthy pitches for earned media placements. He holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Drake University in Iowa.

The 3 Most Damaging Marketing Mistakes New Franchisees Make

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