Coffee and Analytics: The Next Big Secret to Franchise Marketing

I have found a new secret that I am excited to share with you.

However, this is going to be a hard one to solve for. Rather, a harder one.

This month, as I always do, I looked at our franchisee survey results to find an insight, and found one that was more prevalent than month’s before. YouTube.

When looking at where people gained their research, I noticed this as new consistency from the voices of franchise owners. They used the website, they used 1851, they used Facebook, they used LinkedIn, as they usually do, but this time I saw a lot more YouTube. Roughly 30% referenced it in the last month.

What does this mean?

It’s time to build up your YouTube channel: I picked four random client brands and searched for INSERTBRAND YouTube channel and found nothing. What’s interesting is that we have been conditioned to put energy toward Facebook (0 reach) and LinkedIn (0 reach) (NOTE: Join me on Coffee & Analytics to gain more insights into this), yet, very few advise (or strongly recommend) putting energy into YouTube because of the expense of video. Video isn’t expensive, it’s just “harder.” Based on the candidate’s lead, this may be changing.

You don’t need to be a movie director to make great YouTube content. Many franchise brokers and consultants are filling up YouTube with franchise content. The challenge is, much of it is not overly believable or trustworthy. The most trustworthy comes directly from the brand. Thus, create some rough content. The story is what counts, not the prettiness of the video quality.

We started building up our video library to help franchisors solve this. Meet the Zee, Meet the Zor, Meet the Supplier have all contributed voices about franchise education. Then, we report on it. We are trying to impact franchising through video and content storytelling. And, it’s working. 5 franchisees said they used 1851 and YouTube.

A new video we are creating is a review of the FDD from the zor. By creating this, we are doing a few things. One, giving the franchisor a voice in educating the franchisee about what is franchising. Two, supplementing the FDD review call with an additional information video (passive and proactive buyers can use as a tool). Remember, if we all go back to the day before we were in franchising, we would say we didn’t know what it was. Yet, we are expecting the franchisee to know what it is immediately upon landing on our Website. 

Talk with your franchisees. Tell their stories. Whether us or you, you need to give a voice back to your franchisee. Franchisees are the best tool for selling franchises.

So, the tactics:

Create a branded franchise YouTube channel.

Create a video of you explaining why your brand.

Create a video of you interviewing a member of your support staff or a franchisee.

Create a video of you explaining your FDD.

Create a plan to start interviewing your franchisees. 

Start creating. Start impacting search of the candidate. Start impacting the search results. Buy some Google ads for YouTube.

Thus, the next thing we will push is YouTube.

One more challenge though. In a world where we chase leads, it may take time for your videos to mature and create leads. But, I am now 100% confident that this should be a part of your franchise marketing mix.