5 Effective Lead Generation Strategies for Franchises

Generating leads for your franchise business is an important ingredient for success and growth. That’s why 79% of marketers say generating quality leads is their top goal.

If you’re looking for tips for lead generation for franchises, you’ve come to the right place. On this page, we’ll go through these topics:

• Why lead generation is important for franchises
• How to generate leads for franchises (5 strategies)

Want to get help with your lead generation strategies for franchises? Contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist!

Why lead generation is important for franchises

Franchises are low-risk start-up businesses, but that doesn’t mean they don’t face challenges. High operating costs are a common problem of franchises, so it makes sense for franchisees to grow their business.

And what better way to grow it than with lead generation? Here are three reasons lead generation is vital for franchises:

1. Lead generation helps you reach more people

Retaining your existing customers is an excellent way to improve your return on investment (ROI). To sustain your business, you must continuously attract new customers. Lead generation for franchises can help you reach more prospects who can eventually convert into customers.

2. Lead generation drives qualified leads to your business

You can target a specific audience for your lead generation campaign, helping you reach and communicate with people who will likely become customers. For example, let’s say you run a yoga studio franchise in your city. Your lead generation for franchises can target an audience within a certain demographic who are likely interested in yoga and wellness.

3. Lead generation establishes your franchise’s value

Lead generation can help your franchise business provide something helpful to your prospects through content.

For example, let’s say you’re a bakery franchise and want to generate leads for your business before Mother’s Day. You can create content about crafty Mother’s Day gift ideas and suggest pairing the surprise with a sweet treat from your company. This content lets prospects remember your business and establishes you as a helpful brand for gifting loved ones.

How to generate leads for franchises (5 strategies)

Now that you know how important lead generation is for your franchise’s business growth, let’s go through five lead generation strategies for franchises:

1. Have your own website
2. Help prospects find you online through local search engine optimization (SEO)
3. Target your prospects through pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
4. Establish your franchise’s value and credibility through content marketing
5. Consider geofencing

Read on to learn more about each one.

1. Have your own website

While your parent company may have a website, creating your own enables you to reach prospects and customers in your area. In addition, your own website can generate leads for your franchise business.

To attract the right customers, make it clear that your website belongs to you, a franchise in your area. You can do this by having a unique URL that mentions your location or branch name or through your copies. Make sure you’re still following brand guidelines, though!

Want a pro tip? Add About and Contact pages. An About page tells people what you do, what your products and services are, why you do it, and — in your case as a franchisee — what makes your branch unique.

On the other hand, contact pages tell site visitors your franchise business name, address, contact details, and hours of operation. If you want them to find your address easily, embed your Google Maps address. You can even make it easier for site visitors to reach you by having a form within your Contact page!

With a well-designed website, you can sprinkle call-to-action (CTA) buttons and links to encourage your site visitors to sign up as a lead. WebFX offers web design services, so you can create a website that eases the journey for users to sign up as a lead and convert into customers.

Bonus Read: Web Design for Franchises

2. Help prospects find you online through local SEO

Did you know that 76% of users who search for a local business on a mobile device visit a store within 24 hours? Leverage this statistics by helping interested people find you through local SEO. It’s an effective way to reach prospects and customers nearby, so you can increase your site traffic and your franchise business’s foot traffic!

By optimizing your website to appear in relevant location-based searches, you’re drawing prospects to your site, so they can quickly sign up as your franchise business’s lead. For example, let’s say you’re a ballet dance studio franchise in Spring, Texas. You’d want to appear in searches for “ballet dance studio in Spring, Texas.”

Pro tip: Optimize your Google Business Profile, so your franchise can prominently appear in the local 3-pack.

3. Target your prospects through PPC

Using precise targeting, PPC effectively targets your prospects and convinces them to sign up as your franchise business’s lead.

Here are some PPC tactics for your franchise’s lead generation efforts:

Start with keyword research

Keyword research is an essential step in your PPC campaign. It helps you understand the search terms that your prospects use when looking for your franchise business. In addition, it gives you an idea of the competition’s landscape and how much you can expect to pay for specific keywords.

Craft high-quality ad

High quality ads are more than just compelling copies and attractive visuals. Make sure your ads are relevant to the keywords you’re bidding for and that your landing page addresses the search intent of the searchers.

Search engines like Google assign each advertiser a quality score. The higher your quality score is, the more reliable and trustworthy your business is to Google. A high quality score helps keep your ads cost-effective.

Optimize landing pages to convince prospects to sign up as a lead

A landing page is a standalone page designed for a campaign to drive leads or conversion. Bring users who clicked on your ad to a dedicated landing page that provides the information they need.

More importantly, make it easy for them to sign up as a lead on the landing page. Strategically sprinkle CTA buttons or links throughout the page for them to click.

4. Establish your franchise’s value and credibility through content marketing

A popular marketing tactic that drives qualified traffic to your website, content marketing is about creating and delivering helpful information to your audience.

This strategy helps build your franchise business’s credibility as an expert in your field in your location. As a result, it encourages site visitors to engage with your franchise business, sign up for your newsletter, or become a lead.

Use different content formats that your audience consumes:

• Blog posts
• Infographics
• Short- and long-form videos

Let’s say your franchise business offers delivery services for small businesses. You can publish blog posts about entrepreneurship. If your customers are mostly women entrepreneurs, consider writing a piece on International Women’s Day featuring how some happy and empowered female customers started their businesses.

5. Consider geofencing

If you want to target people near your franchise business and send them info like an enticing offer, consider geofencing as one of your lead generation strategies for franchises.

Geofencing is like setting up a virtual fence to target people entering your area. Every time someone enters your area, stays within it, or leaves it, you can trigger an action. For example, an in-app notification can inform a person who’s left your target area about a special offer available only in the next 24 hours.

Excited to implement these lead generation strategies for franchises?

Lead generation for franchises is an excellent way to grow your business and make it more sustainable. If your franchise business needs help to carry out lead generation strategies, consider teaming up with WebFX.

We’re a full-service digital marketing agency that can help you implement strategies from web design and SEO to PPC, content marketing, and more! WebFX has generated over 24 million leads for customers in over 200+ industries. We’re excited to bring the same results to your franchise business.

Contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our lead generation services for franchises!

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