Local Marketing Ideas for Franchises

I had a conversation with a franchisee yesterday that was really cross with their franchisor not supporting them enough. And I get these conversations quite often, so I thought I would make an episode about local franchisee marketing. I get that you can be frustrated and your franchisor should support you with national brand campaigns, but at the same time, the power of local is in your hands. This is your competitive advantage. You are there in the area that you service, and there's nobody else that can do local marketing better than you. So here are some ideas about free local marketing that you can do. For example, you can start with giving away merchandise that's useful for your audience. If you have a dog walking business, you can have branded torchlights for your clients so that when they walk their dog at night, they can use the torchlight. Having something that you leave with the client that's branded and it keeps reminding them to come back to you. Another idea, if you are a cleaning business, for example, is to leave a tea towel in the property that's branded with your brand. The more times the brand is visible and reminds customers about you, the better. Number 2 is an option for those of you who use branded vehicles. If you have a branded van, make sure that you do not keep it in the garage and try to park it as visibly as possible in busy, tight hot foot traffic areas in the city center or anywhere else. Your vehicle is your advertisement, so make it visible as much as possible. Keep it clean, of course, but make sure that people can see it. Another idea is to partner with local businesses that are relevant to your business where you can be exchanging clients. So with the example of dog walking or dog training, you can partner with local pet shops. If you're a business that does martial arts, for children, for example, you can partner with schools and academies and so on. There's also trade commerces and organizations that would feature your business for free on their website. Make sure that you contact them and you connect with them and you get a backlink free, free pointing back to your website and your webpage. And that's all of that, all of these ideas are free. And costs you almost nothing. If you want more ideas on local marketing and how to market your franchise business for free, I recommend this book. It's a really good read that talks exactly about how to harness your brand visibility. If you found that episode useful, please follow me, like and comment, and I'll see you in the next one.