Problems Recruiting Qualified Franchise Prospects ? What Are You Doing About It ?
Posted on 28. Feb, 2010 by borourke in Franchise Technology, Franchising
So much has changed around how franchise brands attract qualified prospects. Like many aspects of advertising, the game has fundamentally shifted. What can you do about it ? To be successful, brands must re-engineer their methods based on the following 9 disciplines:
1. Understand HOW and WHERE to engage qualified prospects;
2. People trust others more than brands, so franchisors need to mobilize their fans and followers to be cheerleaders. Consider this: franchisees are now the “creators” and “sharers” and “distributors”;
3. LISTEN: 3.5 billion brand conversations happen every day in the cloud and few pay any attention to them;
4. Franchise brands must be more honest and authentic: (a) only 5% of people say they believe ad claims, (b) half of consumers say brands don’t live up to promises and (c) franchisees are even more cynical, often for good reason;
5. Forget MASS anything; it’s ALL about customization;
6. Learn Digital or Die;
7. Measure as much as you can. Learn analytics and USE them;
8. Social media does not do everything; there needs to be integration with traditional vehicles of communication, but “pushing” tactics will not work. It’s now all about Inbound, i.e., customers and prospects pulling in a company’s message; and successful franchisors need to think more about communities than campaigns, learning to “crowd source”.
Successfully employing these strategies is hard for brands to do, primarily because they don’t have the tools to systematically perform these disciplines. Answers, however, are available. A quality solution that relies on the latest tools and trends can set a brand and organization apart, leading to true and lasting recruitment solutions that work.
