You will be promoting your business as a franchisee, so how will the marketing team support you? Paola Tanner pinpoints some key considerations

When you are looking to buy a franchise, most brands will claim that they provide marketing support. That is a very broad statement which represents very different things for different brands. It is up to you to lift the bonnet and find out to what extend that support is going to help your future business. What you ultimately want to find out is if the franchisor will provide you with the support you need both from a branding and a sales-driving perspective.

You might have marketing skills and feel a flexible franchise would give you an opportunity to thrive in this area or you might prefer the franchisor to provide both guidance and execution. The first step is to decide what you prefer so you know what to look for.

In my 12 years dealing with franchised brands I have found a lot of different ways to provide marketing support, from a well-structured marketing team with national and local expertise, systems and a marketing calendar to the marketing function done by the founders or someone at head office who doubles in another role.

This is typical in the early stages of franchising; there is nothing wrong with joining a new system and in fact, you will probably get a lot of attention from keen franchisors. Early franchisees often develop very strong relationships with their franchisors but what you need to be mindful of is how things will change as the chain grows and is no longer able to provide that level of support to all franchisees. This will most likely have an impact in your business later on.

If considering a new system, I would be asking a lot of questions about the foundations they are building now to be able to deliver the same support to their franchisees as they grow.

It is a good idea to talk to different people within the brand, including existing franchisees to get a perspective from outside of head office.

14 WAYS TO FIND OUT ABOUT MARKETING

Here are some questions you can ask in order to consider if a franchise marketing function is right for you:

1. What does the franchisor provide in terms of marketing campaigns, how often and what channels are covered by the national fund?
2. Does the marketing team have the right skills mix to drive the brand? Is this a team with strategy and implementation covered? Depending on the size of the chain this might be all in one person, multiple people, separate teams or an outsourced model.
3. Is this supported by an agency or is the work managed in-house?
4. Does the franchisor have the right systems and tools to manage and track campaigns?
5. Are franchisees able to execute campaigns independently? Are franchisees able to execute local store marketing (LSM) in the digital world?
6. What national and/or local activities are organised by the franchisor and what is expected of franchisees? Do franchisees get the opportunity to participate on national campaigns and leverage the economies of scale? How is this process managed?
7. Does the company have a database of customers and prospects that can be used to drive sales? Is this database independent of the marketing channels used so it can be used in the future, regardless of what the popular marketing channel is at the time?
8. Does the marketing team have the right platform and a solid database to execute campaigns? Franchises are slowly moving their marketing to new media. This transition requires platforms and knowledge and some franchisors are going about it better than others.
9. How does the franchisor facilitate local area marketing? What is the process a franchisee needs to follow to organise local marketing activities?
10. Is there access to local area via a platform? Are there staff solely dedicated to helping franchisees with local area marketing?
11. Does the company have a social media policy? Is it active in this space and do franchisees participate in the social media strategy?
12. How does the marketing department communicate with franchisees? Is there a franchise advisory council? How is your voice going to be heard?
13. Does the marketing team have enough resources to provide support to franchisees?
14. Are franchisees happy with the marketing function? Do they think the franchisor delivers in this area?

All of the questions above need to be asked to the franchisor and ideally to as many franchisees as you can talk to.

In summary, what you are looking for to support your marketing is a franchisor who:

• Drives a solid marketing strategy with open communication to franchisees.
• Has a team with the skills and resources to support the growth of the brand.
• Builds and maintains a solid database independent of any marketing channels.
• Has systems and tools to be able to implement campaigns across multiple channels efficiently.
• Has a solid platform to manage local and national campaigns and link digital and traditional channels.
• Has a vision for how franchisees can execute LSM and empowers franchisees to market locally.

Ultimately a franchisor aligned to the way you would market your business so you get the right support.

Paola Tanner is director at marketing and advertising consultancy Fuse Franchise Partners

Images: Thinkstock and www.franchise.org.au