Franchise Marketing and SEO: What You Need to Know

Hey, Franchise Developers! We’re extending a big, warm welcome to our Raintree family. We are so excited to introduce you to our team of experts who are eager to hear your story and share it in a compelling way to others. Growing franchises is our passion, and we are good at it.

What Makes Raintree Franchise Sales Different

Raintree Franchise Sales is a performance-driven business. We rely on hard data and key performance indicators. We understand the franchise industry, know how to generate, qualify, and close leads, we know metrics, and we succeed only when we produce tangible results for our clients, which our numbers prove. We understand the importance of digital marketing, a considerable driver of lead generation today—both for the Franchisor and the Franchise Owner. We then put our specialized knowledge to work for you as we create a customized strategic marketing plan based on historical data and current research that reaches and appeals to your target audience. Your plan may cover various approaches from social media to your landing page and website, trade shows, brokers, and more. We will track the effectiveness of your campaign in real-time, communicate with you regularly as we partner together, and produce results with our four pillars of franchise marketing:

1. Content and Design
2. Franchise Lead Generation
3. Brand Management
4. Franchise Sales

How We Help You Grow Franchises

Our omnichannel approach relies heavily on digital marketing, a robust lead generation driver, churns quality leads, and higher close rates per lead. Unfortunately, many Franchisers and franchise marketing companies miss the boat when it comes to this opportunity. Each search engine and social media platform have relatively secretive algorithms. What is clear across channels, however, is that relevancy to keyword phrases is critical. On some platforms, such as LinkedIn, you get an added boost by being served up at a prioritized rate with your first and second-generation connections.

What Does “Relevancy to Keyword Phrases” Mean?

Historically, the emphasis was placed on keywords as opposed to phrases and their intended results. Take the word “cats” and assume you have a successful business focusing on cat toys. If you use “cats” as a keyword, you are casting too wide a net. A quick Google search reveals that the number one result for that keyword is the Broadway musical/movie among a list of nearly four billion results, most of which never seen. In franchise marketing, people search keyword phrases related to both the franchise itself and the type of franchise opportunities they seek. With billions of Google searches occurring daily, SEO optimization through quality content is crucial. A consumer searching for cat toys will enter a keyword phrase, such as “cat toys for mature cats,” which yields a fraction of the results for “cats” and are far more relevant. The trick is knowing what phrases your target audience will search for and delivering results (quality content) that specifically relate (this includes specific pages other than the home page on your website). Your content displays organically without expensive franchise advertising (think pay per click and Adwords). While this might make logical sense, it’s not as easy to achieve as you might think, which is where we come in. Here are some of the things that help position you at the top of the search results:

• Post frequent content that provides useful, accurate. and researched information
• Update your pages and old blogs to be relevant
• Use headlines effectively and include keywords and phrases.
• Create shareable posts and conversation starters
• Include infographics, images, and videos
• Post at the time during peak traffic
• Ensure your pages incorporate responsive design

How We Help Your Franchises Grow

Here at Raintree, we stay current with industry leaders and use SEO/SEM tools, like Yoast and Moz, which provide real-time feedback and suggestions for improving the optimization. Some of our clients’ sites have upwards of 50% organic traffic, and you can leverage these tactics, too. We also recommend free certification courses like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and WordPress training to develop an in-depth understanding. You can also utilize retargeting and geofencing to continue to drill down to franchisee target audiences. Finally, Franchisors can support Franchise Owners by leveraging the advertising fund to train them and position them for success. Staying current with the latest trends in SEO will give you a competitive advantage and help you succeed. We look forward to talking about areas of franchise development, marketing, and content creation and development with you. Best, Linton Dowling Raintree Marketing Director P.S. Email me at [email protected] or get connected to a franchise consultant here. Linton joined Raintree in 2017, and in 2018 became Marketing Director. For more useful Marketing Tips or questions on the above follow him on LinkedIn or send him an email: [email protected]