Franchisors, Make The Most Of Internet

Franchising undoubtedly is the best medium to expand a business and generate profits. Promoting franchise business, increasing point of sales, communicating with franchisees, and training and supporting them, everything altogether becomes a cumbersome and expensive affair for the franchisors. Here, Internet plays a significant role as it is one of the fastest and cost-effective means of growth. This article is an insight into the various opportunities that a franchise company can avail through internet.

Benefits of internet

During the past few years lot of franchisors are extensively using internet to make their business a great success. The success rate of such franchisors is quite high and is increasing with each passing day. Now all the developing franchises must be curious to know how they can make the best use of this medium to promote their businesses. Here are listed the diverse means to make the most of the internet:

• Official website: Today, every company maintains an official website of its own and updates its content on regular intervals. As per Arpita Mittal, CEO, Helen O’ Grady International says, “We have a website which we update on weekly basis. It helps us eventually as today’s entrepreneurs want to know about the company before taking up the franchise, and website provides a great deal of information about the company.” The official website of the company serves many purposes, such as it provides information not just about the products/ services offered by the company but also its franchise prospects. It also provides contact details of the company, a complete know-how of what the company deals in and the latest updates of the company.
• Pay per click advertising: It is one of the most popular modes of advertising on the Internet. It is used on the websites in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. Content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click, thereby allowing you to set up a daily advertising budget and you have the freedom to cancel and restart your ads any time you want.
• Participation in forums and blogs: Forums and blogs are often considered as an effective way to promote products or services of a company. The best part is that majority of the blog sites and forum posts are free of cost but you need to check whether they are website promotional-friendly as few blog sites and forums do not allow promotional blogs or forums.
• Staying in touch via e-mail and video conferencing: In the business of franchising, e-mails are the best way to stay in touch with your franchisees. Most of the franchisors utilise e-mail services over telephone to communicate with their franchisees. As per Mittal, “We also send various data regarding our franchise system in the form of e-mails, MS Docs and PowerPoint via internet to our franchisees.” While on the other hand, video conferencing is also gaining recognition. Few players across various industries are using this technology to educate and train their franchisees about the franchise business system located as distant places.
• Leveraging the benefits of web presence: The Internet has been rewarding for the businessmen who wants to maintain a web presence for a long time with regular updates. In short, it allows you to retain your position even in your competitor’s presence. You will leverage the benefit of being the first mover on the Internet and keep enjoying the constant flow of traffic that comes from having a long-standing web presence.
• Online selling: There are many players who sell their products and services on Internet. For instance, Ferns N Petals, Kathak Fashions, Bigshoebazaar are few players that sell their products online and gaining benefits through it.

Guidelines to follow

• Setting up a website of your own is not a big deal these days. However, you need to be creative in your approach in building a website for your franchise business. You need to design a website with all the required data and along with a yearly registration of your domain name, and website address.
• Though advertising on Internet is not free but is cost-effective than other means of advertising. Before advertising on the Internet, you can explore the Internet for free website directories and find links where you can advertise. In addition to this, promoting your business on the Internet saves natural resources such as trees.
• If you are planning to sell your products or services online, then you need to learn the creation of a search engine friendly website, so that people can find your website easily. 

To summarise, as internet is a brilliant and cost-effective means to grow your franchising business, go on and explore the benefits of internet to gain maximum profits.