Heading towards franchise success

Promotion of a brand via marketing and advertising plays a significant role in success of any business. Similar is the case with franchising. However in franchising franchise development and consumer marketing are responsible for the promotion. Coordination between both can generate better results. Read on to know more

Franchise development and consumer marketing are the two most indispensible parts of any franchise system. While franchise development revolves around expansion of the brand by attracting or appointing more and more franchisees, consumer marketing revolves around the strategy to attract consumers. On one hand where expansion is important for the growth of the brand, increasing number of consumers is equally significant for profit generation and popularity of the brand. Though both the departments have a common goal of promotion of the brand still these department lack uniformity in methods to be followed for the growth. Both the departments often pick up fights on issues like planning brand strategy, advertising agencies, messaging, internal resources, and more. As human body has left brain and right brain in one body similarly franchise development and consumer marketing are a part of single body called brand. The article presents guidelines for a brand to synchronise the best of both the departments for better prospects.

Franchise development

Franchise development department is responsible for the development of the franchise network. The successful network of franchisees creates a successful brand and adding more and more franchisees leads to popularity of the brand nationally as well as internationally. Also, the department works for increasing footfalls in the present franchise outlets. It handles the advertising and marketing of the franchised units.

Consumer marketing

Department of consumer marketing mainly works for advertising of the products and services for the customers of the brand. It takes care of the advertising and marketing of the brand for attracting consumers.

Guidelines for coordinating

Despite the variation in their target audiences, the goal is the same for the heads: promotion of the brand. A little coordination between the two departments can result into better results. Let us now discuss the ways both these departments can work together to get more success for the brand as a whole.

Joint discussion: The first step for working together for both the departments is to understand that they have similar goals but different ways of handling them. The best way to understand is to get both the teams take a day off from their respective works and make them sit together. Since franchise development pros work closely with existing and potential franchisees and customer marketers’ work on luring clients, therefore many good ideas may come for both the teams by joint discussions.

Few points that can be answered and understood are:

• USP of the brand: Both the teams, can highlight the USP’s of the brand from their department’s perspective and a combined USP can be developed.
• Attraction to brand: Both can discuss and analyse few techniques to attract both the franchisees and customers simultaneously. This way they can make them work together for achieving the goals.
• Advertising mediums: As both the teams deal with advertising they can discuss the best and most suitable common mediums to attract potential franchisees and customers. Both the teams can give their views on different mediums and choose one that will be effective to both of them.
• Identifying biggest competitors: Identifying the competitors will help both departments to prepare themselves to face them. In fact a lot can be learned from them.
• Identify challenges: These challenges may differ for both the teams but certain aspects can be similar. Therefore both the teams can work upon the common challenges for the betterment of the company. 

Care for the brand consistency: One thing that both the franchise marketing professionals and consumer marketers should remember is that their brand is the single most important asset. Both of them may have different audiences (potential customers, existing customers, potential franchisees, current franchisees, investors, employees, etc.) but they share one brand. Therefore, it is essential for both the teams to use the brand assets in the same way, from logos and colors to themes and values.

In a challenging scenario various marketing divisions may not agree on how to use the brand. This would ultimately lead to brand fragmentation. It is the franchisors duty to make sure that his brand is defined clearly enough to allow for consistent usage across various mediums and messaging, yet is flexible enough to appeal to many different audiences.

Share the budget: No company works on unlimited budget. A franchisor may allot different budgets to both the teams but both have limited supplies of time, money, and expertise. Therefore it is always better to use it judiciously together instead of wasting separately on common mediums and targets. Discussions and meetings, once in a month would surely lead to saving capital as well as time and expertise of both the teams.

To conclude it can be said that being the owner of the company, it is the franchisor’s duty to make all the teams coordinate peacefully and profitably. A franchise brand can only prosper if both the franchise and customer marketing teams work together to achieve goals. This can only be possible when they meet and discuss their roles. Therefore a franchisor should surely have a day, every month when both these divisions have a discussion.

Franchise development and consumer marketing are the two most indispensible parts of any franchise system. While franchise development revolves around expansion of the brand by attracting or appointing more and more franchisees, consumer marketing revolves around the strategy to attract consumers. On one hand where expansion is important for the growth of the brand, increasing number of consumers is equally significant for profit generation and popularity of the brand. Though both the departments have a common goal of promotion of the brand still these department lack uniformity in methods to be followed for the growth. Both the departments often pick up fights on issues like planning brand strategy, advertising agencies, messaging, internal resources, and more. As human body has left brain and right brain in one body similarly franchise development and consumer marketing are a part of single body called brand. The article presents guidelines for a brand to synchronise the best of both the departments for better prospects.

Franchise development

Franchise development department is responsible for the development of the franchise network. The successful network of franchisees creates a successful brand and adding more and more franchisees leads to popularity of the brand nationally as well as internationally. Also, the department works for increasing footfalls in the present franchise outlets. It handles the advertising and marketing of the franchised units.

Consumer marketing

Department of consumer marketing mainly works for advertising of the products and services for the customers of the brand. It takes care of the advertising and marketing of the brand for attracting consumers.

Guidelines for coordinating

Despite the variation in their target audiences, the goal is the same for the heads: promotion of the brand. A little coordination between the two departments can result into better results. Let us now discuss the ways both these departments can work together to get more success for the brand as a whole.

Joint discussion: The first step for working together for both the departments is to understand that they have similar goals but different ways of handling them. The best way to understand is to get both the teams take a day off from their respective works and make them sit together. Since franchise development pros work closely with existing and potential franchisees and customer marketers’ work on luring clients, therefore many good ideas may come for both the teams by joint discussions.

Few points that can be answered and understood are:

USP of the brand: Both the teams, can highlight the USP’s of the brand from their department’s perspective and a combined USP can be developed.

• Attraction to brand: Both can discuss and analyse few techniques to attract both the franchisees and customers simultaneously. This way they can make them work together for achieving the goals.
• Advertising mediums: As both the teams deal with advertising they can discuss the best and most suitable common mediums to attract potential franchisees and customers. Both the teams can give their views on different mediums and choose one that will be effective to both of them.
• Identifying biggest competitors: Identifying the competitors will help both departments to prepare themselves to face them. In fact a lot can be learned from them.
• Identify challenges: These challenges may differ for both the teams but certain aspects can be similar. Therefore both the teams can work upon the common challenges for the betterment of the company.

Care for brand consistency: One thing that both the franchise marketing professionals and consumer marketers should remember is that their brand is the single most important asset. Both of them may have different audiences (potential customers, existing customers, potential franchisees, current franchisees, investors, employees, etc.) but they share one brand. Therefore, it is essential for both the teams to use the brand assets in the same way, from logos and colors to themes and values.

In a challenging scenario various marketing divisions may not agree on how to use the brand. This would ultimately lead to brand fragmentation. It is the franchisors duty to make sure that his brand is defined clearly enough to allow for consistent usage across various mediums and messaging, yet is flexible enough to appeal to many different audiences.

Share budget: No company works on unlimited budget. A franchisor may allot different budgets to both the teams but both have limited supplies of time, money, and expertise. Therefore it is always better to use it judiciously together instead of wasting separately on common mediums and targets. Discussions and meetings, once in a month would surely lead to saving capital as well as time and expertise of both the teams.

To conclude it can be said that being the owner of the company, it is the franchisor’s duty to make all the teams coordinate peacefully and profitably. A franchise brand can only prosper if both the franchise and customer marketing teams work together to achieve goals. This can only be possible when they meet and discuss their roles. Therefore a franchisor should surely have a day, every month when both these divisions have a discussion.