Wakefly BlogTop 5 Tips for Franchise Digital Marketing

Wakefly’s Top 5 Tips for Franchise Digital Marketing!

When it comes to franchise digital marketing, there are a lot of factors to consider. PPC and SEO marketing are typically top of mind but oftentimes are so complex that many franchise owners have difficulty deciphering where their leads come from and how much it costs to acquire each lead. This doesn’t bode well for getting the most out your digital marketing investments.  You need to know exactly which initiatives create positive ROI so you can continue to fund them and which are ROI negative so you can invest your resources elsewhere and you can continue to grow your business.

Read these five tips to dissecting and measuring your PPC and SEO campaigns to maximize franchise digital marketing investment and start making smarter decisions today.

What Makes Franchise Marketing Different?

Franchise marketing differs from that of other business types. Since franchises are everywhere, they are unified by their brand. Marketing endeavors need to focus on strengthening that image. In addition, marketers focus on the locations of the franchises and use what resonates with that specific community. This tailored approach is what allows known franchises to continue growing their brand successfully.

Create a Location Specific Thank You Page

If your business is like many of the franchises we help, your web page is centralized within a giant corporate website. This system does have its benefits. Combining resources can be more efficient and cost effective, not to mention providing a potential boost to SEO rankings. It can also make it really hard to track the source of your web leads.

Try creating unique thank you pages for each location. This will allow website tracking software like Google Analytics to decipher leads from one location to another. Now you can definitively tell if that click you paid for converted through your location page or the page for the franchise in the town next door.

A dedicated thank you page will also improve the accuracy of your Analytics reporting. The only way a new user can reach your thank you page is through your location page. Now you can be confident that a “conversion” really means a lead!

Try Call Tracking Software

Studies show that 43% of all internet conversions happen over the phone. That means that 43 of every 100 leads from your website are not trackable by conventional web analytic tools and cannot be attributed anywhere, they are invisible to your analytical eye. How do you know which keywords in paid search are driving these phone calls? How can you tell which blog post drove the most potential customers to your website? Without call tracking, you can’t. This makes call tracking a must for every franchise owner.

You can find fairly low cost call tracking services that provide the exact capabilities you need without the all the fancy (and expensive!) bells and whistles. When conducting the cost/benefit analysis with your team you have to ask yourself one question: Can you afford to miss out on 43% of your leads?

Use Dedicated Landing Pages for Your PPC Campaigns

Every penny counts when buying clicks on Google or Bing. Creating a dynamite landing page for paid search traffic allows you to maximize conversion rates by providing a streamlined conversion process for every user you purchase. Give them the exact content they want, when they want it, and how they want it. This makes it easier for customers to submit their information and you can achieve conversion rates in the double digits. The experience a user expects here is dramatically different than that of your main website, so you can’t expect to treat them the same to get the same results.

Having dedicated landing pages also allows you to optimize for Google’s Quality Score. Strategically select content themes around your biggest traffic drivers and Google will reward you will lower CPCs and higher positions on the page.

Invest in Ad Copy A/B Testing Software

A/B testing is a science, not an art. Multivariates, standard deviations, and statistical confidence levels are not best left up to the amateur statistician to decipher. This is the reason why we partnered with a software company that does the math for us, and it has proven invaluable. My first ad copy test involved 16 different copy variations in one of my client’s 23 locations for just one of a dozen services they provided. In two weeks we generated CTR increases of 47.6% and conversion rate increases of 18.3% with a statistical confidence level of 93%.

This test would have taken the most seasoned PPC wiz months to achieve similar results, not to mention increased risk due to human error. The results of the test more than paid for the $200 monthly investment for the client.

Take a Google Analytics Course

You can create the best digital marketing plan around, but it won’t do you a lick of good if you can’t measure, report, and optimize.  Google Analytics is an incredibly useful tool when utilized correctly. Google is constantly adding more features and advanced ways of segmenting traffic to the tool, but if you aren’t comfortable navigating the platform and deciphering the data, you might as well not be tracking anything. Sign up for an online course like this one from ed2go to help understand the different metrics, what they mean, and what opportunities they present.  You won’t be sorry you did, and your bottom line will thank you for it.

These tricks are a good way to jump start your franchise digital marketing strategy, but they represent just the tip of the iceberg of possibilities for improvements.  Contact Wakefly to find out how we can build upon these strategies and take your franchise digital marketing to the next level. While you’re at it, sign up to get Wakefly’s blogs sent to you to stay up-to-date on SEO trends and techniques and keep your company at the forefront of your industry.