Franchising can be a successful way to expand your business. Although, the more franchisees in the mix, the more challenging it can be to properly promote each location to a targeted audience without losing sight of the overall branding and messaging. Facebook advertising is a great way to promote franchises since they’re economical and highly targeted. It’s important to keep a few things to keep in mind to produce lucrative campaigns when running Facebook ads for franchises.
Speak to Your Locals
When companies expand their business through franchising, the expansion usually reaches different geographical markets. Franchisees may still attract the same customer as the original location, but geography makes a difference when it comes to making an impression on Facebook users in different places. In your Facebook ads, set the location targeting to the franchisee’s location, plus a radius around your address that will include the majority of your consumers. Ads should be targeted to specific locations and include both the universal interests of typical customers in addition to any localized interests. Also, tailor the copy messaging and creative asset in your ads to each location. For example, reference a local sports team or slogan.
Once the ad copy and image are localized for each franchisee, drive your click traffic to a landing page for that location opposed to the business’ main website. This tip depends greatly on the structure of the website, specifically whether each location has their own page. If the location doesn’t have their own page or website, direct customers to a landing page that is specified in the call to action in the copy, such as to make a reservation or check out a promotion.
Create a budget for your Facebook ads that clearly separates the appropriate spend per franchisee. Once the budget is established, continue to keep all billing separate with different Facebook ad accounts per location. If you want to go an extra step, use different credit cards per account as well.
The Common Thread
The Facebook ads for the franchisees should appeal to their specific location and market, but you don’t want to lose the overall look, tone and brand of the business. You want to avoid each location seeming disjointed or feeling like they’re on an island when it comes to marketing a product or service. A uniform look and basic guidelines for Facebook ads eliminates the potential for separation from the established brand. Create a franchise style guide that can be distributed to each franchisee and used as the basis for all marketing practices. Learn more about franchise style guides here.
Utilize Facebook ads for franchises in order to reach the right online audience for each location. Speak directly to a franchisee’s local audience, but never lose sight of the branding that ties the group together. Facebook is the perfect place to highly target audiences and reach those who can help your business grow.
Visit our Deep Ads Thoughts blog to learn more about current advertising, marketing and public relations tips and trends, digital and social media.
