Franchisors Who Master Content Creation Have the Upper Hand in Driving the Most Desirable Leads
Last September at a North Texas Franchise Business Network meeting in Dallas, a chief development officer stood before the crowd and said the spend on content at his organization had gone up 1500% in the last 24 months. That included 900 brand blog posts in one year, a library of short-form 30-second videos, and a team of professionals mining LinkedIn daily.
There’s a saying that content is king, but those are hefty numbers befitting that throne.
“We made 900 custom brand blog posts last year,” he said. “We are mining LinkedIn all the time. We also had a lot of long-form videos and no 30-second videos.” They got busy changing that too. After all, short attention spans rule.
Why the tsunami of free information? Because serious franchisors who master content creation have the upper hand in driving the most desirable leads for growing their networks. It’s never a one-and-done proposition. It’s high energy output to make a brand – or in this case, many brands – stand out in some very crowded fields.
Here are 4 keys to that content creation success:
1. Meet Prospects Online and on their Schedule
When was the last time you picked up the phone to ask a stranger a question about a business instead of asking Siri or Google first?
According to Forrester Research, buyers spend 70% of their buying journey doing their own research before talking to someone. Said another way, franchise prospects have already done a ton of investigating online across a number of viable opportunities by the time they proactively show interest. That’s why franchisors must be accurate, timely and engaging with online content to carry them forward on the buyer journey.
2. Make the Research Easy to Find
Welcome to our click-here-to-find-out-more society. If we don’t see what we like, we don’t hang around. We also follow people more than we follow brands. We have a natural tendency to want to hover over that hotlink if they’ve chosen to share something with us on social media.
Good franchisors understand this and know how to command attention, answer important questions, and eliminate fact-finding hurdles early in this research phase with great content. This includes fresh blogs, media hits with backlinks, short videos of happy franchisees, paid ads and more.
All of that obsessively good stuff then works together to drive prospects to the all-important promised land: a robust franchise development website that’s easy to navigate.
3. What’s Old is Not New Again
According to LinkTree, there are an estimated 207 million professional content creators globally across all social media platforms. That doesn’t mean they are all pros. But if you’re brand is not constantly posting new content to engage with your target audience, somebody else is.
Meanwhile, posting fresh and captivating content on an ongoing basis is just the beginning. The next job becomes helping people find it. And therein lies the biggest piece to the content creation puzzle.
Sharing that content from leadership, pushing it out in e-blasts, promoting it on the brand’s social media pages, and linking to it at every opportunity builds true momentum. Together, this helps content do its most important work to establish Expertise, Experience, Authority and Trust (EEAT) – the key attributes that elevate a brand and a franchise opportunity in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) race to the top.
By the way, the opposite is true as well. If you haven’t updated your website in years or you’re not constantly putting out timely content to tell your story, educate prospects, spotlight successful franchisees, relay breaking news, and make it easy to learn about your opportunity, just head to the back of the line where poor SEO rankings congregate in misery. People undoubtedly will not be looking for you.
And, lastly…
4. Content is an Important Early Qualifier
There was a time when franchisors just threw money at paid ads and waited for prospective franchisees to line up. The bigger the spend, the longer the line. Nothing is wrong with that approach unless you’re the unlucky franchise development team responding to all the tire-kickers before getting to the needle in the haystack.
Unqualified leads are not where experienced development leaders want to spend precious time. Good content, strong keywords, ongoing news and a well-designed website, however, can do a lot of the heavy lifting.
It works together to make the investment criteria transparent, to spotlight the desired skills and backgrounds necessary for the opportunity, and to give an honest-to-goodness day-in-the-life look at franchisees living the dream. That goes a long way towards weeding out bad candidates, vetting good ones, bringing them along, and qualifying those who deserve (and now want to have) an actual conversation.
Content Creation for Franchise Development
So, how important is content creation really? Content creation can be a game-changer in franchise development. It boosts brand visibility and attracts qualified leads, saving time and resources. Content is the first handshake with potential franchisees, painting a relatable picture of a franchise’s culture and success. Mastering content strategy not only draws better leads but also fosters franchisee enthusiasm, strengthening networks and setting franchise brands apart.
