Give prospective franchisees a reason to come to your brand

Franchise recruitment is a competitive market – are you confident that your brand and opportunity stands out?

Some suggest there are over 1,000 franchise brands in the UK alone, but looking at a lot of portal listings and company websites, you could be forgiven for assuming that the majority of brands are all trying to attract the exact same person as a franchisee - which we know isn’t the case.

Click after click takes you to the same safe, generic sales messages - in fact, if you took away the company logos, it would be pretty hard to tell which company you’re reading about. There are plenty of exceptions, of course - and they will be the brands that are successfully recruiting.

It’s all about culture

Most of today’s content-hungry franchisee prospects are just as interested in learning about the culture and personality of your brand as they are in the likely returns on their investment. You’re asking people to make a long-term commitment to you, so who you are and how you do what you do, are incredibly important to them.

With so many people experiencing a higher degree of work/life balance in the last couple of years thanks to working from home, that ‘flexibility’ selling point that has served franchise marketing so well in the past is no longer enough on its own to pull people out of employment. Franchise brands must show them what will be uniquely amazing about joining their network if they are to make a sufficiently compelling argument.

Be specific

Also, your franchise can’t possibly appeal to ‘everyone’ so don’t waste your time and budget trying to target ‘everyone’ - be specific and create content that is completely and shamelessly targeted at your franchisee candidate profile.

Yes, the more enquiries you attract the greater the chance of finding a match - but it’s so much more than just a numbers game. Recruitment marketing content that allows people to rule themselves out (can’t afford it won’t make them enough money, too much like hard work - there can be endless reasons) will almost certainly drop your monthly enquiry numbers to begin with, but it won’t drop in quality.

Create recruitment marketing content that also tells an inspiring story and demonstrates successful franchisees, and your numbers will go back up, as will your conversion rates.

It sounds simple of course, and most businesses think that is what they are already doing, but in reality, it takes some very specific and joined up skills. No one can tell the story of your brand better than you, but a marketing, PR, media or copywriting specialist might be able to help you write or pitch your story better.

The author

Suzie McCafferty is CEO of franchise consultancy Platinum Wave.