A major benefit in belonging to a franchise system is the communal marketing effort that creates strong brand awareness and recognition in the marketplace. The combination of ‘top down’ marketing with ‘bottom up’ allows head office to control the main messages, brand guidelines and promotional cycles while allowing franchisees to communicate with their local audience through direct marketing, direct sales and community engagement. Equipping franchisees with their own web presence allows them to communicate directly with their local market and creates a direct line of contact with their data base, this in turn improves the relevance of the message.
A local web presence also helps with a company’s Search Engine Optimisation, as search engines become increasingly important in reaching customers companies are investing large amounts of money in achieving a first page result. As many searches location based having a network of company websites that are area specific increase search engine results dramatically.
For example, Bob’s Paining Company is located in Sydney and services the entire state of NSW. The company has one corporate site (www.bobspainters.com.au) that does not enable franchises to have their own sub site. They have a franchisee based in Chatswood but when a Google search is performed for ‘Painter Chatswood’ the search engines do not have the ability to recognise that Bob’s painters service the area.
If the company had a website set up for that franchisee (www.chatswood.bobspainters.com.au) the site would be optimized for that area and chances of showing would be greatly increased.
