Rise Above the Noise: Franchise Branding Secrets From the Pros

Successful branding for a single company takes time and effort. There’s a lot to pay attention to and a lot of decisions to make. So what happens if your business has grown so well that you’re planning to franchise your company? How on earth do you plan branding for that?

The truth is, you can handle it much the same way as you did your original business, with a few additional elements. Here are five tips for branding your franchise—straight from the pros.

1. Build Company Culture

Branding includes recognizable elements, including your logo, color scheme, and tagline. You may even have a mascot or someone who serves as the face of your company. Still, a franchise needs the cohesiveness of the customer experience to be successful, so you want to be sure that your employees are all on board with a positive company culture. Branding is the feeling your customers get when they think about your business: positive, negative, or neutral.

You need to have a plan in place for training employees and an outline of how you want your company culture to look. It’s important to start with a good company culture because it will help with productivity, and you’ll retain workers who will be happy to be there every day. Your customers will recognize your efforts when they walk into your store since workplaces with a positive company culture are more organized and have invested and motivated workers.

2. Location, Location, Location

You need a franchise business plan. And part of that plan is knowing where your franchise will and won’t work. Starbucks learned this the hard way. Since they have done well as a coffeehouse in America and other countries, they assumed they would do well when the first stores opened in Australia in 2000. After all, Australia has a major coffee culture, so why wouldn’t they like what Starbucks had to offer? However, since 2000, Starbucks has lost hundreds of millions of dollars on its Australian investment.

It turns out that not only is the coffee culture different, but it’s different in many ways executives hadn’t anticipated. One of these ways is the sit-down versus takeaway coffee culture. In America, you might stand in line before a counter to get your custom order before you carry it away to enjoy it on the go. In Australia, coffee is meant to be enjoyed in more of a restaurant setting, with friends or family at a table, served by a waiter. Australian coffee is also less sugary (think more strong brews than lattes), and it’s sold in much smaller quantities, while the price remains about the same.

If the folks at Starbucks had done their homework, they would have realized they would have to tweak their business model in Australia to be as successful as they had been in other countries. Make sure you know what you’re in for if you expand to other regions where the culture may differ. The response to your company could be different even between neighborhoods, so do your market research beforehand.

3. Make the Rules

Your single location has a logo, a brand, and marketing materials. Your new franchise will have those as well. However, you need to ensure consistency across the board with these items. When customers flock to your new location, it should meet their expectations the same way the original location does. So, when you set up your new storefront, your new employees will need clear rules, guidelines for your processes, style guides for your paperwork and written materials, and set procedures.

A franchisee must stay on brand, so ensure your expectations are clearly laid out. Providing examples, including what not to do, is a great way to communicate your preferences to franchise owners.

4. Provide the Materials

Without the proper tools, you can’t expect things to be done correctly. The same is true of marketing campaigns. If your franchises don’t have the templates, programs, and content your home office does, they’re working with one hand tied behind their back. Make sure they have access to everything you do.

On the other hand, flexibility is critical. If your franchise is in a region that is culturally different than yours, have them do their own market research. Don’t be afraid to let them try new things if they aren’t doing as well as you initially expected—give them a way to create materials branded to match, even if the campaign is different. Of course, it takes time to establish a new company, but if you notice the culture is entirely different, work with them to find solutions and understand the local community so that your new franchise location can be just as successful as the original.

5. Use a Marketing Agency

Working with a franchise marketing agency such as InnoVision Marketing Group can be helpful to a new franchise because we understand the challenges brands face when expanding, especially when they grow globally. Navigating these complications alone can be time-consuming and even overwhelming, so why not let an experienced team guide you through these challenges?

Whether your business is new or established, using a franchise marketing agency will help you develop your brand so that your future franchisees can use it easily. Your recognizable branding will be a beacon to your customers, which will expand your business and help it grow.

A marketing agency will also have more resources and partnerships established in previous projects. Your business might have different connections, but when working with our creative and innovative teams, your business will succeed on a global scale. Contact us today for more information on how we can help your franchise count grow.