The Franchise love, hate relationship with the internet might finally be over! Finally, a solution for franchise companies to deliver coveted local search results to their franchisees!
The framework of the internet was created in the 1950’s and 60’s with a contract given by the US Government in 1969, leading to the internet we know today. Unfortunately, the pain of the internet started for the franchise industry shortly after and has continued through today. When the World Wide Web was open to the public in 1991 it took off, and by the late 90’s it was prevalent in daily life. At the same time, to the detriment of franchise companies, domain squatters were gobbling up the domains of many large franchisors around the world looking for a leveraged payday.
Meanwhile without any legal language in most franchise agreements for the burgeoning internet, franchisees started launching websites of their own. Most of the sites were created by low-end designers learning their craft, or worse the franchisee’s nephew who swore he could help out and create a website. With poor designs, odd domain names, and no consistency, obvious image problems emerged- along with confusion for consumers. Franchise companies were rightfully concerned with controlling their online images. Eventually Franchisors and their attorneys would get control and, in most cases, centralize to one corporate website. While the control was necessary and eliminated initial issues, it started the feckless use of the internet by franchise companies. Even today, besides the largest brands, most franchises have little to no local name recognition. A simple local Google search will show many, if not all local companies ranking higher than their franchise counterparts. Many franchise companies are virtually invisible when consumers perform local searches. The combined loss of revenue across a brand because of missed opportunities is in the millions of dollars annually.
Over the years, to combat the problems, Franchisors paid big bucks and put-up fancy websites and began promoting them. Franchisors quickly learned search engine optimization often referred to as SEO, which is an expensive service provided by web marketing companies, did not line up with the needs of the Franchise industry. SEO has some benefit for centralized businesses or for selling specific products but has almost no value for decentralized businesses such as a franchise model. Unfortunately, franchise companies learned this lesson the hard way- spending 10’s of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on failed SEO. SEO companies would drag out expensive contracts with significant monthly payments, on the promise the results were coming. It is hard to find a franchise who does not know this scenario all too well.
From the Frying Pan into the Fire
Eventually franchisors moved on from SEO, found their safe place with one corporate website and simple location pages for each franchisee, but little did they know what was coming. Just when attorneys and franchisors had adjusted to this internet thing, Social media comes along with even bigger challenges than the simple websites that had scared franchisors decades earlier. Sure, having random websites set up by a franchisees nephew was damaging to a brand but nothing compared to the damage Social media could do. If the damage a random website could do to a brand was equivalent to a fender bender, the damage a viral, runaway social media account could do would be a fifty-car pile-up. Most franchisees had little experience with social media but were being told, often by their younger staff or children, how important it is and how “easy”. Famous last words… social media is dynamic and seems commonplace since most people use it in their social lives. But managing an active business’s social media account is an entirely different story. Franchises have tried all sorts of iterations to solve the social media puzzle, centralizing control in the corporate office, providing direction but allowing franchisees to manage individual accounts in their local markets, and hybrid approaches like using third-party web marketing companies managing all or parts of the process. Much like the initial challenges with the internet, franchisors learned to mitigate the legal and brand risks with social media but garner little to no value from the powerful marketing tool that reaches 337 million active users in the United Sates alone.
Ad Funds and AUV
Average unit volume, average unit volume, average unit volume!!! Franchisors and consultants preach constantly the importance of the success of franchise locations and the need to have strong average unit sales to be a successful Franchise. Seems easy enough, sell franchises to good people, give them a roadmap, training, and set them loose. They will all succeed, right? The rub is- the human factor. Franchisees are not robots, they absorb training differently, they have personal situations, different markets, various backgrounds and skills, and area specific competition to contend with. Because many franchisees struggle with local marketing follow through and effectiveness, franchisors put in National Advertising Funds trying to level the playing field, hoping if advertising efforts were uniform, results would improve, and average unit volumes would rise consistently across all units. Eliminating some variances of local marketing execution, National Advertising Funds can have positive effects. Large brands that have the funds to completely manage and run media in each market can be highly effective. However, most brands do not have funds significant enough to manage the entire system and some brands do not benefit as much from mass media, so they have to leave more up to the local business owners who often are not effective or consistent marketing managers. To complicate National Funds more, franchisees often push to have the funds spent specifically back in their markets dollar for dollar, which is not possible in most cases and can create friction between the franchisor and franchise owners. So, how to solve the challenges of local marketing, use of national funds, while providing consistency and quality results?
Parallel Paths with a Serendipitous Synergy
While Franchise Companies were fighting their decades long ongoing fight with all things internet, John Kitts was fighting his own battles with the changing algorithms of the search engines. John Kitts working in Northern California in tech, had started a company for use by small businesses to create exposure on the internet. While most companies were trying to “hack” the algorithms of the search companies, John made the strategic decision, in the long run the internet would eventually come down to consistent, quality, accurate content. He fought the urge to chase every change in algorithms attempting quick search results for clients. John didn’t know it, but he was creating an entirely unique approach to local business exposure on the web that in the future would intersect with the goals of online search goliaths like Google. While other web marketing companies promised fast results by feeding the search engines quick fixes, the strategies always turned out to be just short-term until the search engines caught on and once again changed what they valued. Afterall, what the search engines want, is for consumers to type in a search and find the most accurate information, not a website that was manipulated to trick the search results. So, for 15-years John stayed true to his long-term strategy while making key adjustments to evolving internet technologies. Over the years, more and more small businesses joined John’s website delivering local news throughout the United States. With each company contributing content to the website, the power and authority grew with the search engines and so did the exposure of his clients and their number one search rankings.
City Scoop and Franchising
Today, there are roughly 18-billion internet searches performed every month and most franchise companies are invisible to consumers looking for their products and services. Some franchises have attempted utilize Pay-Per-Click in absence of better solutions, only to find it is expensive and not viable over hundreds of units in their systems. Having a strong web presence is as important as the quality of your products or your customer service. You simply cannot run a business in today’s marketplace without a strong web presence, but nothing has really changed for franchise companies struggling to find exposure on the internet since 1991. Today, the challenges of the internet and social media are just as real as they were decades ago, or are they?
City Scoop is changing the internet landscape for Franchises. Thankfully for franchises, John kept grinding away on his company working long hours and finding small companies to take the leap and try his revolutionary marketing approach. John named his unique company City Scoop after the newspaper term “scooping” a news story. John bet on himself and he was right, a long-term systematic plan of creating quality local content would result in becoming an authority the search engines could trust. After 15 years of hard work, dedicated customers, and cutting-edge technology, City Scoop has become the number one source for local business news on the Web. City Scoop ranks above Newsweek, The Business Journal, USA Today, and all other websites to deliver local hometown business news to consumers. City Scoop was originally designed for small businesses throughout North America to contribute content and drive positive search results. What John did not know was City Scoop was set up just like a franchise with a centralized entity and satellites, and that City Scoop would be the cipher to the internet crucible for franchises.
As time went on, John was approached by some chain businesses and small franchise companies which led to serendipitous meetings with experienced franchise consultants who explained to him the challenges franchises were facing to garner top rankings in local markets and how the website he had built was perfectly aligned with the needs of the franchise industry. Franchises needed a value priced service that could create consistent, quality high ranking on search engines that did not depend on the local franchisees for content or execution. A turnkey service that could utilize national ad funds or harness local marketing spending requirements, ensuring fees were spent directly in each local market. City Scoop began working with more franchises delivering almost immediate results. City Scoop’s franchise clients experienced number one search ranking on their most valued searches and their average unit volumes soared. Additionally, overall marketing expense for City Scoop franchises clients shrunk. No longer were CityScoop’s franchise clients chasing fleeting interest through Facebook ads, door hangers, direct mail, coupon packs, ineffective traditional SEO, or any number of other less effective marketing tools. Meaning, franchises using dated marketing strategies need to hope their Facebook ads or Money Mailer coupons are viewed at the same time the consumer needs the particular product or service. With top web rankings you are always there when the consumer is looking for you. Each time a consumer picks up their phone and says Siri find plumbing businesses near me or decides to get back in shape and requests top rated gyms in Phoenix, your franchise website will show up on the top of the organic rankings. Franchising has always been about being part of a national organization while being truly local. Locally owned and operated franchises in communities around the country finally have an efficient and effective way to reach their precious, local neighborhood consumers.
BY: MJ Alto
MJ Alto is a freelance writer and business consultant with decades of experience in franchising and business marketing
www.cityscoop.us CityScoop is a News Organization solely dedicated to local news and driving online exposure for its customers
