Unit Level Marketing Plans

With each new franchisee comes a new operator who needs a specific game plan to implement in their local market.  Prior to entering the marketing phase, we prepared the franchisee with an excellent Operations Manual for our model and trained them with our amazing Franchisee Training Curriculum during their startup phase, HQ training, and Onsite training (if-applicable). The Unit-Level Marketing Plan is used both during franchisee training to start, and then as an ongoing daily usage document for developing and increasing sales in their given territory.

However, each franchisee needs to customize their own location’s Unit Level Marketing for their own situation and optimum effectiveness.  In the spirit of “You cannot enforce what you don’t publish” FSI provides a customized unit-level marketing template with three optional budget levels which is made to be customized and prepared by the franchisee.  Although the marketing plan is delivered to the franchisee in a fully written form, instructions as to how to build their own plan, measure its effectiveness, and what methodology is likely to be worth testing and using in their given industry and geography is all at their fingertips.

The Unit-Level Marketing Plan is both for daily use at each franchisee location(s), and also an attachment to the Operations and Training phase(s) for each franchisee.

Is your franchisee required to do a Grand Opening?  Most of us in the industry consider this a key marketing launch for any given unit-level launch.  Complete instructions and methodology for your given model’s grand opening, the minimum budget to be spent, and all strategies from friends and family to local politicians and leadership networking are key to a successful launch.  What about the Soft Opening?  How do we create our lists and outreach for each marketing component for the launch, and ongoing marketing efforts?

For many restaurants and other “socially driven” models, Dine and Donate programs where a large % of each check for participating diners is donated to a given cause, has been remarkably effective for new franchises who need aggressive and meaningful social outreach, as well as being great for the beneficiary of the donations.

Other restaurant franchises are using marvelous Point of Sale software such as TOAST, in which a lot of valuable store marketing methodology, special delivery pricing, and other components are surprisingly unutilized by many otherwise-savvy restaurant owners who really should be maximizing the embedded components of POS in their daily strategy.

Many unit level services franchise thrive with software-driven app-based technology to get in front of buyers and services, while others still use old-fashioned radio advertising in certain lower cost media-spot markets, right along with cable TV and road signs.

Therefore, when you are creating a customizable, budget-sensitive Unit Level Marketing scheme for franchisees to customize and execute for their own location growth, every effort must be made to accelerate what is most effective for their model type, geography, and budget commitment with an almost equal emphasis on ROI measurement while simultaneously evolving to more effective methods as we learn.

Is the same  unit-level marketing effort relevant to fill up a new franchise restaurant unit in Austin, TX as a carpet cleaning service in New York City?  Probably not.

FSI creates a complete template and written plan customized for your franchisees and intended as a boilerplate with multiple budget options for their unit marketing based on the best methods for their geography, including but not limited to Guerrilla Marketing, Localized Digital Marketing, Public Relations, and brick-and-mortar signs and ads.

Understand the unique advertising needs of your franchisees and solve it where they live!