There are many reasons why a franchise might not have any large scale advertising campaign or fund setup for it. The most common reason is a lack of national stores. That doesn’t mean you can’t work with your franchisor or spearhead your own local advertising campaign. If your franchisor is getting ready to expand, keep that in mind as well. You’ll want to stay turned as the bigger your franchisor gets, the more likely they are to start applying advertising fees. Especially as they open more stores in a certain region. Their campaign could go from non-existent to regional with just a few locations and then nationally from there.
Local advertisement in your franchise is very important for the franchisee for a number of reasons. While your franchisor can help your entire brand out on a national level (assuming it’s big enough), that won’t necessarily help you out locally if no one knows you’re there. There are many ways to advertise that you’re part of the local community and we’ll go through that in a second here. If you’re one of a handful of stores locally or regionally, you should consider pooling together to pay for advertising to not only bring all of you more attention, but to cheapen the cost of advertising. By pooling, you also strengthen the message of the brand by keeping it consistent among local franchises.
However before you do anything on your own, you must put yourself in an objective train of thought. The way you’re advertising yourself will also contribute to the way your consumers see your franchise. You’ll want to keep that in mind as you decide what vehicle to use to deliver your message. Here are some other questions you’ll want to ask yourself about your advertising campaign before you pay for anything and especially before you publish it in any way:
Most franchisors will require some level of involvement in the creation or planning of your ad just to make sure that it follows the company standard or that the message matches up with what the brand says about themselves. You will need to run whatever you’re doing by your franchisor before you send anything out. Also check your franchise agreement and system policies for any rules regarding advertising that you might not be aware of.
Some suggestions for local advertising are: