Annette Du Bois – The Franchise Growth Expert
To paraphrase a famous quote…50% of your marketing is working;
trouble is you’re probably not sure which 50%!
This creates a conundrum and often leaves you with one of those unsolved marketing headaches that niggle away in the background, a constant cycle of frustration. It’s a very common challenge for many business owners and the one simple solution is to review, test and refine. I refer to this as…
…Marketing Kaizen
Definition Kaizen:
Japanese for constant and never ending improvement
Without awareness you may market your Franchise using the promotion method. A narrow focus that literally just promotes your opportunity using a linear form of copy to communicate your message.
A campaign however, means a consistent commitment to really understanding what’s working, what’s getting the best results and ultimately what needs to change. It’s the continuous drive to make sure your communication and marketing efforts are bringing in the best ROI.
There’s a reason why the race for pole position in the White House is a massive campaign rather than a small, one off promotion!
Marketing is the epitome of evolution. What worked a few years ago is not as effective now and change must be embraced for your Franchise to grow. Just imagine if I still used a typewriter to write copy! It also reminds me of the question I so often get asked…long or short copy, which is best?
The thing is there’s no right or wrong answer, it really depends on the proposition, the audience, the investment, the call to action and other marketing variables. On the one hand long copy supports the adage… ‘the more you tell, the more you sell’ and short copy… ‘brevity leads to uncertainty’. The solution? Find out what works best for marketing your opportunity.
And this can only come from testing the copy on your marketing activities.
Get the marketing edge
Testing is simple and should always be part of your marketing process. It’s the absolute evidence you need to know your results. One of the extremely effective but underused methods is A/B testing, commonly referred to as split-testing.
Briefly, you split your prospects into reading two or more versions of your Franchise advertising copy and analyse which one brings in the best results.
The most common areas to test are:
- The headline – grab attention, keep it simple, clear and engaging
- Prospect-tive – shift from company to prospect focus
- Sub heads – keep attention of the reader
- Bullet points – effectively communicate more benefits
- Call to action – direct them on what to do next
Many don’t adopt this type of review process assuming it’ll cost them too much in time and hassle to correctly monitor and interpret the results. The real question is, what does it costing now by not knowing?
Split testing is easy with Select Your Franchise as they do it for you. So you can finally know for sure what works best to promote your Franchise.
Annette has years of high-level business experience working with Franchises and is the UK’s only full-time professional Franchise copywriter.
