Buying a franchise is a serious commitment both personally and financially. So it’s no surprise that leads are rarely ready to buy from the moment they first start exploring a franchise opportunity. A lead nurturing campaign gives franchisors a system that allows them to stay in touch with a prospect as they move through the stages of their buying decision – otherwise known as “the buyer journey”. By sending leads a series of follow-up emails with valuable content on your franchise opportunity, you slowly build trust with your prospects and keep your opportunity top of mind.

In the video below, we show you a behind the scenes look at what goes into creating an effective franchise lead nurturing campaign.

Creating a successful franchise lead nurturing campaign – key takeaways:

• Connect all your online sign-up forms and your online booking tools with your lead nurturing campaign so that every lead automatically gets added to the email follow-up sequence.
• Create content in your follow-up emails that adds value and is not just about making the sale. Share information such as success stories from other franchisees, testimonials, information about the brand and the company culture, and what support you provide.
• Keep in touch for at least one year, if not longer. People’s lives change – they lose their job, have a bad day at work, need to move. You never know when your opportunity can be the exact change they are looking for.
• Track your lead nurturing campaign activity. You can tell a lot about a prospect’s level of interest by the amount of interaction they have with your follow-up emails. Most email marketing software allows you to see how many times a subscriber has opened your emails, what links they’ve clicked on, and more so that you can focus your efforts on those that are showing real interest.

The ultimate goal in a franchise recruitment campaign is to drive sales but most prospects need multiple touchpoints before they are ready to commit. A lead nurturing campaign is a critical piece of the franchise sales process and can really enhance your franchise development team’s efforts. Click here for more information about our full franchise recruitment marketing program.