Building Lead Generation Campaigns that Actually Resonate

By Marty Menard – President, GIANT Creative

With close to 1,200 franchise brands and over 76,000 franchise locations that represent almost 50 different industry sectors, it’s abundantly clear that Canada loves franchising. Whether it’s owning them, working at them, or buying from them, it’s no accident that franchised businesses contribute over $100 billion to the Canadian economy each year, creating nearly two million jobs and making it the 12th largest industry sector in Canada.

As exciting and encouraging as this is for the future of Canadian franchising, the flip side of that shiny coin means there are literally over 1,000 unique franchise brands, all vying for the same franchise leads that you are.

And when you factor in the 1,000+ brokers, online portals, trade shows, and a digital publishing landscape that changes algorithms and the rules of engagement faster than you can say ‘WhatsApp,’ how does your franchise brand stay relevant? How do your lead generation campaigns cut through all that noise to locate, target, and generate quality franchise leads that are genuinely interested in joining your franchise family?

Over the past decade, I have worked with emerging and established brands alike, and one of the things I see constantly is the disconnect between their overarching marketing strategy and their tactical execution. An uninformed tactical campaign can and will negatively impact your franchise lead generation efforts and in some cases, can even hurt your brand equity in new and existing territories.

Gone should be the days of casting wide nets through generic lead generation campaigns that target the masses, designed for high volume, low quality, and aimed at letting the franchise sales team sort through the deluge of low-to-no-quality leads.

Successful franchise lead generation should no longer be an afterthought that receives the dregs of the marketing budget. Instead, it must be a meaningful allocation of resources to maximize engagement that helps create a real connection with your franchise prospects.

Today’s franchising landscape is a buyer’s market, plain and simple. The most successful organizations are the ones doing their homework and ensuring that their franchise lead generation campaigns are given the same level of resource commitment as the brand’s overarching marketing strategy.

So, how do winning brands elevate their digital lead generation marketing? Well, like everything else in the world of business and marketing, it starts with significant planning.

Targeting the Right Audiences

And I do mean plural. Canada is one of the most diverse nations in the world, as it’s home to 400 unique ethnicities split off into unique age groups. From millennials to Gen X, new Canadians, to multi-generational families, Canada’s population is as diverse as their unique motivations for purchasing a franchisee.

But here’s the good news: there’s a good chance your franchise organization has already done (some of) the work when developing your marketing vision and defining your target audiences. And this is a great foundation to start with.

Fleshing out your Buyer Personas

Defining target audiences is only the beginning of assembling the skeleton of your ideal customer if you will. When you build out detailed buyer personas, you’re now putting the meat on those bones, and to keep the metaphor going, creating a fully fleshed-out person that your creative team can now work with to build out messaging that connects with your prospects on a more meaningful level, increasing your chances of real engagement.

Yes, platforms like Google and Meta provide us all with excellent demographic targeting tools, but doing the deeper, research-based development of buyer personas will help you connect to your prospective franchise buyer’s personal experiences and build creative narratives that resonate emotionally with them. When your target audience associates those feelings with your specific brand, that bond becomes real, making them 10 time more likely to take those next steps from interview to application, to closed deal.

To help demonstrate, below are two buyer personas that our strategy team developed for one of our franchise clients. You can begin to see how these well-researched personas can begin informing your ad creative.

Research-informed Ad Creative

In addition to the paid-media specialists, robust, well-researched buyer personas help everyone on your creative team from copywriters to designers. A good buyer persona not only tells you where you’re targeting, but who you’re trying to communicate with. What interests them? What are their goals? What’s important to them?

From headlines to ad copy, to iconography, the more specific your franchise-lead campaign creativity can be, the more deeply it will resonate.

Lead generation marketing without proper research is literally like driving with your eyes closed. I don’t recommend it.

By doing this deeper dive into fleshing out your target customers, you can provide your entire marketing team with the tools they need to develop campaigns that resonate, showcase how and where exactly to execute those campaigns, and ensure your franchise lead campaigns can cut through the noise.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marty Menard is the President of GIANT Creative, a results-driven marketing agency serving franchise organizations across North America, whose clients include McDonald’s Canada, 241 Pizza, Coffee Time, Eggsmart, Sola Salons, to name a few. A proud CFA Member, Marty recently spoke at CFA’s Marketing Day Event.