Madison Marketing Group Blog

If you’re a small to mid-sized brand, competing with industry heavyweights online (and elsewhere) can seem like a virtually impossible task. Search for any popular product or service and it doesn’t take long to realize big brands have a chokehold on the basic keywords people are searching for.

Depending on what these keywords are, this big brand dominance can consume the entire front page of results and beyond.

If I were to ask what the most important page on your franchise’s company website is, I’d be willing to bet most companies would respond with either:

• “Our homepage, of course,” or
• “Our franchise landing page—that’s where visitors are converting on the site.”

While no one page is far and away more important than others on your website, one that seems to fall by the wayside all too often is the “About Us” page.

Want to reach out and present your franchise opportunity to a wider audience of prospective business owners?

This post examines a common mistake franchisors make with their paid advertising campaigns - dropping ad clickers on a bad landing page. Don't worry, we also explore how to fix it.

It’s easier than ever for businesses to design professional-level websites that fit any budget.

What’s more difficult is turning those websites into lead generation tools you can use to grow your franchise.

While great web design is essential for branding and navigation, it’s the site's content that ultimately attracts the attention of search engines and prospective franchisees eager to learn about the opportunity.

Whether you’re building a new franchise website from scratch or looking to make content improvements that push curious visitors into your sales funnel, the first step to creating a franchise content strategy is defining your ideal prospect in full detail.

How can you make sure your franchise website is ready for inbound marketing?

Oftentimes, franchisors looking to add new digital marketing tactics mistakenly believe they can simply tack on such strategies to their existing website and achieve optimal inbound marketing success.

But because inbound marketing strategies in particular work to drive targeted traffic to your website and then convert and nurture them all the way until they buy a franchise (and beyond), it is essential that your entire website is set up to enable success before you just start blogging.

This post provides a short checklist to make sure your franchise website is truly inbound-ready.

Pay per click advertising has been a go-to marketing strategy for franchisors looking to sell their opportunity for years. While it works better for some than others, one of the best things about PPC is that unlike other components of content marketing, which involve lengthy periods of planning and discovery, pay per click only requires you to know what serious buyers are searching for on search engines.

Eye-catching headlines, concise one-sentence summaries, and wisely chosen keywords can be very effective when combined with an equally attractive and compelling landing page on your company website.

In addition to being relatively straightforward, PPC can be very cost effective when done correctly. Whether you’re putting a PPC strategy together for the first time, or haven’t touched it since your first put your first campaign in place, there are a few things to be mindful of if you’re not seeing your ads gain traction.

Inbound marketing can work for franchises looking to gain traction when web leads are few and far between, but can be a challenge to implement in-house.

This post will walk through the pros and cons of taking on an inbound marketing program yourself vs. outsourcing it to a dedicated inbound marketing agency.

As a small to mid-size franchising company trying to grab leads online, you know how hard it can be to push yourself to the top of search engine results.

With prospective franchise owners turning to the web more than any other source to find the right opportunity, getting yourself noticed in search engine results is key.

Google is constantly changing the way it ranks search engine listings, but each change they make underscores a very obvious goal: Websites that stay relevant with great content get to shine at the top.

We’ve talked at length about the importance of developing a content strategy built to attract serious franchise buyers combing the web for an opportunity that speaks to them.

The second logical step in the inbound methodology is converting those interested visitors into leads you can nurture through the franchise sales process and eventually close—the final step of the inbound process.

This post will focus squarely on how to create a compelling call-to-action that will earn the clicks of your website visitors, leading them on the start of their conversion path.

What are calls-to-action and how are they used to convert potential buyers?

Simply put, calls-to-action (CTAs) are buttons or links that encourage prospects to take action. Whether it’s downloading a white paper, registering to attend a webinar to learn more about the company, or any other kind of downloadable material or contact form, just about every next step on your franchise website is prompted by strategically placed CTAs. Here's a simple example:

You’ve taken the time to build out your franchise website with a wealth of information you know will attract the serious prospects, but all of that content means very little when there’s no clear next step these buyers can take after getting interested.

I’ve talked about the first vital piece of the conversion puzzle—calls-to-action—and how in many ways, they’re the first step visitors take to becoming a lead.

Marketers have struggled to zero in on truly meaningful metrics for years. Before technology made it possible to track and analyze the performance of your marketing efforts, assessing the team’s impact on sales was extremely difficult if not impossible.

Even with all of today’s extremely powerful digital management tools, many franchisors still find themselves in the dark when it comes to metrics that matter. While it may seem trivial, looking at the wrong numbers can mean sticking to ineffective strategies or failing to realize marketing successes when they happen.

Let’s take a closer look at the wrong way to approach reporting as well as three of the most important metrics you should be paying close attention to each month.

Frustrated with a website that can’t seem to move the needle on franchise sales?

No matter which industry you’re in, marketing a franchise to prospects hungry for the right opportunity requires a unique approach.

Simply put, those who turn to the web to find and research franchisors don’t want another brochure trying to sell them on their offer. They’re looking for an opportunity that speaks to their interests both personally and professionally—a story they can relate to.

What makes your franchise stand out? If you don’t know, that’s a problem.

Why doesn't my website appear in Google Search?

For such a simple question, the answer sure is hard to nail down.

Google processes 40,000 of our searches per second worldwide, but even the most seasoned search engine optimization (SEO) experts among us can't predict how the search results are ranked any better than a coin flip.

That said, learning the basics of search engine functionality and a bit about how people use search engines will give you a better understanding of the context of the answer to your question, if not the answer itself.

Here's what we do know about Google search, and some possible answers to the question at the top of this post:

For something that can work so well, executing a B2B website content marketing campaign sure can be difficult.

First, you have to figure out to what to write about. It's easy enough to list out your most important target keywords or talk to your sales team to see what customers are asking about.

But then you have to take those ideas and convert them into content that people actually want to read, and that has a chance to make it into potential customers' search engine results.

There's also a sometimes-prohibitive time commitment involved with B2B content generation. It takes a long time to write quality content, not to mention any social promotion, ad promotion, or outreach programs that are part of your post-publishing plan.

So how can you be sure the content you're producing worth the time investment and worthy of search engine placement? These five strategies are typically where we start for our B2B clients that are new to content marketing.

The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity. - Miguel de Cervantes

I'll be the first to admit it: I'm as guilty as anyone on focusing on digital metrics that paint a pretty picture, instead of those that provide real, actionable knowledge.

It's an easy habit to fall into, especially when the knowledge to be gained may not necessarily be something your boss wants to hear.

But here's the good news: as digital marketers, we have access to a wealth of data about how prospects and customers are interacting with our digital spaces. If you can get bad data, you can get good data, too.

As search engines get better at connecting consumers' questions to companies with answers, it’s up to businesses to create the kinds of websites web-savvy consumers want to explore.

For most traffic coming to your website—especially new visitors—the homepage is your site’s front door, the gateway to the network of “rooms” that makes up your website.

Just like in the real world, no one arrives at your house only to admire the door - they want to go inside. The same is true for websites.

This post covers how to write an effective headline with tips you can apply to blog posts, articles, and social media with the intention of earning clicks and generating leads.

Writing a click-worthy title or headline is easier said than done. And generating a lead based off of that click is even more challenging. Read on to learn six things you can do to make your first impression count and keep visitors engaged.

No matter what role you play in your company, when business growth slows (or stops altogether) it’s everyone’s job to throw their hat in the ring and find a better approach.

Keeping your franchise website attractive to quality leads can take a lot of work from week to week—work that’s rarely a walk in the park.

Updating your franchise blog, compiling, designing and publishing newsletters, and promoting community involvement through social media channels can be a full-time job.

But hiring a full-time position to tackle the constant need to plan, write, edit, and publish content others are simply too busy to handle on their own sometimes just doesn’t fit into the budget.

Whether you’re in a predicament like this, or are simply looking to get the most value out of your franchise content strategy, outsourcing the work to professionals is often beneficial from just about every angle.

Let’s explore three major benefits outsourcing to an experienced digital marketing agency can provide franchisors looking to generate better franchise leads.

Inbound marketing vs. outbound marketing, via Scott Fasser at optify.net

Whether you’re a new franchise company trying to make the best initial investment possible, or an established brand looking to shift your marketing strategy to better reflect today’s market, there are a number of options available to help make the most of the resources you have.