Successful Franchise Marketing and the Walmart Blip!

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Let&rsquo;s face it, entire books can and have been written about marketing and sales so we will not go into much detail here.&nbsp; If you haven&rsquo;t noticed by now, everyone (and I do mean everyone) has an opinion on marketing, including me.</p>
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Putting all of the theories, fluff, opinions, and BS aside, successful franchise marketing is measured by customers spending their money in your franchisees&rsquo; stores.&nbsp; <em>No sales = no profits = no royalties = no franchise system. Period!</em></p>
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The next time you visit Walmart stop and listen for a minute. The first thing you will notice is the volume of the Point of Sale&nbsp;(POS) systems going &ldquo;blip&rdquo; every time a scan is made.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s done for a reason - it is the sound of money and that is where the rubber hits the racetrack for any business.&nbsp; At Walmart every employee is culturally focused on it.</p>
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Compared to non-franchised businesses, franchise companies have multiple channels of marketing to manage, each requiring different messaging and branding, making them a bit more complex to manage.&nbsp; The chart below illustrates these channels using the <strong>BLIP!,</strong> which denotes direct customer sales.</p>
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<strong>Franchisor Marketing Channels</strong></p>
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<strong>Channel</strong></p>
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<strong>Description</strong></p>
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<strong>BLIP!&nbsp;</strong> Franchisee Local Marketing</p>
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Marketing plansand collateral directly target customers within a franchisee&rsquo;s territory.</p>
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<strong>BLIP! </strong>Franchise System Marketing</p>
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Systemwide marketing plans and collateral typically managed in cooperation with National Marketing/Advertising Fund council.</p>
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Franchise System Branding</p>
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Cause marketing&nbsp;and social volunteer programs.</p>
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New Franchisee Recruitment</p>
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Marketing plans and collateral targeting new franchise investment partners.</p>
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If yours is not a mature franchise brand with dedicated marketing staff, balancing these channels can be difficult.&nbsp; So let me help you focus a little. Use the chart above and my previous statement &ldquo;no sales = no profits = no royalties = no franchise system&rdquo; and determine where should you be focusing most of your efforts.</p>
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This doesn&rsquo;t mean that you shouldn&rsquo;t put some focus on system branding or franchise recruitment. I am not suggesting that <strong>at all</strong>. But without generating the unit-level profits there will be no capital to fund the other initiatives.</p>
<p>
Remember the Walmart blip and continuously ask yourself and your staff, <em>&ldquo;In addition to our franchisees marketing locally for customers, what are we doing as a franchisor to help sound the POS blip at the local level?&rdquo; </em></p>
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I can guarantee you that every time you visit a Walmart and hear that sound, you will remember my point.</p>
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<p>
<span style="font-size:10px;"><em>The above is an excerpt from my new book <a href="http://www.franchisemegabrand.com/&quot; target="_blank">Five Pennies:Ten Rules to Successfully Build a Franchise Mega-Brand and Maximize System Profits</a>. Get a copy of the most talked about book in franchising: <a href="http://www.franchisemegabrand.com/&quot; target="_blank">www.FranchiseMegaBrand.com</a></em></span></p&gt;