Multi-location businesses are a diverse group. They operate under varying ownership models, and while there are many similarities, there are also differences in their respective marketing strategies. Whether franchise- or corporate-owned, both models have unique challenges and opportunities to them, and both require a careful approach to keep growth consistent while maintaining the integrity of the brand.
This article looks closely at the nuances of marketing for these two ownership models, focusing on strategies that scale, but also work well in local markets.
For private equity stakeholders, as well as CMOs and operational leaders, understanding these important yet subtle quirks can make the difference in how successful you are in your marketing efforts.
The Core Differences: Franchise vs. Corporate-Owned Models
Here’s a brief breakdown of how these two operational approaches differ in the way marketing operations are managed.
Franchise Model: A Decentralized Approach
Franchise models strongly favor local autonomy. Franchisees have the flexibility to adjust their marketing to their specific markets. Here’s how it usually works:
- Franchisees almost always operate their locations independently, and they make decisions about their local marketing while adhering to major brand guidelines.
- Marketing budgets, and responsibilities, are usually shared between the franchisor and franchisee. Local teams manage a large portion of the on-the-ground work.
- The flexibility in local adaptation lets marketing campaigns be customized to each specific community.
Corporate-Owned Model: Centralized Consistency
On the other hand, corporate-owned businesses have a far more unified strategy, with centralized control. Strong brand consistency and operational efficiency are two of the hallmarks of the corporate-owned model:
- In a corporate-owned structure, the central team has complete control over the marketing strategy, which allows for very solid brand consistency across every location.
- Marketing budgets, campaigns, and the creative direction are all centrally managed, with minimal to no input from the location administration.
- This corporate-owned model takes advantage of ‘economies of scale,’ using a more unified approach to their marketing to work more efficiently.
Strategic Challenges
While each model has its strengths, there are also marketing and operational challenges in both types of business structures:
Challenges Franchise-Owned Models Face
- Maintaining Brand Integrity
Franchisees usually stray more often from brand guidelines, and this can cause inconsistent customer experiences. With local teams doing the majority of the work, it’s much easier for there to be a disconnect somewhere in the chain. - Resource Gaps
Franchisees typically have limited or no marketing expertise and/or budgets, which can hurt their ability to run strong marketing campaigns. Without expert professionals and dry powder to invest in marketing, it becomes difficult to consistently attract new customers through proven marketing channels. - Communication Barriers
Many times there are differences in priorities between franchisors and franchisees. Unless these are managed properly, there can be inefficiencies in marketing that will hurt growth.
Challenges for Corporate-Owned Models
- Lack of Local Insight
A centralized corporate structure can sometimes be too ‘high-level,’ and risks overlooking the important local nuances that make campaigns work, and feel personal and relatable to local communities. - Scaling Across Regions
Creating campaigns that work equally well in different markets is not easy. It requires good project management, and the ability to balance national consistency with local relevance. When local managers are not as involved, as compared to the franchise model, it can require more effort to scale quickly. - Budget Constraints
Stretching a single marketing budget over multiple locations can dilute the impact of campaigns, resulting in fewer overall conversions and diminished new customer acquisition rates.
Strategies for Success: Franchise-Owned Models
Franchise-owned businesses need a more delicate balance, when it comes to brand consistency and local adaptation. For success, you need to give franchisees the right tools and guidance, and communicate with them to make sure they’re staying on-brand. With the right resources and support, they’ll have much more success in their marketing efforts, while they more easily stay aligned with the brand.
1. Empower Franchisees with Tools and Resources
Franchisees need the right resources to make campaigns more effective. This includes:
- Marketing Playbooks: Give detailed guides to your franchisees, with templates, tone and messaging best practices, and visual elements like logos and images for on-brand campaigns. The amount of material you give them, and how well you support them, will directly contribute to how well their local marketing efforts come together.
- Offer Training: Host training with your teams, in areas like digital marketing, local SEO, and social media, so they can make more informed decisions. When your local administration and management understand how marketing works, they’ll instinctively make better decisions.
- Co-Op Advertising Funds: Support local efforts by matching your franchisee’s contributions for advertising budgets with your own funds. Your success is their success, after all. With a budget for proper advertising, their efforts will have much more of an impact in each of their local markets.
2. Strike a Balance Between Control and Flexibility
Supporting your franchisees with marketing playbooks, guides, templates, and media is an excellent start. But true success comes when you find the sweet spot between giving them the freedom to make changes locally and maintaining the consistency that makes your brand what it is.
- Pre-Approved Campaigns: Provide your teams with ready-to-use assets that can be locally customized and adjusted to different markets.
- Localized Promotions: Allow franchisees to tweak campaigns for inclusion in community events, or to meet local needs.
- Approval Portals: Put a streamlined process in place for franchisees to submit marketing material to for quick brand compliance approval.
- Data Sharing: Share national and regional marketing data with your franchisees to help them make decisions about local marketing strategies, including things like audience insights, and campaign performance metrics and benchmarks.
3. Put Strong Communication Channels in Place
Strong communication is the foundation of a truly effective franchise marketing strategy. When management, regional leaders, and franchisees have a way to openly share information, campaigns perform better and franchisees feel much more supported. Here’s how successful franchise teams keep communication on track:
- Regular Check-Ins: Schedule recurring one-on-one and group meetings to review challenges, share the latest updates, and discuss ideas and results. These meetings help build trust – and they also give your franchisees a chance to bring up concerns or ask questions.
- Collaborative Tools: Consider adopting a communication platform for your teams, like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Asana. These platforms allow you to really streamline communication, and you can share resources and track progress on your campaigns in real time.
- Franchisee Feedback Loops: Get a system in place to receive feedback from franchisees. Consider quarterly surveys, or even the creation of dedicated communication channels (perhaps in Slack, or Teams). This lets them know you’re hearing their input – and you can adjust strategies based on on-the-ground information they might have.
Strategies for Success: Corporate-Owned Models
Corporate-owned businesses have the advantage of centralization, to be sure, but they still have to work hard to make sure campaigns are effective at the local level. Success is highly dependent upon how well your team can combine consistent and scalable strategies with the local information and relevance to actually have an impact.
1. Invest in Data-Driven Marketing
Deep data is one of the biggest advantages in the centralized model. Your marketing team can analyze performance across locations quickly, and adjust campaigns on the fly to get better results or capture an emerging opportunity. When you’ve got dozens – or even hundreds – of locations to make decisions for, the ability to rely on good, solid data rather than gut instincts (or the piecemeal insights of 100 different franchisees) is invaluable for managing your marketing effectively. Here are a few ways you can make it easier:
- Predictive Analytics: With predictive analytics you can use historical data to identify locations that have the highest potential for growth, for example. Armed with this info, you might: allocate more budget to those locations if they’re currently underfunded.
- Performance Dashboards: Create dashboards with tools like Looker Studio or Agency Analytics to track your key metrics (ROI, customer acquisition costs, etc.). These visual dashboards let teams easily pick out regions that need help, and make quick adjustments.
Pro Tip: Don’t stop at tracking results! Make sure your teams know how to act on what they’re uncovering. Host regular training and workshops to teach them how to use the data effectively.
2. Enhance Local Relevance Without Sacrificing Consistency
Even though corporate-owned models excel because of their centralized control, local campaigns are what truly brings in customers. The trick here is in creating campaigns that feel personal, without sacrificing the identity of the brand.
- Regional Campaign Variations: Adjust your messaging and media to try to reflect the culture or preferences of a specific region. Here’s an example: a corporate-owned dermatology network might focus on promoting their acne and skincare treatments in more urban markets that have younger demographics, but at the same time emphasize their anti-aging services or skin cancer screenings in more senior-heavy regions, like the suburbs.
- Dynamic Ad Customization: Use automation tools to dynamically add location-specific details into ads – things like addresses, phone numbers, or offers. With the built-in toolsets within the more popular ad platforms, you don’t need to manually adjust each campaign. This lets you efficiently and consistently serve ads that are relevant to local audiences, without losing sleep over it.
3. Streamline Operational Alignment
Collaboration between corporate teams and local managers is a very big part of making sure your campaigns succeed on the ground.
- Collaborate with Local and Regional Managers: Local and regional managers know a lot more about the specifics of their markets than you do – so involve them early in the planning process, and make sure they know the overall goals of the marketing efforts. This will keep your campaigns grounded, and they won’t overstep the operational realities of your local markets and branches.
- Pilot Campaigns: Before you roll out new initiatives on the national scale, it pays to thoroughly test them in a few select regions with a pilot campaign. Don’t launch a large-scale campaign without first troubleshooting issues, refining your messaging, and gathering some preliminary data. Your major rollouts will be more effective because of it.
Pro Tip: Use pilot campaigns as a way to involve your local teams. When regional or local managers see that their own feedback is being taken into consideration in the company’s larger initiatives, they’ll be more invested in the campaign’s (and the company’s) success. No-brainer!
Corporate-owned models definitely have the advantages of scale and consistency, but this only pays off when you make sure you’re always keeping local relevance at the forefront of your strategy.
Use data to adjust and refine your strategies, adapt your campaigns to fit the regions they serve, and make sure you keep communication channels with the local team wide open – do this, and you’ll have created a marketing system that can scale effectively.
Why This Matters for Multi-Location Marketing
For businesses that operate across multiple locations, whether they’re franchise- or corporate-owned, knowing the subtle differences of marketing in each model is very important. Each comes with its own strengths and challenges, and setting up your marketing strategy the right way can make the difference between struggling to keep up and scaling the business successfully.
Franchise models shine when the franchisees have the tools and support they need. Corporate-owned models, however, benefit a lot more from streamlined workflows, systems, and centralized control. This gives them the room for efficient, large-scale campaign execution. But no matter which model you’re operating under, balancing consistency with flexibility is the must-have to succeed.
