Marketing Communications оf Your Franchise

If somebody tells you that promoting a franchise business is much more different from promoting a non-franchise business check whether it is 1 April! Of course, the local advertising of the small or medium-sized business should be a part of the established, tested and working know-how provided by the franchisor. Here, we offer you some basic principles that you can consider when planning the integrated marketing communications of the small and medium-sized business.

Target

The first and most important thing you should take into account is the preference of your target – what the people to whom your product or service is intended read or listen to. Where they like going, at what time, how they would feel after using the product and what they would like to receive from your brand. Not surprisingly the marketing concept affirms that it is better to advertise the benefits the use will receive from the product than merely the parameters of the product: “People do not buy drilling machines. They buy holes.”

Brand

Whatever advertisements or promotions you use, remember that their purpose is to develop consistently the image of your brand. For example, if your pizzeria is called Lord Tomato – the name of a famous tale character, and you want to attract the family customers, you can organise a puppet theatre presenting the most famous tales, while overexposing the eating scenes. Well, no one will stop you if you insist on sponsoring a boxing match. But the only thing in common between Lord Tomato and boxing is that at the end of the match the boxers’ faces look like pizzas but this is far from tasty.

Communication Channels

Although in the colloquial language it is accepted that “advertisement” refers to all forms of communicating a brand, advertising is just one of the marketing communication channels. Along with it, other individual communication channels are used such as: public relations, promotions, direct marketing, personal selling, Internet marketing, etc. You should know as general information that it is accepted to refer to media advertisement as “above-the-line (ATL)” and to the various events, promotions, etc. as “below-the-line (BTL)”.