Using the tools of data science and proprietary data from individuals exploring franchises and businesses for sale, along with website analytics and direct surveys, we identify best practices for franchise development teams and franchise lead generation.
Norfolk, VA, May 10, 2023 – Research shows that only a fraction of franchise prospects are likely to return your call before receiving an introductory email from you. In an April 2023 survey, only 12.9% of respondents are “very likely,” and another 22.6% say they are “likely” to take a cold call. The traditional “call first” approach will likely lead to your frustration with at least a third of franchise leads.
March 15, 2023 – Aspiring business owners talking with franchise sales teams were largely satisfied with their experience, according to recent mystery shopping surveys over the last six months ending in February 2023. Almost half (48.7%) said they were either “satisfied” or “very satisfied”, and only 12.4% said they were “unsatisfied” or “very unsatisfied.”
January 18, 2023 – Analyzing our content viewed over the past year, we developed a “Top Ten” list of the most popular topics among our insights in 2022 based on the readership of articles in topic categories. Along with each topic, ranked in descending popularity, are a few key and most recent articles that address each particular subject.
By: Franchise Insights December 21, 2022 — If U.S. adults are spending almost 46 minutes a day on TikTok, surpassing even YouTube, why not advertise there? Have you experienced it yourself, or watched someone mindlessly scrolling TikTok videos? Meanwhile, Instagram and YouTube are falling all over themselves trying to tap into the demand for TikTok-like …
November 30, 2022 – Consistently, most franchise prospects (38.5%) prefer to be emailed for an initial contact with a franchise they have chosen, according to the monthly “mystery shopping” survey by FranchiseInsights.com in November 2022. But 36.5% indicated a preference for a phone call over a text for initial contact this month. Further, in all …
Norfolk, VA, November 22, 2022 – The percentage of franchise prospects who are very likely to return your call before receiving an introductory email has reached an all-time low. In November, only 1.92% of respondents are “very likely,” and another 21.2% say they are “likely” to take a cold call. That means about 23.1% are …
October 19, 2022 — A substantial flow of leads to franchise development sites comes from prospects originating on portal websites that are used to acquire franchise leads. In a recent article, we quantified from user surveys that 70% of prospects submitting an inquiry subsequently visited the franchise website, with 41% of those also submitting a …
September 28, 2022 — Franchise marketers using the data on keywords that converted to visitors to tune their paid search programs suffered significant signal loss on September 1, 2022 when Google stopped providing this data in its Analytics products “to meet a higher privacy threshold.” What does this mean for franchise lead generation through pay …
August 31, 2022 – Most franchise prospects (55.3%) prefer to be emailed for an initial contact with a franchise they have chosen, according to the monthly “mystery shopping” survey by FranchiseInsights.com in July 2022. Further, in all but two of the 30 monthly surveys by FranchiseInsights.com over the last three years, email was the clear …
August 24, 2022 — A minority (6.2%) of aspiring franchise owners are already “very familiar” with the franchises they inquire about, and another 20.8% are “already somewhat familiar” with them, according to surveys of interested franchise seekers to portal sites collected from May through July 2022. They come to franchise directory sites for the convenience …
August 17, 2022 – In July 2022, an improved 60% of inquirers to franchises reported that they were contacted by “all of the franchises they inquired to,” just below the average rate of 61.3% seen over the last twelve months. Those who reported being contacted by “none of” the franchises at seven days after inquiry …
July 20, 2022 — Since we last wrote about the decline in Facebook (Meta) Lead Generation, three more months of data show that the situation may have stabilized for franchise lead generation advertisers now one year after Apple’s iOS 14.5 release, though at substantially higher costs and lower lead volumes. If you have found your …
June 29, 2022 – Since the introduction of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) features with the September 21, 2022 release of iOS 15, email marketers have been scrambling to adjust their marketing processes and expectations to the changes. While a comprehensive response is beyond the scope of this article, we are attempting a high-level summary …
June 15, 2022 – Most franchise prospects (45.8%) prefer to be emailed for the initial contact with a franchise they have chosen, according to the monthly “mystery shopping” survey by FranchiseInsights.com in June 2022. Further, in all but two of the 29 monthly surveys by FranchiseInsights.com over the last three years, email was the clear …
June 8, 2022 — A minority (6.4%) of aspiring franchise owners are already “very familiar” with the franchises they inquire about, and another 23% are “somewhat familiar” to them according to surveys of interested franchise seekers to portal sites collected January through May 2022. They likely come for the convenience of comparisons in one place, …
May 18, 2022 — Since February 2022 when we last wrote about the decline in Facebook (Meta) Lead Generation after Apple’s iOS 14.5 release, three more months of data show that advertisers for lead generation shouldn’t expect results to improve any time soon. Meta’s own CFO estimates that consumers opting out of tracking will cost …
May 11, 2022 – In April 2022, only 53.2% of inquirers to franchises reported that they were contacted by “all of the franchises they inquired to”, just above the 53.1% lowest rate seen in April 2021, but far below the average rate of 61.3% seen over the last twelve months. Fortunately, those who reported being …
February 23, 2022 — If you have not heard about the $300 billion drop in the market value in Meta Platforms (formerly known as Facebook), perhaps it is because you have had to work double-time to mitigate the volume dip and effective cost of franchise leads to achieve your franchise system growth goals. The introduction …
February 16, 2022 — The percentage of prospects inquiring about franchises and businesses for sale who cited email or text as their first choice for initial contact was dead even in February 2022, in a departure from recent months, and largely due to a dip in the preference for email compared to January. In addition, …
February 8, 2022 – In January 2022, 57.6% of inquirers to franchises reported that they were contacted by “all of the franchises they inquired to.” On the other hand, those who reported being contacted by “none of them” dropped to a recent low of 15.4%, according to results from the FranchiseInsights.com monthly Mystery Shopping survey. …
December 28, 2021 — Aspiring owners say that they are most likely to respond to an email as the initial contact about a franchise they are interested in according to the December 2021 “mystery shopping” survey by FranchiseInsights.com. But in a reversal of the trend seen in the first half of 2021, prospects now …
December 16, 2021 — In a dramatic recovery, employment in the U.S. reached 95.8% in November, as the unemployment rate dropped to 4.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Indexed to January 2020 before the pandemic emerged, November employment at 95.8% was back to 99.4% of the employment rate seen in January 2020 (96.4%). …
October 13, 2021 — Over the past few years, paid Facebook advertising has become an attractive source of paid franchise leads for development teams, given its broad reach and extensive targeting options. But 2021 has become a challenging year for this resource. On Monday, October 4th beginning just before 12 pm Eastern time, Facebook and …
UPDATED: How Google and Apple Privacy Initiatives Are Likely to Impact Franchise Lead Generation September 29, 2021 — Google issued an updated timeline for their previously announced sunset of third party cookies. Instead of being sunset by 2022, Google will prevent cookies from being collected in the second half of 2023. The reason given was …
September 15, 2021 – When you’re looking for information on an unfamiliar subject, you might “Google it.” But what if you don’t know what you are looking for, or what criteria to use to compare the choices, or what options are available in a geography or category or price range? How do you satisfy yourself …
August 11, 2021 — A majority of aspiring owners say that they are most likely to respond to an email as the initial contact about a franchise in the July 2021 “mystery shopping” survey by FranchiseInsights.com. Text messaging was second in order of preference for initial contact, followed by a voice call when respondents were …
June 30, 2021 – Apple launched a “Silence Unknown Callers” feature in its September, 2019 launch of iOS 13, but the April 26, 2021 release of iOS 14.5 featured prompts to set it up when viewing the “recent” call list as seen in the graphic above. This development means that many consumers are not going …
April 28, 2021 — In January 2020, Google announced that by 2022 its Chrome web browser would no longer allow sites’ collection of 3rd party user tracking “cookies.” Cookies are unique identifiers tied to a browser that track a user’s web behavior across the web and report that data back to the owner of the …
April 21, 2021 –The highest percentage ever of aspiring owners seeing information about franchises cited text messaging as their preferred channel for initial contact in an April survey by FranchiseInsights.com. Almost a third chose follow-up by text (32.6%), edging out “voice” at 30.2% of respondents asked to rank voice, email and text. Likely contributing to …
March 17, 2021 – If you’re looking for information on a topic, you “Google it.” But what if you don’t know what you are looking for, or what criteria to use to compare the choices, or what options are available in a geography or category or price range? How do you satisfy yourself that you’ve …
March 3, 2021 – One thing that the pandemic hasn’t changed is the desire of franchise prospects to have some form of initial contact prior to receiving an incoming phone call. Tip #1 – Send an email or text to make initial contact Consumers have taken measures to block or silence callers whose numbers are …
Jan. 13, 2021 – Potential business buyers who contact franchises to explore ownership are three times more likely to leave a mobile for contact than a traditional landline number. That’s a good thing for franchise development teams – it opens up new communication channels with texting as well as voice calls, and numerous industry reports …
December 29, 2020 – While the Internet offers great convenience for prospective business owners to research and contact franchisors at any hour of any day, it also creates a challenge for franchise development teams who want to respond to those prospects in a timely fashion. And a new analysis of the largest pool of franchise-investment …
TCPA and DNC Regulations Trip Franchise Development Teams If You Call or Text Franchise Leads, Please Read This December 11, 2020 – On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments (transcript here) over the definition of an autodialer, specifically whether the “definition of ATDS in the TCPA encompasses any device that can …
November 25, 2020 – Usually we use this space to share unique, proprietary data about franchise and business buyers, but today’s insight is to give thanks for the entrepreneurial and heroic accomplishments of the people and institutions that make our economy grow. We are thankful for the millions of entrepreneurs each year who begin the …
If You Call or Text Franchise Leads, Please Read This November 20, 2020 – Usually we use this space to share unique, proprietary data about franchise and business buyers, but today’s proprietary data insight is that a lack of knowledge around the regulatory requirements for communicating with prospects is pervasive in the franchise and business opportunity …
April 24, 2020 – According to an April 2020 survey of interested franchise buyers, online franchise opportunity directories and their associated mobile apps play an integral role not only as a tool for comparison shopping, but also for discovery and consideration of less familiar franchises. Over 79% of prospective buyers chose to submit an inquiry …
April 16, 2020 – According to a survey of interested franchise buyers, more development teams are following through with each inquiry and attempting to make contact. In April, 59.6% report being contacted by every one of the one or more franchises to which they inquired. This is all the more important, considering that almost 43% …
March 5, 2020 Tip #1 Send an email or text to make initial contact Given the unwanted robocalls that we all get, don’t we ignore phone calls from numbers we don’t recognize? Prospects want some kind of introduction to know more about your franchise before calling you or taking your call. In a 2020 survey …
Norfolk, Virginia, February 7, 2020 — Franchise Ventures released a new tool to help franchise development teams improve early engagement with prospective franchisees. The Franchise Insights mobile app makes it easier to quickly respond to new prospects, and helps unify each prospect conversation across phone, email and text. “The mobile app helps franchise development teams …
Feb. 1, 2019 – What’s smarter than a smartphone? Two smart phones – yours, and the one in the hands of the local entrepreneur who wants to know more about owning one of your franchises. In less than a decade, smart phones connected to the Internet have skyrocketed to become the No. 1 channel for …
Jan. 29, 2019 – If you’re an emerging franchise, making the leap from an owned-and-operated business to the franching model, you’ve got a tough task. Your first few sales are based on the promise of your concept, not a track record in serving franchisees. Fortunately, many prospective franchisees are looking for ground-floor opportunity, and may …
Nov. 20, 2018 – So you want to grow your business – don’t we all? Internet marketing changes the franchise funnel, starting long before anyone talks on the phone or reads a contract. Industry consultant Art Coley sees a critical path he calls the pre-engagement phase, when a potential franchisee moves from being possibly interested …
Oct. 8, 2018 – With a growing economy, savvy franchisors expect that competition will increase – not just for customers, but also for franchisees to own new locations. Forbes offers five timely tips for recruiting franchise owners, starting with “Profile your all-star candidate” – read more in Forbes