Online Portals Continue to Drive Franchise Discovery
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 reviewed all the options? That is the role of franchise directory sites — they organize information about franchises to facilitate discovery.
According to a February 2021 survey of interested franchise seekers, online franchise opportunity directories and their associated mobile apps play an integral role in discovery and consideration during the buyer research process. This is in addition to the vital role they play in information and comparison shopping. Online portals provide:
- Exposure to the breadth of franchise categories
- options within a preferred category, and
- Introduction and consideration of franchise concepts that may not be familiar
In February, almost 72% of the respondents chose to inquire about a franchise brand with which they had very little or no familiarity prior to the portal visit — the concept was introduced during the visit. This very high percentage underscores the unique value of these directory resources in giving introduction and consideration to franchise concepts that may not be on the radar screen of prospects. The sum of “completely unfamiliar” and “vaguely familiar” responses was 71.8%.
Why might the franchise options be unfamiliar? These are among the likely reasons for an unfamiliar brand:
- Emerging franchise that has not yet established brand recognition
- Franchise with regional concentration, or lack of a national footprint to gain exposure
- Established B2B brand that is just less familiar with consumers
The “Mystery Shop” survey is conducted monthly by FranchiseInsights.com from a sample of franchise inquirers across the FranchiseVentures lead generation platform. The most recent data is from the week of February 17, 2021.
FranchiseVentures is the leading franchise lead-generation platform for potential franchisees to thousands of growing franchise systems in the United States and Canada. Its franchise lead generation brands include Franchise.com, Franchise Solutions, Franchise Gator, Franchise Opportunities, Franchise For Sale, SmallBusinessStartup.com and BusinessBroker.net, and together they provide the largest aggregation of prospective franchise buyers in the U.S.
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Published on Wednesday, March 17th, 2021.