Leading provider of preschool music and singing classes, Jo Jingles, shares advice to all new franchisees who want to get off to a strong start in marketing their business.
Buying a franchise usually comes with the benefit of a Head Office Support Team that includes a fully functioning marketing programme, nationwide advertising and the brand reputation that comes with it, but ultimately you and only you are in control of your business and its success.
To truly flourish in your area, you must always develop your own local marketing strategy from the outset so if you’re new to marketing, follow these ten tips to get yourself off to a flying start.
- Know your who your customer is
- Understand the big picture – consider your customer timeline
- Claim your Google business listing
- Use the branding collateral available from your franchisor
- Create a seasonal content & social media planner that appeals to your customers
- Lead management – understand the importance of timely communications
- Provide consistently excellent customer service
- Don’t forget ‘offline’ activities
- Encourage referrals to spread the word
- Remember your competition
- Know your who your customer is
This might sound obvious, but it’s amazing how often people advertise in the wrong place because they’ve lost sight of who they’re trying to reach. Build a picture of your ideal customer, give them a name, draw them on a piece of paper with a funny face and keep them in the front of your mind when considering any new marketing activity for your business. Know their interests, what they look like, where they shop, how much they earn, do they have children? The more specific you can get with this customer profiling exercise, the more targeted and ultimately successful your marketing activity will be.
- Understand the big picture – consider your customer timeline
Put yourself in your customers shoes to understand the journey they will have with your business. How will they find you? How will they contact you? How can they access your products and services? How can they leave feedback? Consider all the possible points and ways they might need to interact with you before, during and after they are your customer so you can make each touch point as positive as possible.
- Claim your Google listing
Google My Business is the central hub to manage how your business appears on Google Search and Maps and is highly recommended for businesses targeting local customers in specific areas. Create a Google account and claim your Google business listing as soon as you can for a FREE powerful marketing tool that will help customers find you.
- Use the branding collateral available from your franchisor
The beauty of joining an established brand is that marketing collateral such as imagery, ads, business stationery and social media artwork will already exist. Don’t waste time trying to create this yourself, stay on brand and keep things professional by asking your head office team for help with any artwork or merchandising needs you have.
- Create a seasonal content & social media planner
Setting up a content plan doesn’t have to be complicated, but it will save you hours in the long run so it’s well worth investing a day to get this right. Pay attention to seasonal trends, festivals and events that are of interest to and popular with your customers then build a plan spanning the year for the marketing emails, PR activity, social media posts, events and blog articles you will create around them. Don’t forget to pay attention to any national campaigns your franchisor is running as you will be expected to participate in those locally too.
- Lead management – Understand the importance of timely communications Â
Every customer journey starts with a call, email or face to face meeting. You should work to make those first few conversations as positive and effective as possible, so they don’t go elsewhere. Set expectations, meet them, and make sure you’re easy to get hold of. Set up an out of office if you’re not able to answer emails immediately, set up a professional voice mail and always have business cards or flyers with your contact details to hand when meeting potential customers.Â
- Provide consistently excellent service
Great communication and people skills are key to running a successful business. Whether it’s the first or last customer of the day, whether you’re at your desk or running errands, you need to be able to provide each customer who contacts your business with the same level of consistency in the service you provide. Set up email templates, auto responders, follow up calls, emails, invoices, thank you notes and testimonial requests in advance.
- Don’t forget ‘offline’ activities
In a world seemingly governed by Facebook and Instagram, it can be easy to forget there are real people out there! Make time to set up introductory meetings with local venues and people that could introduce you to future customers in your area. People buy into people, so having a face to face meeting over a cup of tea could be worth far more to your business success than 1000 Facebook posts.
- Encourage referrals to spread the word
Word of mouth and recommendations will always be one of the most powerful marketing tools you have. Send a gentle reminder to customers that will nudge them to leave a review on Google or Facebook to spread the word about how great you are at what you do. Don’t forget to add these reviews to your website too!
- Remember the competition
Ultimately your focus is your business, but it pays to keep one eye on the competition. Make sure you know what direct competitors are operating in your local area. Understand what they do well and where you can provide a better customer experience so you can capitalise on this with your business and marketing plans.
Finally, it’s natural to feel overwhelmed when starting a new business so don’t be afraid to stop at any point to take a breath and remember all the reasons why you wanted to start your own business in the first place. If you keep believing in yourself and the brand you have bought into, you can achieve the rewarding career you dreamed of.
Jo Jingles has a dedicated Head Office Support Team including Marketing that provides all the training and guidance you need to set up and make a success of your new business, making it the perfect franchise partner for those wanting to work with children in a musical setting.
Jo Jingles has been providing music, singing and movement experience classes for babies and pre-school children from three months to five years of age for over 25 years. With nationwide sessions in more than 700 centres across the UK and Ireland and with over 75 franchisees, Jo Jingles offers well-established, structured classes that are fun, interactive and educational for little ones.
