Content marketing is the way of the future, and it’s become an essential piece of most successful marketing strategies for franchise businesses.
Here’s a look at 10 common mistakes franchise businesses need to avoid in content marketing, and tips on how to avoid them.
1. Not setting goals. If you don’t set out knowing what you want to achieve, you won’t know when you’ve gotten there. As in all aspects of good marketing, successful content marketing for your franchise business needs to be clear and have measurable goals.
2. Not having a plan. Likewise, purposeful and effective content follows a set plan. Know your audience and their needs, and develop your content marketing plan accordingly. Identify what’s important to your franchise leads – news on the latest franchises, franchise funding options, or explanations of key industry terms like absentee ownership.
3. Lack of attention to distribution. No matter how interesting the franchise content you’ve created might be, your strategy will fail if you’re not distributing it the right way. Plan to distribute your content through a variety of channels. Don’t be afraid to test new channels, if they prove successful. You want a wide distribution for your franchise content, but you do not want to waste time on channels where no one is listening.
4. Posting infrequently. The more regularly your franchise business publishes content, the greater a return on it you’ll see. You should be posting content at least several times per month, and your publishing should be consistent.
5. Lack of purpose. It’s not enough for someone to simply read your content; to build your franchise business, you must get them to take action. Purposeful content includes a call to action that drives a franchise lead back to your website to explore all of your franchise services.
6. Not maximizing SEO. Don’t overload your content with keywords; it will likely turn readers off and search engines like Google may punish you for it. A little research can help you determine the best keywords that will work for your franchise business while keeping content quality high.
7. Undervaluing visuals. Don’t neglect to add some visual interest to grab attention. Pictures, videos and infographics add to your content and help make the layout more visually appealing.
8. Lack of media variety. Your content feed shouldn’t simply be a list of links. Mix it up a bit to keep things interesting for your audience. Incorporate video, memes, and other media trends into different posts to maintain variety.
9. Undervaluing quality. It’s true that quantity of posts is important to build your brand through content marketing. However, your franchise content should be high quality, or readers won’t be coming back for more.
10. Being too promotional. Yes, you want to convert franchise leads. However, your audience is likely less interested in buying initially than they are in getting information – that’s why people search the internet, after all. Include informational content as well as posts that are promotional.
