When you opt for franchising, you can extend your business plans and execute them at multiple locations without the burden of running them yourself. This means you get the best of both worlds, and the franchising business model works well for both franchisors and franchisees.
However, every business is under pressure to manage its brand, grow, handle crises, and up its visibility. This is particularly true if you are a franchisor, and these are the aspects in which a good PR firm can assist you.
A well-established PR firm can effectively get your business more attention than you ever could on your own. Maintaining a good digital marketing campaign and creating a solid online presence are some of the best ways to improve brand visibility and increase and profitability. But managing all of this own your own can be challenging and involves some expertise. When you hire a PR firm, it becomes their responsibility to pitch new story ideas, manage your business reputation, and build relationships.
Even a minor incident at one of your outlets can result in significant damage to your brand as a whole. For instance, a misleading post on social media or an accident at one of the stores will cause your existing customers and the public to question your policies and other operations.
Social media use it at an all-time high. Customers share their negative experiences and dissatisfaction in real time via social media platforms if they have had a dis-satisfactory experience at a store, retail outlet, restaurant etc. This has a negative impact on your brand. Besides, poor online reviews and damaging news stays on the internet for several years.
It means that even though the incident may have occurred a long time ago, the report will still show up in search results years down the line. Reversing these effects can take a long time, and the ripple effect of these negative reviews can affect your brand image and credibility in the long term.
However, you can easily prevent these incidents from taking place by monitoring your image, online as well as offline. Effective crisis communication and the right reputation management techniques can help you get through these situations, without sustaining irreparable damage to your brand.
Protecting your brand image is crucial to growing your franchise. A PR firm can help you achieve customer and brand loyalty by using comprehensive monitoring and measuring tools.
Positive news coverage boosts your visibility and makes it much easier to turn potential customers into solid leads. A reputable and well-established PR firm knows which markets are perfect, and the publications that can successfully help you reach your target audience. Positive news coverage acts as a third-party endorsements of your brand and message. Research states that PR efforts have a significant impact on close rates for franchisor.
The more success franchisors have, the larger the number of franchisees drawn towards the brand/franchisor/concept. A good PR firm by your side can also help current franchisees boost their image and sales. Simply knowing that such a resource is available, makes them more confident about joining your franchise network.
Even though it’s impossible to make negative reviews disappear, an experienced PR firm can efficiently push these down the search result page, so they aren’t easily noticeable. They do this by posting positive news and information about your brand, products, and services.
A reputed PR firm will first find all the perfect angles and only then talk about your story. They will position your business in such a way that it effectively takes full advantage of opportunities that boost your recognition.
If you want to know more, feel free to get in touch with us at The Franchise Institute. You can call us on 1300 855 435 or fill in this contact us form and we’ll reply as soon as we can.
Thanks for reading,
The Franchise Institute Team
1300 855 435
