PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Three Ways to Make Positive Online Franchise Reviews Work for Your Business
Pretzel franchise owners rely on a combination of corporate marketing and local word of mouth to build market share and revenue. While word of mouth used to flow through neighbors telling each other about a great store, it now comes largely through online reviews and social media.
The greatest franchise owners do more than wait passively to receive good reviews and hope customers read them. You can take an active role in spreading your own message, leveraging your franchise reviews as a marketing tool to help you grow. If you earn good reviews for your business, you should take steps to put yourself in a great position for the following year.
Topics of Discussion
- Use Your Pretzel Franchise Website
- Encourage More Franchise Reviews
- Use Social Media
1. When you optimize social media pages, local reviews should constitute a key aspect of your content strategy. Reviews accomplish two important goals at the same time: they help you drive local traffic to your website, and they give you a chance to interact with your customer base. You not only show that your customers love the product you provide, but you can respond and engage with those customers, helping them feel more connected to you and your business. We especially love Hyper-Local for franchise businesses, as it allows users to embed review forms right on their websites.
2. Similarly, the more you do to drive reviews, the more you can build and generate traffic to your website. Franchise reviews serve as one of the most important indicators consumers use to determine where to do business. While some review sites, such as Yelp, do not allow you to directly solicit reviews, you can still let customers know you are there and point them toward other review sites as well. You can work with your customers to generate reviews with Yelp, Foursquare, Google Places, Urbanspoon, and many others. Online reviews for your franchise tend to build exponentially; as you show some customers’ opinions about your business, others chime in with their own. All of this helps build your reputation and leads to conversions from web search hits into paying customers for your store.
3. Social media posts are most effective when they give a real insight into why someone should become a customer. The power that moving across your customers’ social networks can provide often makes the difference between mediocre sales and a strong year. You can post customer reviews on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and any other social media platforms you use. Your customers become your greatest advocates, both in the reviews themselves and in their sharing or commenting on your posts. Every time a customer gives you a positive review, that customer is giving you an opportunity to share your message and grow your customer base. The more actively you put them to work, the more opportunity you give yourself to grow.
Disclaimer: This information is not intended as an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, a franchise. It is for information purposes only. Currently, the following states regulate the offer and sale of franchises: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. If you are a resident of or want to locate a franchise in one of these states, we will not offer you a franchise unless and until we have complied with applicable pre-sale registration and disclosure requirements in your state. Franchise offerings are made by Franchise Disclosure Document only.
