About 12,000 new franchises are opened a year in the United States.

The majority of these new locations have opened because of the strategies corporate brands are using to recruit new franchisees and attract leads.

They’re getting really, really good at it.

However, a massive skills gap exists in the lead generation market. This is why a significant chunk of these 12,000 locations are going to the brands that have franchisee lead generation figured out. The franchise lead generation skills gap stems from the simple fact that traditional advertising vehicles (portals, print advertising, PR, and broker networks) do not work as effectively as they did 5 years ago.

But this shouldn’t be news to anyone. Companies slowly have jumped shipped and moved digital. Now, it’s fairly common for PPC (pay per click) and SEO (search engine optimization) to be in the arsenal of franchise brands to use in acquiring new franchisees.

Here’s what a traditional sales funnel looks like.

It captures the basics; you pull in your target audience through online tactics like PPC and SEO, and ideally they will take action. But these strategies alone cannot bring in new leads and convert them effectively.

But this sales funnel setup is leaky, unproven, and doesn’t inspire trust.

Here’s what a more refined sales funnel looks like.

Leads and potential franchisees should be interacting with your brand at multiple points, and it takes different marketing strategies to pull in a lead and convert them.

Ask yourself these questions:

This sales funnel for franchisee leads covers each one of these questions. By matching the right tactic to the right point in the sales funnel and doing tests to constantly improve the method, it is possible to answer each one of these questions with a “yes”.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an emerging or an established brand, you need leads to further your business growth. Industry data shows that every 100 quality leads on average turns into a new franchise, at an average cost of $11,000.

And every year, the average spend on this effort per franchise brand is just shy of $200,000 by franchises at large. Of course, the variation between what is average and what is reality per business is massive because of the skills difference when it comes to acquiring new franchisee leads.

So, you’re looking for a new marketing vendor for your franchise business and you’re not just looking to get by, but really make an impact – talk to us here.