Are you using Facebook to sell Franchises?

For nearly all Franchise Development executives with whom I’ve spoken this year, the answer is “Sure!”  Less than 2 two years ago, the answer was, “Why?”

I have recently spoken to several groups about Social Media and Franchising including the International Franchise Association Convention 2016,  FLDC in Atlanta, and IFA’s Women’s Franchise Network in Chicago.  At these events, the subject that attendees keep coming back to is Facebook Custom Audience Targeting for franchise development.

Custom Audience Targeting allows you to upload a database of email addresses and then serve up Facebook ads to only those people. While Facebook won’t open the floodgate of targeting your prospects by name, it will match the person’s email address from your list to a Facebook user profile.

Here are step-by-step instructions on uploading your email list to Facebook Custom Audience Targeting.

An Easy Touchpoint for Your Prospects

While consumer marketers have been taking advantage of this capability for nearly as long as there have been ads on Facebook, many franchise marketers have not yet discovered it. Most franchisors are focused on creating awareness with larger audiences based on demographics. They’re missing an easy touchpoint with their leads and candidates who could be engaged in a place where they are easy to reach.

And REACHING them is what it’s really all about! This isn’t about finding people who you never knew existed. It’s about not discovering a whole new species of humanoid who wants to be a franchisee. This is about getting in front of your candidates where they already live.

The average American adult spends nearly 7 hours per week on Facebook. Insert yourself and your brand into those hours among the political memes, game highlights, family photos, and cat videos.

Multiple Stages, Multiple Messages

If your email database is updated and well-managed, you can serve messages appropriate for every stage in your sales funnel. One message may be great for an old lead that faded away a while back. A very different message may fit a candidate further along in the pipeline. The more narrowed-down your target audience, the more relevant your message, and the more efficient your ad spend!

A Unique Marketing Opportunity for Franchising

Franchise Development is different than other Business-To-Business sales types in that prospects and leads use their home or personal email addresses on whatever submission forms brought those email addresses into your database. This is perfect for Facebook Customer Audience Targeting, as most people sign up with Facebook using their personal email address.  Selling other business services can be challenging using this method, as most B2B sales pros have prospects’ work email addresses, not the ones that match Facebook’s database. In this way, as in many other ways, Fran Dev is much more like B2C selling in the digital world.