Top 10 franchises for 2009

Franchise owners strongly believe in one thing; either they are receiving enough corporate support or they must take matters into their own hands. But the unfortunate truth is that the latter is always the case. In this era of budget cuts, marketing is normally the one-line item in corporate budgets. Looking at the top 10 franchises for 2009, franchises should take the bull by its horns and deploy marketing strategies in order to stay relevant in the franchise market.

There are some lessons that we can learn from the top 10 franchises 2009 that made them stand out from the rest. They include:

Create an online presence- most franchisers already have existing websites for their franchisees. They also restrict them from creating new websites as they fear brand loss. It is advisable to create your own website for marketing purposes. If your franchisor has restrictions, then ask them to create a separate landing page.

Take advantage of the social media- deploy social media like Facebook and Twitter to their benefit at least daily. Join daily conversations on these social media to sell or get new ideas about your franchise.

The other lesson we learn from the top 10 franchises 2009 is investing in online brochures. They are perfect tools especially when someone calls you to inquire about your product. Just take their email address and send them the online brochure detailing your product or service.

Online advertising is also very important as it is a great way of promoting your franchise and giving it the extra exposure to drive new leads and increase brand awareness. 

E-mail marketing is equally important as it gives you a chance to talk to your customers daily or monthly by sending them franchise newsletters as coupons of promotions.  Email is a good way of taking an already existing customer and getting them to purchase more at a much higher frequency.