Few business owners are content with establishing their small businesses in their local markets and calling it a day. Most are trying to grow their businesses, open new franchises, and increase their profits. This can pose certain challenges when it comes to marketing.
Small businesses turn into mid-sized businesses then branch out into franchises thanks in part to marketing and, more specifically, branding. It can be difficult to scale that brand effectively, though. That’s where a Franchise Marketing Portal comes in.
What is a Marketing Portal?
A marketing portal is an online space where franchise owners and members of their marketing teams can access brand assets. This allows them to ensure that any marketing content being created and distributed is in keeping with the established brand.
With a Franchise Marketing Portal, corporate marketing teams can allow franchise owners and employees more freedom to personalize their marketing assets without straying too far from the established brand. Franchise owners and their marketing teams can simply access all the print and marketing resources they need via the online portal and print them off. This way they don’t have to worry about inventory and distribution.
Who Uses Marketing Portals?
A variety of industries use this essential online tool. Retail stores, restaurants, dealer networks, and distributed sales forces can all benefit from using a marketing portal. In fact, just about any franchised business needs to have a Franchise Marketing Solution in place.
Functions and Features
A well-designed market portal will offer everything franchise owners need to create marketing campaigns for their businesses. Features should include print and digital asset management, email creation and distribution, automated and multi-channel marketing campaign creation, flexible customization options, and API integration. Together these features allow franchise employees and marketing experts to access approved, properly-branded materials for creating their own well-designed campaign.
The Benefits of Marketing Portals for Franchises
Every franchise needs a fundamentally scalable way to reach new audiences and attract attention to their growing businesses without sacrificing brand integrity. Without a Franchise Marketing Portal, this involves a good deal of wasted time and frustration. With a marketing portal, accessing branded marketing materials is simple.
Completely Scalable
The larger companies get, the more difficult it can be to maintain consistent branding across all locations. A marketing portal offers business owners the means of creating effective Franchise local marketing campaigns that support the company’s global business capabilities instead of contradicting other existing marketing material. After all, today’s customers are looking for consistency and coherence, so every touchpoint needs to be on-brand and completely up-to-date.
Save on Internal Resources
Online portals can help corporate marketing teams can save on internal resources. They can reduce the number of requests for one-time-use branded materials by branch offices, sales teams, and partners without increasing the risk of improperly branded materials reaching customers. Individual franchise owners can also save money when they have access to a marketing portal. That’s because they won’t need to hire professional marketing teams.
Everything Can Be Done Online
When franchised businesses use marketing portals, approved users can do everything they need to online from almost any internet-capable device. You can use the same program to personalize, proof, print, and order digital and print marketing assets. This makes it easier for corporate offices to keep track of invoicing and reporting and to play an active role in supporting their franchise owners without the additional hassle of contacting each of them separately.
What to Look For
Because not all marketing portals are created equal, not all of them are appropriate tools for franchise marketing. Those who are looking for the best possible marketing portal for their franchised businesses should seek out one that features multi-channel support for many different content types, including HTML, email, social media content, and print materials.
They should also look for data analytics capabilities. After all, corporate marketing execs need to be able to collect and analyze key insights in order to ensure that their campaigns are on-point and effective. Marketing portals with data analytics tools let them see which assets are being used most frequently, as well as whether or not they are being customized, among other things. This helps them determine what types of content are performing the best.
Speaking of customization, there is no excuse for investing in a marketing portal that doesn’t allow franchise owners and marketing teams to personalize uploaded content. This is slightly more complicated than some readers might think. That’s because marketing materials must have easy customization without sacrificing brand integrity. Look for pre-approved templates that feature customizable fields rather than complete freedom for marketing teams and franchise employees.
Some marketing portals offer pre-approved print vendor integration. This can be extremely beneficial, as it allows users to place orders for printed assets directly from the portal without having to worry about finding a vendor or ensuring compliance of print materials.
The Take-Away
Online portals are the wave of the future when it comes to franchise marketing. They save everyone time and ensure compliance with corporate branding, which is essential for franchises. The choice to invest in this affordable technology now will pay off in the long-run as franchised businesses continue to attract new customers, grow, and thrive.
The Next Step
Readers should now have all the tools they need to understand what marketing portals are and why they are essential for enterprise-level franchises. Those who are ready to build their own Franchise Marketing Portal can trust ROI Amplified for help. Check out this popular franchise marketing agency online today to get started.
