Franchise Update Magazine Issue IV, 2016 | Page 46
Shopping for Improvement
Website
Practices
T
BY KEITH GERSON
he results from the 2016 website
mystery shopping reinforce what
many of us already know: while
leading franchise brands may realize the
need for a digital business strategy, we are
not there yet as an industry. For example,
we found that the majority of franchise
brands have a unique website for franchise
opportunities, but many brands still lack
effective use of technology and are not
capitalizing on social media to bolster
engagement and unit growth.
In this year’s website mystery shopping,
165 franchise brands participated. They
were evaluated on business operations
and marketing as they related to search
engine optimization, website usability,
and website content.
We shopped using various tools on the
websites and scored the websites using 20
or more parameters that we organized in
the following way.
The basics
• Unique URL
• Web analytics
• Ranking on search
• Dedicated entry point for franchise
page
Basic SEO
• Title tags
• Meta, keyword tags
• Strategy that drives content
Website usability
• Franchise content accessibility
• Process of learning
• Effective use of technology
• Overall site presence
• Optimized for mobile
Key content
• About us/history
• Franchise information
• Application
Findings
An aggregation of the findings offers some
insight into areas of strength and areas
that require continued focus. FranCon-
44
Telephone
Recommendations
• Establish process for “inquiry” vs.
“qualified candidate”
• Match up your sales process with
most predictable buying process
• Does the phone matter?
• Show up strong from the start!
nect’s observations are as follows:
• 70% have a separate unique website for franchise opportunities. This
is a major improvement over previous
years. This is becoming a best practice
and allows brands to communicate more
directly with a potential candidate without
distraction from other needs a general
corporate website would require.
“While leading
franchise brands
may realize the
need for a digital
business strategy,
we are not there
yet as an industry.”
• 40% have a click-to-call button
on franchise websites. We’d like to see
more of these and have them be well placed
and stand out to generate a higher level
of conversions.
• 33% do not have a unique starting
point on their franchise opportunity
website. This is problematic in that a
potential candidate should be guided easily through the brand pitch without being confused as to where to begin. Again,
this best practice has been found to drive
higher conversion rates.
• 24% of brand websites are mobile-friendly. This is shocking in today’s
on-the-go, digitally driven world. People
are doing more research via mobile than
ever before. Your website needs to be
easily read and navigated on multiple
mobile platforms.
• 53% of websites have two or more
links for franchise opportunity on their
home page. This is good but should be
true for every website. Your main call to
action is to attract potential candidates to
learn more, so having at least two areas
on your site in places that make sense
is critical.
• 20% of brands do not have a process
of learning on their franchise opportunity website. This means the 80% that
do have a process of learning are making
it easy for potential candidates to engage
and navigate. Since the competition for
qualified candidates is fierce, this should
be a major focus.
• 40% of brands lack effective use of
technology. Technology can be a unique
differentiator when used wisely. It is also
one of the more difficult areas to implement. The key is to outline your strategy
and story map before selecting where and
when to use technology to enhance the
visitor’s experience.
• 40% of brands do not show an investment chart, and 50% do not have
clear requirements mentioned. This
compares with 59% in 2015. We are not
sure why this trend has gone backward,
but it is an area we plan to investigate.
The process of learning should include
the information a potential candidate
needs. By testing different approaches we
can learn if this is a detractor or attractor
for candidates.
• 75% of brands don’t have their
franchise opportunity listed on their
Facebook page. Integrating social channels is critical to reach today’s audience.
Your Facebook page should reflect the
messaging of your website and be a key
call to action.
• 78% of brands are not active on
LinkedIn. This is the largest professional
network in the world. It is also a content
engine for every topic from marketing
to engineering to being your own boss.
Brands should contribute and leverage
this tool as part of an integrated program.
Recommendations
As we have seen from this year’s website mystery shopping, franchisors must
empower their brands—and in the end,
improve unit growth and success—with
a better and more engaging website presence. This includes more learning opportunities and tools, as well as having
Franchiseupdate ISS U E IV, 2 0 1 6