Franchising in Numbers

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Franchising in numbersWe’ve been reading the latest copy of Elite Franchise magazine this month which inspired us to do a bit of number-based research into the franchise world. Franchising is big business. Take a look at these impressive numbers:

£13.4 billion annual turnover across the UK franchise industry;

929 franchisor brands operating in the UK;

594,000 people employed in franchising in the UK;

3.5% increase in the number of British brands turning to franchising last year.

Coupled with the fact that a new start up franchise business is more likely to survive the crucial first year of business when compared to a non franchised start up, it’s easy to understand why it’s on the up!

Brand Alignment. How is yours?

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A major survey by US firm Franchise Direct pointed towards the ‘Brand’ being the third most important consideration for prospective new franchisees. Think about the journey of a prospective franchisee. How many of your franchises will they visit? What will their impressions be of your Brand? How consistent will your Brand appear from one franchise to another? This will certainly affect the number of franchises that you grant. Branding is complex, but at its nucleus, consistency is paramount. Sally Butters, Director of Media at Coconut Creatives supports this view: ‘Brand consistency is at the heart of every brand, no matter what the size or nature of the business.’  Uniformity across signage, packaging, web and printed marketing collateral is a challenge for any corporate, made more complex across a franchise network. So where do you start? Do the simple things first. Ensure the flyers, business cards, posters, leaflets, and brochures used across your network are consistent. Leave it to the franchise to choose a printer – the chances are your branding will become diluted. Conversely, centralise the print buying process and be burdened with bureaucracy. Embracing web-to-print provides a way to manage brand alignment in printed collateral with little bureaucracy. Revive! LeafletBrandDemand is a web-to-print solution that lets your franchisees get on and order their own on-brand marketing collateral. It also includes a suite of management tools to help you monitor the activity throughout your network. To date, 30+ BFA members have adopted BrandDemand including many award winning franchise networks. Mark Llewellyn, Managing Director at Revive! comments: ‘Introducing the BrandDemand system was about getting better brand alignment across our network.’ Call us today to speak to someone about setting up a web-to-print system for your franchise network.