Dorian Gonsalves reports on the importance of IT and marketing
As I write this month’s column, I am happy to report that Belvoir has just gone live with its brand new fully responsive website. That in itself could be considered quite an achievement, but in reality, this is the fourth new website that Belvoir has recently launched for brands within the Group! Over the past few months the marketing team at Belvoir Central Office, led by a dedicated IT and Marketing Director, have successfully launched new websites for the Belvoir, Newton Fallowell, Northwood and Lovelle brands. Nicholas Humphreys, a 21-office franchise network acquired by the Belvoir Group in April 2021, will be the next brand to benefit from a shiny new website that will help to deliver lots of new business to the doors of its franchisees.
Being able to benefit from the skills of IT and marketing professionals who are able to provide business owners with a suite of fantastic marketing tools, including a superb website, is one of the many advantages that franchisees can enjoy and one of the things that can be particularly challenging for independent traders to achieve and maintain. In my opinion, the days are long gone when a business owner could get away with sourcing a free template from the Internet to create their own website in the hope that it would impress their clients. Your website has become your shop window, and in these days of virtual viewings and sales, it is more important than ever to have a website that will help you to communicate with your clients and outperform your competitors. Furthermore, it is vital that your marketing material is refreshed regularly, looks professional, and that your website is consistently on-brand and mobile-optimised. Perhaps most importantly of all, your website must be protected as much as possible from the attentions of unscrupulous hackers.
With so much emphasis on data protection, it is vital that the personal details of all clients are kept safe and secure at all times. All of this additional security costs an enormous amount of time and money, and if you are an independent trader who has had to make marketing and IT their main focus, this will inevitably detract from the day to day running of your business. A business owner will not be able to concentrate on the development of new leads, the creation and launch of new products, or networking with suppliers and investors, if they are simultaneously trying to deal with the minutiae of creating all their own marketing material. It is a massive advantage to be able to rely on a dedicated team based at your franchise’s central office, safe in the knowledge that they will be working hard on your behalf to help provide you and your business with everything needed to achieve its maximum potential.
Belvoir’s centralised support team is constantly expanding, and we currently have over 175 employees, some of whom directly support our franchisees and others provide client-facing services such as lettings, sales and mortgages. They are all highly professional, and the goal of our support team is to support all of our franchisees within each of the brands. In order to do this, the team is constantly evaluating the market, looking for new research and development opportunities, and assessing any potential market trends that might present future challenges.
Our marketing team started working on the new websites during the first lockdown of March 2020. We have heavily invested in Google Ad words and SEO, as well as 24/7 managed live chat. As a result of this investment, our monthly analytics reports show that year-on-year website traffic and engagement statistics are way up following the launch of the new websites, which were all paid for centrally. Unsurprisingly, feedback from franchisees within the Group has been very positive, as this considerable boost to website traffic provides the potential for conversion into new business. I think this level of investment and the success of the website project clearly demonstrates the enormous benefits of being part of a franchise group. It is certainly something to consider when you are making the decision about whether or not to invest in a franchise.
