A numbers game: applying data analytics to your lead generation campaigns

Good marketing is all about putting the right message in front of the right people to encourage them to take a certain action. And when it comes to recruiting franchisees, getting bang for your buck comes down to two main things: making sure you’re getting leads that are more likely to result in conversions and measuring the return on your promotional activity accurately.

Many established franchisors actively work on reducing the volume of people they target and shy away from a spray and pray approach. Instead, they pinpoint the people they believe will make successful franchisees, reaching out to them with marketing messages that match their desires and requirements with laser precision.

The result of a more precise approach is that less time is spent on filtering through poor-quality leads, allowing you to focus on pursuing genuine prospects. This ups your chances of converting leads into franchisees and will also reduce your cost per lead and cost per new franchisee. Prioritising quality over quantity makes economic sense and can ultimately help you build a stronger network.

The great thing about marketing in the digital age is that there’s a whole host of data available to track your success and the cost-effectiveness of each channel you’re using. Between Google Analytics, social-media reporting and tools that show you how many people are reading your emails, it’s never been easier to have a firm grip on the efficiency of your efforts. And while offline tracking can be trickier, tactics like including a unique email address on your print collateral or simply asking leads where they heard about you can provide you with similarly strong insights.

Once you have the numbers, it’s a simple task to measure your cost per lead: by assigning each prospect to a different channel, calculating how much that channel cost you and then dividing one by the other. This will provide you with your cost per lead. However, if you really want to up your game you should go deeper than this top-level information in order to uncover the strategies or platforms that are giving you the biggest returns.

And after you’ve calculated your cost per lead on each of your marketing activities, focus on only the quality enquiries you received: leads that eventually resulted in a new franchisee being taken on, regardless of the cost. You can then compare it to your low-cost leads and work out whether there are some channels that are eating up your time with low-cost but consistently low-quality prospects. Equally, you may find that a more niche platform is providing you with really relevant leads.

Technology is taking the guesswork out of where to invest your time and money and franchises that dig a little deeper into their data will be in a better position to use these insights to their advantage.