This is a conversation I have with franchisors all the time.
“We need more leads.”
Usually, the immediate reaction is to spend more on lead generation. Another campaign, more PPC, another portal or more activity on social media.
Sometimes that is absolutely the right answer. But sometimes the problem is not that your lead generation is not working. It is that not enough people know who you are in the first place.
Throwing more money at lead generation will not necessarily fix an awareness problem.
Franchise recruitment starts before the enquiry
In my last article, I talked about why “we need more franchisees” is not really a marketing strategy, because franchise recruitment starts long before somebody fills in an enquiry form.
A prospective franchisee might see your brand in an article, come across you on LinkedIn, see you at an event, Google you, read a franchisee story and then ask ChatGPT about opportunities in your sector.
Eventually, they enquire.
By then, there could have been numerous interactions with your brand that you will never be able to neatly attribute to that lead. This is why I do not think lead generation can be looked at in isolation.
What if it is actually a visibility problem?
If somebody is looking for a franchise opportunity and does not know your brand exists, why would they search for you?
If they discover you but can find very little independent information about you, why would they trust you? And if they see your brand once and never again, will they remember you six months later when they are finally ready to invest?
Visibility creates familiarity, and familiarity helps to build trust.
When you are asking someone to potentially invest tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds, change career and put their future into the hands of a brand, that trust really matters.
Visibility now goes beyond Google
Your website matters. Social media matters. Paid advertising matters. But so do the places where other people are talking about you.
Franchise media, awards, events, podcasts, interviews, thought leadership, case studies, franchisee stories and PR all create independent digital touchpoints around your brand.
Increasingly, those touchpoints are not just influencing people. They’re influencing AI too.
Laura Hill explored this in her recent article, Will AI recommend your franchise? The new rules of brand visibility, looking at how the way people discover and research franchise opportunities is changing.
Prospective franchisees can now use platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity to research opportunities, compare brands and understand different sectors. Those platforms need enough credible information about your franchise online to understand who you are and what you offer.
So perhaps the question is no longer simply, “Can somebody find us on Google?”
It is also, “Does the internet know enough about us to understand who we are?”
Not everything can be measured by the last click
This is probably one of my biggest frustrations in franchise marketing.
We want to know how many leads an article generated, how many enquiries came from an event or how many franchisees resulted from a PR campaign.
Of course we should measure marketing. I am a Commercial Director, believe me, I like numbers.
But we also have to recognise how people actually make decisions.
The article they read three months ago might be why they recognised your name today. The award they saw you win might be why they trusted you enough to click. The franchisee story they found while researching you might be what finally reassured them.
None of those things necessarily generated the lead on their own, but together they helped create it.
Before you spend more money on leads
Ask a different question. Are we visible enough?
Search for your brand as a prospective franchisee would. Search for franchises in your sector. Ask AI platforms about the market. Look at what appears when somebody researches you and consider whether your brand is genuinely part of the conversation.
You can have a fantastic franchise model, brilliant franchisee support and a genuinely compelling opportunity, but if nobody knows about it, none of that matters.
Sometimes you do not need to generate more leads. You need to give more people a reason to know who you are before they become one.
Key takeaways
- If a prospective franchisee does not know your brand exists, they will never search for you – throwing more money at lead generation will not fix an awareness problem.
- Franchise recruitment starts long before the enquiry: a prospect may encounter your brand across multiple touchpoints over months before they take action, none of which will be captured by last-click attribution.
- Visibility now extends beyond Google – franchise media, awards, events, podcasts, thought leadership and franchisee stories all influence prospects and increasingly influence AI platforms too.
- AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity are now being used to research franchise opportunities, meaning brands that lack independent third-party content risk being invisible to an entire new discovery channel.
- Before spending more on lead generation, ask whether you are visible enough – search for your brand as a prospective franchisee would, ask AI platforms about franchises in your sector, and audit what an independent observer can find about you.
