It hasn’t been long since the pandemic caused many on-site stores to shut their doors. This forced a lot of businesses to implement new marketing practices to keep their sales up.
Some online businesses doubled down on their digital channels to serve their customers online. Most went for a hybrid model approach. In some cases, brands and businesses that were previously dependent on physical stores shifted to an online model to adapt better.
As a consequence marketing became more digital than offline. This inspired a lot of new trends in the franchise marketing industry in India. Let’s see what trends franchises are using to boost their sales in a post-pandemic era.
5 Trends That Are Shaping the Future of Franchise Marketing In India
- Shifting Demographics Continue To Change The Way Businesses Market Themselves
The franchisors and franchisees need to adapt to their changing customer and employee base to find new growth opportunities. Businesses should customize their offerings according to the generations
- Millennials: The current generation that outnumbers even the Baby Boomers. Millennials currently occupy the majority of consumer demographics in India. They are also the current majority in today’s workforce. Millennials are a generation that’s been raised on the internet and present a huge opportunity for franchise businesses to cater to their growing needs.
- Baby Boomers and Gen X: As they age, these two groups will demand many new services. The businesses should be ready to identify the needs and cater to the age group
- Gen Z: While this demographic is still young compared to their predecessors, it’s still important to pay attention to their spending habits. Pretty soon, businesses will need to start catering to their needs by providing products and services specific to them as well.
- The “Green Business” Trend
Businesses that follow eco-friendly practices and provide better alternative services and products that reduce pollution are becoming more popular. This franchise marketing idea/trend is specifically popular with millennials and the younger demographic.
For example, People in larger metropolitan cities in India are choosing to buy EVs (Electric Vehicles) and automobile businesses are taking note of this. Electric charging station services and EV automobile franchises are becoming increasingly popular as a result. This is mainly to combat rising pollution levels in Indian cities and to reduce tail-end emissions.
- Video Content For Every Platform
Short-form video content is becoming increasingly popular. Thanks to the rise of Instagram reels, consumers are more partial to short snippets of content.
Brands can use this trend to their advantage to introduce their products or services quickly and efficiently to stand out. Some of the best franchise marketing campaigns involved video content.
- Hyper-Localisation And Personalisation
This trend works in line with small to medium-sized businesses. Bigger franchise brands can apply this trend to each of their individual franchise locations as well. Since most marketing is done online now, business owners can perform more in-depth market research on their local customer base.
As a business owner today, you now have the chance of relying on digital channels for marketing. Local online searches and local social media groups provide a prime opportunity for you to communicate directly with your customers.
- Mobile Apps For Better Services
At the start of the pandemic, customers shifted to using services like at-home delivery and curbside pickups through mobile apps. This trend has continued to hold strong post covid as well.
For example, food delivery apps like Swiggy and Zomato exploded in popularity during the height of lockdown restrictions. Since then, they’ve managed to remain the top food delivery brands through their user-friendly UI, one-click services, and, personalized messaging on their mobile apps.
This shows that mobile apps allow businesses to connect with their customers on a more personal level and create more visibility for businesses as well. Coupled with the convenience factor, it’s no wonder why most businesses are launching their own mobile apps now.
How Do I Decide Which New Marketing Trends To Implement?
This will depend on your business and what services and products you provide. What’s important here is to pay attention to your customers and their shifting needs and spending habits. This is the best approach when it comes to figuring out how you’re going to market your franchise business.
Stick to the Basics
Sometimes the best marketing trends to adopt for your business would be just sticking to the basics of marketing. We’re moving towards a new tech-dominant world and businesses do need to prioritize new tech trends. However, the core principles of marketing remain the same.
You can start by asking questions like,
- Who is my audience?
- What parts of my business need more attention?
- Will this new trend help improve my business?
- Do I have the capital to sustain this new trend I’m using for the long term?
Using these questions as a base will help ensure that you don’t needlessly jump on a new marketing trend that might not suit your franchise business.
Use Franchise Marketing Kits to Your Advantage
These are going to be the bread and butter of your marketing strategies. Franchise Marketing kits are the best approach to standardizing how your individual franchise locations market themselves. Using new trends is important to stay ahead of the curve, but so is presenting a uniform message.
Your franchise marketing kits can also be used to facilitate any of the new trends mentioned above as well.
To Conclude
Marketing is, at the end of the day, how you connect with your customers. It doesn’t matter if you’re a franchise owner or an independent business owner, this is what lies at the core of marketing.
So when you’re developing and launching new franchise marketing campaigns, consider both the newer trends and how they can be used to establish a human connection with your customers. This is what will bring your business the most growth and success.
If you’re looking for franchise marketing agencies or franchise consultancy services contact SparkleMinds today. We provide the best franchise marketing plans to boost your business’s growth and visibility in the Indian market.
