A franchise marketing strategy sets out what head office does nationally, what each location does locally, with what budget and how you measure it. Without that plan, every franchisee does something different and the marketing fund leaks away. We create that strategy for you, and then carry it out as well.
What exactly is a franchise marketing strategy?
A franchise marketing strategy is the annual plan that ties together brand-level marketing (the brand, national campaigns) and local marketing (visibility and promotions per location). The difference from an ordinary marketing plan: you have two clients. Head office wants a recognisable brand and growth of the franchise system. The franchisee wants customers in the shop, practice or business today.
In our practice we see that most franchise brands do have a brand book, but no worked-out agreements on local marketing. That creates the familiar pattern: one location advertises on Facebook itself with its own logo, another does nothing, and head office only sees at the end of the year what went wrong.
The four building blocks of the plan
- Positioning and proposition per target group (customers and future franchisees).
- Channel mix: which channels central, which local, which both.
- Budget and fund allocation: how much of the marketing fee goes to national and how much to local.
- Measurement plan: KPIs per location and per franchise brand, with one monthly report.
Why does franchise marketing often get stuck at head office?
Because the work does not scale with the people available. A marketing team of two or three people sometimes serves fifty or a hundred locations. Every location has a Google Business Profile, reviews, local questions and ideas of its own. On top of that come national campaigns, the website and the recruitment of new franchisees.
According to the franchise statistics of the Dutch Franchise Association (NFV), in 2025 the Netherlands had 936 franchise brands with a combined 34,937 locations. That is an average of around 37 locations per franchise brand. Every location is a local marketing channel in its own right that needs maintenance. Want to know how we take over that work? Read more about outsourcing franchise marketing.
| Bottleneck | Consequence | What the strategy solves |
|---|---|---|
| Too little time for local marketing | Locations go their own way | Fixed division of tasks and a playbook per channel |
| No specialist knowledge of local SEO, GEO or Ads | Budget goes to channels that do not pay off | Channel choice based on data per location |
| Debate about the marketing fee | Franchisees cannot see what they get in return | Transparent fund allocation and monthly report |
| No insight into results per location | Strong and weak locations remain invisible | KPI dashboard per location |
No time or expertise in-house? Leave your franchise marketing to us.
What do we deliver with a marketing strategy for your franchise brand?
You do not get a thick report that disappears into a drawer. You get a workable plan of no more than twenty pages, plus the agreements and templates to carry it out. After that, we can also run the plan ourselves, or support your team in delivering it.
| Item | Content | For whom |
|---|---|---|
| Baseline analysis | Visibility of 3 to 10 locations in Google, Maps and AI assistants | Management and marketing |
| Channel plan | Which channels national, which local, with expected contribution | Marketing team |
| Fund and budget allocation | Proposal for splitting the marketing fee between national and local | Management and franchisee advisory council |
| Local marketing playbook | What a franchisee may, must and must not do themselves | Franchisees |
| KPI set and reporting | Measurement plan with targets per location | Everyone |
| 90-day plan | First quarter scheduled in concrete terms | Marketing team |
Who does what in the strategy: your team, the franchisee or us?
The biggest gains lie in clear agreements. That is why we record an owner for each task. That prevents duplicate work as well as the gap where nobody does anything.
| Task | Your team (head office) | Franchisee | Franchise-Marketing.nl |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand, positioning and national campaigns | Owner | Follows | Advises and delivers |
| Google Business Profiles and reviews | Monitors | Supplies photos and local information | Manages per location |
| Local promotions and events | Approves templates | Owner | Creates templates and campaigns |
| Reporting and evaluation | Discusses with the franchisee advisory council | Receives their own figures | Produces the monthly report |
Which channels belong in a franchise marketing plan?
That depends on your sector and your customer journey, but in almost every franchise brand we see the same core: local search engines, paid search campaigns, social media, email and reviews. Increasingly important is whether AI assistants mention your locations. For that we use GEO and AI visibility, alongside local SEO for franchise chains and Google Ads for franchise brands.
You can read how to split that budget between head office and locations in the article on splitting national and local marketing. Want to set up the plan yourself? Then use the steps from creating a franchise marketing plan.
| Channel | National (franchise brand) | Local (location) |
|---|---|---|
| Website and location pages | Yes, built centrally | Unique page per location |
| Google Business Profile | Brand rules and monitoring | Profile per location |
| Google Ads | Brand campaign | Local campaigns within the radius of the location |
| Social media | Brand channel and content | Local posts and ads |
| Franchise brand newsletter | Local sender and promotions | |
| GEO / AI assistants | Entity of the franchise brand | Mentions per location |
How does the process run from strategy to delivery?
We work in four steps, as explained under our four-step way of working. A free scan of three locations is followed by a short strategy phase of four to six weeks. We then start a pilot with ten to fifteen locations and roll out to the whole franchise brand once the figures add up.
- Scan: baseline measurement of three locations, free of charge.
- Strategy: plan, allocation and measurement plan.
- Pilot: delivery at a group of locations, adjusting course.
- Roll-out: all locations, fixed monthly cycle.
Frequently asked questions about marketing plans for franchise brands
What does a franchise marketing strategy cost?
How long does it take to create a marketing plan for a franchise brand?
As a marketing manager, do I still have a say if I outsource this?
Does this also work for a franchise brand with fewer than ten locations?
Do you also involve franchisees in the strategy?
What are the building blocks of a franchise marketing strategy?
What do you receive at the end of the strategy phase for your brand?
Which channels belong in a franchise marketing plan?
How does a marketing strategy help with disputes about the marketing fee?
Does Franchise-Marketing.nl also carry out the marketing strategy itself?
Sources
Gijs Bodenstaff
Franchise marketer, local SEO and GEO specialist, author
Want to hand over your franchise marketing strategy? Start with a free scan of three locations.