With competition and technology rapidly evolving, franchise marketers need to find new ways to stand out and remain relevant in their industry. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as a powerful tool for franchise marketers to enhance their brand's local reach, visibility and discoverability online. When done right, AI is capable of helping franchise markets be insanely more efficient and successful. From AI-powered content marketing tools to taking complex data sets, analyzing them quickly, and delivering actionable insights, AI is a massive opportunity for franchise marketers.
This blog post will explore tangible ways franchise brands can use AI in their marketing strategies, the best AI tools for marketers, and how to get started with AI.
Tangible Ways Franchises Can Use AI in Their Marketing Strategies
Franchise marketers have a lot of stakeholders to serve, yet limited time and resources. The increased efficiencies and cost savings AI can enable are exciting, as we’re all trying to do more with less. AI can automate many marketing tasks, such as segmenting lists and optimizing campaigns, scale content marketing efforts, improve personalized marketing experiences and much more. Below are some of the top ways we see AI helping franchise marketers the most:
Scale franchise content marketing efforts
Content marketing has been disrupted by AI in a big way. AI is now being used to create and optimize content, making it easier for marketers to quickly generate high-quality content that resonates with local customers. For franchise marketers especially, generating hundreds of localized content pieces at scale is a challenge. AI can be used to generate personalized content at scale, allowing brands to deliver relevant messages to larger numbers of customers than ever before. From social media posts, to blog posts and ads, AI can give you a leg up on content development by getting marketers to the 75 yard line, versus starting entirely from scratch.
For example, if a marketer of a Kitchen and Bath remodeling franchise sets out to develop content around the top questions prospects have in their journey, they might want to create a blog post around the year's hottest kitchen and bath design tips. Instead of starting from scratch, AI can help develop the first draft and overcome the dreaded writer's block. From there, V1 can be edited to personalize and refine the content for the brand.
Improved customer insights and data analysis
AI can also help franchise marketers gain valuable insights into their customers' behaviors, preferences, and interests. A few cool ways AI can be used include:
- Predictive modeling: AI can be used to analyze historical data and make predictions about future customer behavior. For example, a predictive model might predict which customers are most likely to churn, so that a marketing team can proactively target those customers with retention campaigns.
- Natural Language Processing: AI-powered natural language processing (NLP) can be used to analyze customer feedback, social media posts, and other unstructured data to gain insights into customer sentiment and preferences.
- Clustering and Anomaly Detection: AI can be used to cluster similar customers together, based on their demographics, interests, and behaviors, so that marketers can target specific groups of customers more effectively. It can be used to detect unusual or abnormal patterns in customer data that might indicate a problem or opportunity.
Improved customer experience
AI-powered tools can provide unique, personalized and localized experiences for each customer based on their data, which improves engagement, brand loyalty, and conversions. AI can help marketers improve personalization in marketing and provide a better customer experience in several ways:
- Personalized product and content recommendations: AI can analyze customer data, such as browsing history and purchase history, to make personalized product and content recommendations. This can lead to a more relevant and engaging customer experience.
- Dynamic pricing: AI can analyze customer data and real-time market conditions to set prices that are more likely to be accepted by customers. This can lead to more sales and a better customer experience.
- Personalized messaging and email campaigns: AI can analyze customer data and behavior to create personalized messaging and email campaigns that are more likely to be effective. This can lead to higher engagement and conversion rates.
- Chatbots and virtual assistants: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide personalized assistance to customers in real-time. They can answer questions, help customers navigate the website, and provide personalized product recommendations.
- Localized and personalized ads: AI can analyze customer data, interests, location and browsing behavior to create personalized and localized ads that are more likely to be relevant and engaging to the customer.
The Best AI Tools for Franchise Marketing
While the amount of AI tools out there for marketers can be overwhelming, here are a few that we've seen (or personally used!) work well.
Automated Content Production with Jasper.ai
Jasper is an incredible AI writer and AI art generator, allowing marketing teams to create blog posts, marketing copy, and AI-generated images fast. This includes tasks such as keyword tagging, image optimization, format conversion, metadata extraction, and more—allowing marketers to save time while still ensuring that their content meets their standards for quality control.
Additionally, Jasper’s artificial intelligence capabilities enable it to suggest improvements for existing assets based on user behavior data from previous campaigns so that marketers can optimize their assets even further without having to do any manual work themselves. Jasper also integrates seamlessly with WordPress, YouTube,Twitter and much more, so that marketers can easily share new content right away without having to log into multiple accounts or manually upload files every time they want to post something new.
Chatbots
Chatbots, such as Lumen.ai, are automated programs that use natural language processing and machine learning to respond to customer inquiries in real-time. Chatbot technology is not your Grandma’s standard dumb bot, they have evolved to answer nuanced questions and be more human-like, to better serve prospective customers while freeing up your team’s time to focus on other tasks. They can also provide personalized recommendations based on a customer’s previous interactions with your brand or even send out promotional messages when triggered by certain keywords. Chatbots can also be integrated with messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, making them an ideal tool for engaging with customers across different channels.
Voice Search Optimization
Voice search optimization is essential for any franchise brand looking to take advantage of the increasing popularity of voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home. By optimizing your website for voice search queries, you can ensure that your content is easily discoverable when users ask questions related to your industry or product offerings. This will increase visibility for your brand among potential customers who may not have otherwise found you online. Additionally, voice search optimization gives you an opportunity to create engaging content tailored specifically for voice assistant users.
Data Analytics & Insights
The data that is collected through various touch points in the customer journey—from website visits to sales conversions—can provide valuable insights into how customers interact with your brand across multiple channels. By leveraging AI-driven data analytics tools like Netsertive’s Centralized Analytics, Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics, marketers can identify patterns in customer behavior that can then be used to inform future campaigns and strategies. Analyzing these insights will allow you to gain an understanding of what works best in terms of targeting the right audience with the right message at the right time—allowing you to maximize ROI and drive growth for your franchise business.
Netsertive Localized Digital Marketing Solutions
Didn’t know Netsertive was in the AI game? We’ve been automating the localization and personalization of content, advertising, and insights at scale since 2009. Netsertive is pioneer in localized digital marketing, having built a Multi-Location Experience Platform to personalize website content, website properties, digital advertising campaigns, and other marketing campaigns to individual customers based on their location, behavior and preferences.
For example, here at Netsertive we use AI to help multi-location businesses generate localized ads 10X faster.
How to Get Started with AI
- Educate yourself on the basics of AI technology and its implications on marketing. Jasper.ai has a great 30 minute bootcamp and resources abound online to learn how other marketers are using AI in marketing initiatives.
- Identify potential AI use cases for your franchise. Think about the areas of your business that could benefit from AI and how you can implement it, such as data analytics platforms, automation software or content development.
- Test and measure results: Once you've implemented AI into your marketing strategy, make sure to track the results and adjust as needed.
By leveraging AI-powered marketing tools and techniques, franchise brands can gain valuable insights about their local customers, automate manual processes, and deliver personalized experiences at scale that will boost engagement and conversions. The future of franchise marketing lies in leveraging AI technology to its fullest potential. With the right strategies and investments, franchises can optimize their operations, gain a competitive edge over other brands, and provide customers with personalized experiences that will help them stand out from the crowd.
This article has been written by Erin Martin, the VP of Marketing at Netsertive and host of the Multi-Location Marketing Leader Podcast, using Jasper.ai and over 20 years of experience in the digital marketing space. If you have any questions or would like more information on how AI can help your franchise, please reach out. We look forward to hearing from you!
Erin Martin
Erin leads the marketing organization at Netsertive. She has over twenty years of experience in the marketing technology space, most recently at Mixpo, an ad tech company acquired by Netsertive in 2017, where she had leadership roles in marketing, client services, and operations. Her happy place is where marketing and operations collide, and is passionate about creating systems that put the right people, process, and technology together to do extraordinary things. She applies the same type of analytical thinking to her personal life and enjoys finding areas where work and life principles coincide. Erin has a BS in Marketing from Colorado State University where she graduated with honors. She lives in Seattle with her husband, daughter, and son, where she enjoys anything that involves the outdoors.
