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Franchise Update Media’s 2025 Annual Franchise Marketing Leadership Report highlights key trends shaping the industry. The AFMR is a survey of top franchise marketing executives that provides insights into the latest consumer behavior trends, innovative marketing strategies, technology, and the impact of digital transformation on franchise businesses.
The AFMR is the first and only report dedicated to B2B and B2C franchise marketing leaders. It includes perspectives from industry experts about the evolving market dynamics and how franchises can stay ahead of the competition. This report delivers data collected from franchisors across the franchise community, with responses organized by industry, marketing budget, system-wide sales, and more.
The annual report provides franchisors with the ideal resource for studying their marketing investments, benchmarking their sales and advertising budgets against their own industry categories, as well as setting goals and budgets for the year ahead. The AFMR also includes research into digital advertising practices, the growing investment in mobile and social platforms, and best practices in building marketing teams.
Over the last several years, the AFMR has been expanded to include more information about online reputation management and the use of artificial intelligence (AI). It starts by identifying how many franchises are using AI and in which ways, along with their confidence in using the technology. It also looks at how the integration of AI has impacted the customer experience, its challenges and limitations, and its plans for future investment in AI. The report also explores franchisee involvement, franchisee training and support, and customer feedback on the use of AI.
In a competitive marketplace built on repeat business and customer referrals, a brand’s reputation is everything. In the latest AFMR, Franchise Update asked respondents how they tracked their online reputation and their biggest challenges in managing their image among customers.
Starting with industry sector, the most popular metric to track online reputation was online reviews. Ninety-five percent or more of three groups said they used online reviews to gauge their online reputation. Social media mentions were the next most used methods to track online reputation. Eighty-eight percent of food franchises and 75 percent of retail (non-food) franchises tracked through social media mentions.
Online reviews were also the most popular metric to track online reviews when based on franchise unit size. At least 80 percent of six groups used online reviews. Franchises between 251 and 500 units used several other metrics at a high rate: engagement metrics (100 percent), website traffic (80 percent), conversion rates (80 percent), brand mentions (60 percent), and social media mentions (60 percent).
Online reviews and social media mentions were the most used metrics when analyzing responses based on investment level. Nine times, groups responded with 100 percent that they used one or both methods to track online reputation. Website traffic and conversion rates also scored high in gauging online reputation based on investment level.
The survey also asked respondents what platforms or tools they use to track online reputation. Starting by industry, review monitoring platforms had the highest number of responses. Eighty-six percent of food franchises used review monitoring platforms, followed by 74 percent of service (brick and mortar) franchises, and 67 percent of retail food brands. Social monitoring tools was the next highest answer, with all five sectors responding with at least 47 percent.
Those two tools were also the most popular to track online reputation when sorted by unit size. One hundred percent of franchises with 26 to 100 units used review monitoring platforms, followed by 80 percent of franchises with 501 to 1,000 units. Five groups responded by 50 percent or more in saying they use social media monitoring tools.
When looking at the responses based on franchise investment level, seven groups all said they used social media monitoring tools, review monitoring platforms, or both, to track their online reputation. At least 50 percent of seven investment level groups said they used online reputation management platforms, including all in the $251,000 to $500,000 investment range.
Finally, the AFMR asked franchises about the biggest challenges they face with online reputation management. The leading response was maintaining consistency, with 56 percent coming from retail food franchises. Fifty percent of the following industry groups responded with these answers: managing negative feedback (food), monitoring across platforms (retail non-food), and adapting to algorithm changes (retail non-food).
Brands with fewer units provided the most feedback to this question, saying managing negative feedback, monitoring across platforms, and maintaining consistency were their primary challenges. Most franchises with a larger number of locations did not answer the question.
Analyzing this question based on investment level provided the greatest range of responses. All franchises with investment levels of $100 million to $250 million said managing negative feedback was their biggest challenge. Sixty-three percent of franchises between $25 million and $50 million responded with monitoring across platforms, while four groups responded with 50 percent by saying maintaining consistency was their biggest challenge.
For more information about the current AFMR and how you can purchase the report, read more HERE.