Marketing Byte: How Franchises Adjust Size of Marketing Teams

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.

Plans to adjust the size of the marketing team

Last month’s AFMR Marketing Byte looked at the size and roles of franchise marketing staff and when leadership determines whether to add people to those teams. The latest AFMR also explored how and when franchise marketing departments adjust the size of their teams and what goes into those decisions.

At the time of this survey, most franchises did not decrease the size of their marketing staff in the past six months. Starting by sector, at least 80 percent of four of the five categories said they did not decrease their marketing staff during that time. Twenty-five percent of retail (non-food) franchises said they had cut down on their marketing teams.

The numbers were similar when analyzed based on a franchise’s number of units. The lone exception was that all the franchises that had yet to open a unit said they had decreased the size of their marketing staff. That response reflects the smaller budgets and changing dynamics of emerging franchises that have yet to open.

We also looked at the response based on systemwide revenue. Although most had not recently decreased staff, there were some outliers. All survey respondents in the ranges of $251,000 to $500,000 and $500 million to $1 billion had decreased their marketing staff. That answer was evenly split among franchises with systemwide revenues between $501,000 and $1 million.

Looking forward, we asked franchises if they planned to decrease or add to their marketing staff in the near future. Among various business sectors, most said they would either add staff members or were unsure of their plans. Sixty-seven percent of food franchises said they planned to add to their marketing staff, followed by 60 percent of territory (non-brick-and-mortar) service franchises, and 58 percent of brick-and-mortar service franchises.

Responses to that question were gathered based on size of the franchise. Seventy percent of franchises between 101 and 250 units said they planned on adding to their marketing staff. Sixty percent of franchises with fewer than 25 locations and those with 501 to 1,000 units planned on increasing the size of their marketing departments. All survey respondents that had more than 5,000 units said they planned on decreasing the size of their marketing staff.

When analyzing that question by systemwide revenue, the answers were nearly evenly split between adding to their staff or being unsure of their plans. The biggest outlier was with franchises with revenues of $25 million to $50 million, with 88 percent of that group affirming plans to add marketing staff in the near future.

Considerations behind adding or subtracting marketing staff

Perhaps most importantly, we wanted to know what factors influenced franchises’ decisions to increase or decrease their marketing staff. It was most often due to changes to the company revenue or budget and also shifts in marketing strategies or priorities. However, 75 percent of retail food franchises said those decisions were made based on performance or productivity considerations.

The report also analyzed the responses based on franchise size. All respondents from franchises with more than 5,000 units said the decision was based on organizational restructuring or mergers, while 60 percent of franchises with 101 to 250 units had the same response. All responding franchises that had yet to open a location and 44 percent of those with fewer than 25 units said performance or productivity considerations went into the decision to increase or decrease marketing staff.

Finally, we looked at responses to this question based on systemwide revenue. All the franchises with revenues between $100 million and $250 million listed these three factors in their decisions: changes in company revenue or budget, shifts in marketing strategy or priorities, and organizational restructuring or mergers. All franchises with revenues of $500 million to $1 billion said shifts in marketing strategy or priorities and organizational restructuring or mergers influenced their decisions.

For more information about the current AFMR and how you can purchase the report, read more HERE.