Consumer Marketing Survey: Weighing its Importance in Franchise Success

In our premiere issue of the Franchise Consumer Marketing Report, we began reporting some of the findings from our first-ever Franchise Consumer Marketing Study. Top franchise marketing executives from more than 50 franchise organizations responded to a survey conducted by Franchise Update Media Group about marketing strategy, execution, and their outlook for their franchise organizations.

Those surveyed represented franchises in food, retail food, retail non-food, and service sectors. Seventy percent of respondents had annual system-wide revenue above $20 million. Although 87 percent of respondents indicated they are more optimistic about the U.S. economy compared with last year, only 58 percent described current business at the unit level as "good," Thirty-three percent indicated current business conditions at the unit level were "neutral," and 9 percent said "poor."

Consumer marketing was a dominant topic of questioning throughout the survey. One question in particular dealt with the role of consumer marketing in driving and retaining customers while building the brand. The question was:

Consumer marketing is instrumental in driving/retaining customers and building your brand. On a scale of 1-5 (not important to extremely important) how important is consumer marketing in contributing to:

1. franchisee financial success?
2. franchisee satisfaction?
3. new franchise development?
4. existing franchisee development?

Here are the results: