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One of the coolest digital marketing jobs around!
HARRY’S COMMENTS: We are working with a business franchisor in its search for a Director of Digital Lead Generation based in the Midwest …
What exactly is franchising?
As consumers, we are surrounded by franchises like 7-Eleven, McDonald’s, The UPS Store, Dairy Queen, and Ace Hardware. Entrepreneur magazine maintains a handy list of franchises here. Franchising is the practice of the right to use a firm’s business model and brand for a prescribed period of time.
It works like this …
Pretend for a minute that you’re a smart, financially established, middle aged, business-oriented, (often) white collar A-player who works for an idiot in a dead end job. You’re ready to be in control of your life again, but you can’t bring yourself to “go out and get another normal job.” Yuck, right?
For the next chapter of your career you decide to maybe open a doughnut shop, because who doesn’t like doughnuts? You have two basic choices: start your own shop from scratch, or open, say, a Dunkin’ Donuts franchise. Hmm …
The Dunkin’ franchise route is expensive, but the advantages include immediate name recognition, the use of established licensed trademarks, a proven business system to start and operate, training and support, purchasing power, and a lower failure rate than if you open your own shop. Makes perfect sense.
Which is why franchising is a $2.3 TRILLION business.
According to IBIS World Research, popular categories of franchises include Sub Shops; Coffee Shops; Shipping Services; Sign Manufacturing; Travel Agencies; Real Estate Agencies; Painting / Decorating; Auto Repair; Handyman Services; HVAC Services; Plumbing Services; Drug Stores; and much, much more. All told, there are more than 3100 different franchise companies in more than 80 industries operating 900,000 operating units, providing 21 million jobs.
This space is MASSIVE and totally legit.
A common myth about franchises is that they are hugely expensive to start and operate. That’s just not true. In fact, 13% of franchise opportunities require less than $50K to start. Only 18% require more than $500K.
And here’s the kicker: There is no automatic correlation between the cost of the franchise and the potential return. For example, service businesses require a much lower capital investment and often yield higher returns.
So, how do franchisors like Dunkin’ market their biz ops?
Well friend, that’s what this digital marketing jobs is about. A basic Dunkin’ Donuts franchise will require a minimum initial investment of $228K on a Net-worth Requirement of $250K and a Liquid Cash Requirement of $125K.
Who’s got that kind of dough laying around?
Lots of people! Franchise Times Magazine says of its readers …
- 75% have a bachelors degree or higher.
- 65% are upper level execs – CEOs, CFOs, presidents and so forth.
- 50% of its readers are actual franchisees, and 80% of those are multiunit operators.
Aside from their entrepreneurial traits, franchise owners are typically either “mass affluent” or straight up “affluent.”
- “Mass affluent” people have household incomes of $85,000-$150,000 and net worths exceeding $250,000. As the fastest-growing segment of the consumer market, these folks are younger and more diverse than any previous affluent population in history.
- “Affluent people” have household incomes of $150,000-$250,000 and net worths exceeding $1 million. We have had a two decade millionaire explosion in America, and the number of “middle-class millionaires” is growing like a weed.
My point being, you’re not looking for a unicorn. Much is known about this slice of the population, and this market is accessible and affordably reachable. You can rent lists of these folks, or market to them on FB, Linkedin, and Google all day long.
Having said that, selling franchises is an art and a science, in the sense that you are simultaneously CREATING demand and CAPTURING demand:
- You are CREATING demand in the sense that many financially and professionally qualified prospects might agree it’s time for a career change – yet fail to consider franchising.
- You are CAPTURING demand in the sense that many qualified prospects may be actively considering buying a franchise – yet have no idea exactly which franchise opportunity would be best for them.
How’s an entrepreneur to decide?
One way is to involve franchise consultants, who help entrepreneurs answer two primary questions:
- Am I ready to be a franchise owner?
- Which franchise is right for me?
There’s no product more information intensive than a business. There’s a lot one needs to know before buying a franchise.
As our client’s new Director of Digital Lead Generation, you don’t want to attract the wrong prospects. Running a franchise is hard, frustrating work. You want committed entrepreneurs, not “want-trepeneurs.” As in any match-making situation, you have to be selective about your prospect, because the franchisee and franchise or are likely to be married for at least 10 years.
The average job tenure among my Linkedin contacts is less than 4 years.
Your franchisee prospects must have the right skills, budget, and income – plus they must get through the franchisor’s approval process. It’s a lot like recruiting: Just because you have an applicant doesn’t mean they’re qualified, nor does it mean they’re psychologically cut out for life as an entrepreneur.
About the Job
Reporting to my client’s CEO, you will lead a team tasked with demand generation and marketing funnel optimization. Using digital marketing tactics such as SEO, social media, landing page conversion testing, Digital advertising, and email marketing, you will grow the firm’s database and overall company revenues. You’ll find yourself running all of marketing operations, channel marketing, and customer marketing.
If sales rise, you’re a hero. If they fall, you’re a goat. It’s that simple.
We are looking for an amazing, data-driven inbound marketer to own the majority of the marketing funnel for the entire business.
As the key executive overseeing the firm’s customer engagement strategy, you’ll be in charge of growing site traffic, converting that traffic into new leads for the business, and nurturing to close those leads into customers, the latter of which the firm’s sales leadership will help you accomplish.
You will be expected to measure and manage every aspect of the marketing and lead generation funnel, and you’ll be looked to for exciting yet reality-based ideas on everything from creating lead magnets that attract visitors and convert customers to leveraging marketing automation and growth hacking brand awareness.
You won’t believe how much we know about this search!
As you can imagine, I spent a ton of time on the phone with this client teasing out exactly what you’ll need to KNOW and DO to hit the ground running in this role. Some of the things I can share with highly qualified candidates include …
- The “real” background requirements for this position, along with the top five things all resumes MUST have to be considered for the role.
- The top five problems that exist due to this position being open. These are the little brush fires you will be expected to put out during your first month on the job. Every job has these — and this one’s no different.
- What your average day / week will look like in this role. There’s what you read in the standard job posting … then there’s reality. We’ve got the reality.
- The leading and lagging KPI’s that will determine your success in this role. In a nutshell: How you keep score.
- The major projects you’ll need to complete by Day 100 to be considered a home-run in this position. We’ve got the lowdown on how you can plug-and-play and drive REAL value in this job.
We have a massive amount of proprietary intel to share with qualified candidates. Our industry research for this assignment exceeds 100 pages! Be sure to TEXT Allan Seibert at (706) 318-1196 for this info. Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below.
View Harry Joiner’s profile
Responsibilities:
- Lead a team of two marketers to drive key business metrics including leads and opportunities.
- Set team strategy through analysis of historical marketing data.
- Own the relationship with Franchisee Advisory Council and forge strong communication between marketing and franchisees.
- Forecast and present to senior management while helping the company achieve greater marketing success.
- Grow new leads, including marketing-qualified leads, by converting site traffic through calls-to-action, landing pages, and lead generation content (including offers).
- Establish closed-loop analytics with sales to understand how the firm’s inbound marketing activity turns into prospects, and continually refine our process to convert leads to clients.
- Manage all channel marketing communications (newsletters, webinars, product notifications, etc.).
- Manage both on-site and off-site SEO for the company.
- Collaborate with content marketing and blog contributors to create high-quality content around important, relevant terms.
- Manage of organic search engine performance and goal-setting based on site impressions, clickthrough rates, traffic, and conversions.
- Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and changes with SEO and major search engines.
- Design and implement statistical tests around the firm’s site and various marketing touch points and verify their significance and overall impact.
- Document all research and findings. You will build the company’s institutional knowledge and unlock new opportunities for growth and ways to operate more effectively.
- Conduct regular competitive research on other products and companies in our industry.
Requirements:
- BA/BS or equivalent working experience.
- Leadership experience with excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
- Expert in end-to-end inbound marketing, including content, lists, and other lifecycle stage optimization tactics. As owner of the marketing funnel, you must know what makes it generate customers.
- Must be analytical and able to extract meaning from data and use this to optimize a team’s approach and a company’s forecast.
- Research and test partnerships with new vendors to expand the firm’s reach and/or lower cost-per-acquisition.
- Stay up-to-date with digital marketing trends and potential new channels and strategies to keep the firm ahead, including updates to social media marketing, attribution, and programmatic media buying.
UPDATE: THIS SEARCH IS CLOSED
