Behavioral Insight: WHY Most Prospects Visit Franchisor Websites After Requesting More Information on Franchise Portals
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
June 21, 2023 — A substantial flow of leads to franchise development sites comes from prospects originating on portal websites that are used to discover and compare franchise opportunities. According to surveys over the past year, the most recent data, about 71% of prospects who submitted an inquiry on the portals subsequently visited the franchise website.
In addition, 26% of portal inquirers also subsequently submitted a lead at the franchise development website.
This is a substantial source of value beyond the cost of leads, considering that prospects who would take the time to research a franchise and visit the site are showing a level of interest and intent conducive to more productive conversations with franchise representatives.
This behavior begs the question – why? Over the last year, we have surveyed prospects who submitted an inquiry AND also visited the franchise websites afterward.
What explains this referral phenomenon?
Recent data show that only 5.2% of prospects are very familiar, and 20.3% are somewhat familiar with the opportunities they inquire about on franchise portals. Almost 35% are first introduced to the franchise on the portal visit. This is why third party sites like franchise portals are important to franchise development, especially as consumers spend more of their time on fragmented social media and streaming.
Moreover, in March to May 2023 surveys, prospects were asked why they proceeded to visit the franchisor site(s), the overwhelming response at 55.9% was “I was very interested and just wanted to learn more”. Another 27% wanted to “prepare before having a conversation” with franchise representatives. Fulfilling the role of directory sites, the portals didn’t provide “sufficient information” to quench the thirst for knowledge for 9.2% of respondents.
This sample period gave results very similar to what we reported for the four-month period ending January 2023, where 56.1% were “very interested and just want to learn more” and 28.4% wanted to “prepare before having a conversation” with the franchise.
These very interested “referred” prospects get attributed to the franchisor’s website, even though they originated on the portal. This is a very good thing, though it may lead to the improper attribution of interested prospects to the “last touch” rather than the portal which was the source of the lead.
Summary: Franchise portals drive interested prospects to your franchise development website, in addition to franchise leads they provide directly.
The “Mystery Shop” survey is conducted monthly by FranchiseInsights.com from a sample of franchise inquirers across the FranchiseVentures franchise lead generation platform. The data presented here is from March through May 2023.
Franchise Ventures is the leading franchise lead-generation platform for potential franchisees to thousands of growing franchise systems in the United States and Canada. Its franchise lead generation brands include Franchise.com, Franchise Solutions, Franchise Gator, Franchise Opportunities, Franchise For Sale, SmallBusinessStartup.com and BusinessBroker.net, and together they provide the largest aggregation of prospective franchise buyers in the U.S.
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Published on Wednesday, June 21st, 2023.