Franchisee Prospects Continue to Focus on Just a Few Concepts for Research
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
June 19, 2024 – Franchise buyer behavior has changed in many ways in the four years since the global pandemic began. One aspect, however, has stayed the same: most prospects still only focus on a single concept when requesting information about franchises, despite the thousands of offerings across dozens of categories in the franchise directories of the FranchiseVentures lead generation platform.
In April 2024, data for thousands of franchise inquiries showed that 38.1% of prospects selected a single franchise opportunity for follow-up. An additional 17.1% inquired about a second franchise, and 10.0% requested follow-up from a third concept.
Over 55% of all prospects inquired about only one, two or three franchises.
This behavior is consistent with prior reviews, the most recent being reported in November 2023. Many of these prospects began with a broader search, even across categories. Monthly reviews of franchise portal website and mobile app usage data show that about 47% of users are initially open to “any category”, without selecting a specific category for research.
Further, we regularly feature an article about the role that franchise portals (directory sites) play in the awareness and discovery of franchise options. In recent 2024 surveys, 71.3% of prospects report that they inquired about franchises with which they were either “completely unfamiliar” or “vaguely familiar” prior to their visits.
Take Advantage of This Opportunity
The implications of these findings for franchise development teams are straightforward:
- Franchise portals and their mobile apps play a useful role in generating awareness and consideration of your franchise concept(s).
- They help prospects quickly comb through hundreds of options across diverse categories to narrow the search to a few options for further consideration.
- And almost three quarters of prospects who submit inquiries through portals go to franchisor websites afterwards to get more information and prepare for a conversation with a franchise representative.
Following best practices for initial contact by email and/or text has a high probability of putting you in contact with an individual who has only inquired about a few options, and may be hearing from you first.
Given the high cost and potential lifetime value of a franchise lead, it is important to act promptly. Data consistently show that the majority of your competitors do not attempt initial contact with all of their leads within seven days.
FranchiseVentures 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 19th, 2024.