Further Interest Drives Franchise Prospects to Visit Franchisor Websites After Requesting More Information on Franchise Portals
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
February 01, 2023 — A substantial flow of leads to franchise development sites comes from prospects originating on portal websites that are used to research franchises. According to surveys over the last several months, 75% of prospects who submitted an inquiry subsequently visited the franchise website.
In addition, 29% of 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? Since September, we have surveyed prospects who submitted an inquiry AND also visited the franchise websites afterward.
The results show a clear answer. Given three choices and the opportunity to enter their own “other” reason, over 56% indicated that they were “very interested and just wanted to learn more.” Another 28.4% “wanted to prepare before having a conversation with the franchise representative.”
The remaining 10.8% said they “did not find sufficient information on this [portal] website when I inquired”, which is consistent with the design of portals to offer only limited information so that qualified prospects do not eliminate themselves. Furthermore, over 73% of prospects get introduced to one or more franchises they were unaware of or unfamiliar with during the visit, spawning further interest and research.
A few of the survey respondents provided an “other” response, including the following quote.
“I wanted to see their website and the additional information there…including about their culture and feel of their company…”
This significant referral or pass-along value is explained here. These very interested 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 October 2022 through January 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 Tuesday, January 31st, 2023.