Franchise Sales: Is Your Brand's Online Reputation a Deal Killer? By Fishman PR

Online Reputation Management FOR FRANCHISE

BRANDS:

A CASE STUDY

YOUR FRANCHISE BRAND

Online Reputation Management FOR FRANCHISE BRANDS

Online reputation is more than a consumer facing issue – a negative reputation can kill franchise sales.

Online research is a key part of a potential franchisee’s due diligence process while their vetting your opportunity.

How does your brand look online?

Online Reputation Management FOR FRANCHISE BRANDS

If a prospect has the choice between working with a franchise that has a positive reputation online versus a brand that has a negative presence online they will opt to go for the company that has a favorable reputation, regardless of whether the online complaints have merit.

Online Reputation Management FOR FRANCHISE BRANDSYour reputation is everything. Customers and franchise prospects will turn their back on your brand if they discover negative information on news sites, blogs, forums and review sites.

Your negative reputation can grow in power and damage the offline reputation a franchise has worked so hard to build.

Background

A few well-placed negative reviews were driving business away from Our Franchise Client and damaging the exceptional reputation that brand had built during its 30 years in business.

Sites like Ripoff Report, a for-profit website, known for publishing un-validated complaints and “exposés” and charges a fee to companies and individuals to remove their negative reviews, were dominating the online search results.

Background

Our Franchise Client was experiencing the pain of a negative online reputation and came to Fishman PR for help.

The Idea

Battling the negative search results built on unfounded reviews in the court room, would have led to costly litigation and more often than not experience a loss in court.

Fishman PR saw an opportunity to use the power of high-quality content, strategic online reputation management and search engine optimization to create a new, positive picture of Our Franchise Client online– the kind of reputation prospects want to invest with and customers want to patronize.

The Process

Through the development of exceptional content that’s worth sharing and optimized to rank in search results, the right distribution tactics and a Branded Hub, Fishman PR could promote Our Franchise Client as a thought leader and create a positive brand identity online.

Campaign Components:

Branded Hub

High-quality, SEO content

Strategic Content Distribution Tactics

Weekly Online Reputation Scorecard to track and report progress

They like us!

Branded Hub

The Fishman PR team developed an optimized Branded Hub that features the latest in SEO tools plugins.

The right background technical support allows for Google’s “crawlers” to scan content so that it may rank higher in searches.

As the cornerstone of the online reputation management strategy, the Branded Hubs works to feature Our Franchise Client as a thought leader and directs valuable website traffic toward positive branded content.

High-quality, SEO contentBlogging is one of the most powerful tools for search engine optimization. By publishing high quality, optimized content on a regular basis, we create a buffer for Our Franchise Client ’s online reputation and helps to push negative results down.

Online complaints from disgruntled franchisees and clients can kill sales when they are discovered in the process of researching your business. By consistently publishing branded content, we created a buffer so that when complaints arise, they don’t go straight to the top of a Google search.

Content Includes:

Interviews with Our Franchise Client Executives

Tips and tricks from the pros

Industry segment articles and reports

Content Distribution

We used existing branded social media and created new accounts for Our Franchise Client and the company founder to distribute the positive, high-quality content we created and published on the Branded Hub.

By utilizing a variety of distribution channels, we’re able to distribute new and existing content like articles, videos, images and presentations across a wider network.

Through strategic content distribution we’re able to improve the reputation of the brand online by boosting SEO efforts and increasing brand awareness.

ResultsOnline Reputation Management is This is an ongoing process that doesn’t happen overnight. Fishman PR worked to battle negative search results for Our Franchise Client and its founder. Between January and July 2014 we were able to show:

12% positive search result increase

8% negative search result decrease

An overall more positive brand image on the first 2 pages of Google search results for keyword terms.

Starting Results Current Results

Starting Results Current Results

ResultsIn addition to Google search rankingswe also focus on achieving positive suggested search results.

At the start of the process our client had almost entirely negative suggested search results.

As of July our progress is as follows:

50% positive suggested result increase

50% positive suggested result increase

Contact Rachael Wachstein, Director of Content Marketing for a free consultation: (847) 945-1300

[email protected]