What are different ways to think about retargeting people who visit my franchise’s website but do not convert?

One of the tried and true facts of franchise lead generation is that it generally takes a big leap of faith for someone to seriously consider opening a franchise.

Very rarely does someone have serious intent the first time they think about the idea. It takes days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years for a potential entrepreneur to allow that idea to percolate in the back of their mind before finally taking the plunge and seriously explore their options.

It seems that the rule of thumb is that it takes about three different submissions before someone is incredibly likely to open a franchise.

So, as franchisor, how do you alter your marketing strategy in light of this fact?

It gets complicated because, unlike a field like e-commerce, the people visiting your website are never likely to convert immediately.

One option to help deal with fact is to think about retargeting.(For more information on what retargeting is and how it works, take a look at this post.)

Retargeting is basically defined as tracking the people who visit your site and don’t convert in the hope that you’ll be able to reach them at a later date, usually with a different message.

So once someone visits your site and leaves, the first thing you need to ask yourself as a marketer is why? Some common explanations include:

1. They found the site too confusing to navigate
2. They didn’t find what they were looking for
3. They got what they needed, but didn’t feel compelled to fill out a lead form
4. The felt compelled to fill out a lead form, but they didn’t want to supply their contact information

So what kind of message could you use to retarget each of these people?

1. They found the site too confusing to navigate – These people are tough because they don’t trust your user experience. If anything, a message along the lines of “3 simple steps to learn about opening a franchise.”
2. They didn’t find what they were looking for – These people are also tough because it’s tough to know what they are looking for. If you have a strong hypothesis about what they want, then an ad along the lines of “Looking for information about __? Click here”_
3. They got what they needed, but didn’t feel compelled to fill out a lead form – Now this is becoming more of the sweet spot for retargeting. For these people, it’s all about incentivizing the behavior you’re looking for. An ad like, “We have some good news. Let us email you some private details about opening a franchise.”may work.
4. The felt compelled to fill out a lead form, but they didn’t want to supply their contact information – The ultimate retargeting candidate. Perhaps your lead form is too long and they only want information via email rather than a phone number. An ad along the lines of “Information about opening our franchise via EMAIL only. No spam phone calls.”

So the question becomes which one works best?

Only you have the ability to find out! Try all 4! When you have website tracking in place, you should be able to very clearly determine which of these types of ads are most effective.

And then, as you get more and more sophisticated, you’ll be able to segment your audience into a variety of different buckets such as how long it’s been since they visited, which pages they visited on your site, etc.

Have questions about retargeting? Want to know more? Drop us a message here.