| June 2006 Report Internet Lead Flow Trends |
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Is the overall lead flow from the Internet down for the franchise industry in 2006? The industry has been talking about this
topic more and more over the past month or so.
However, if you attended the International Franchise Expo in Washington, D.C., then you clearly saw that the interest in franchising has not slowed down. The Washington Convention Center was busy during the entire three days of the convention. So what is really going on here? To find some answers, FranchiseBenchmark started by selecting the target time period of January 1 through May 31 and compared operating data for this same five month period for 2005 and 2006. To be included in the analysis, a franchisor had to receive a minimum of 50 leads per month for a 12 month period. Lead sources were categorized as Franchise Portal or Franchisor Website and the lead flow was summarized for these two groups. For each of these groups, lead flow was analyzed based on total volume, email marketing click-through rates, and franchise applications rates. The Results. The answer is that everyone is both right and wrong about lead flow. While it does appear that lead flow from the franchise advertising portals is down between 5-7%, lead flow from franchisor corporate websites has increased more than 30%! (Don't worry, we were a little surprised too and triple checked our numbers.) The dramatic increase in franchisor website leads is based on two key factors: 1) franchisors are making better use of Internet marketing techniques to generate website traffic and 2) increasingly, prospects see a brand on an advertising portal and go directly to franchisor website to request information. Tracking is the the key to determining where your corporate website leads are originating. If you are seeing this increase in leads from your website, you cannot immediately take full credit. The franchise advertising portals do a very good job of building awareness and need to get some credit for this. The problem is most franchise advertising portals do not provide direct links to corporate websites. However, over the next year, the industry can expect portals to begin to allow trackable, off-site links in response to this growing trend. The good news for everyone is that the Internet is still a great source for leads. Franchise application rates have held steady at 12-18% over the past year and with emerging Internet marketing strategies, this number should continue to climb. About FranchiseBenchmark. The FranchiseBenchmark Industry Insight reporting series is based on data collected from the 170+ franchisors and business opportunities that utilize the eMaximation sales lead management system. The eMaximation system processes over 60,000 leads per month for brands across all industries and sectors, across all price points, and geographic boundaries. For more information about these reports or request specific statistics in future reports, please contact us at franchisebenchmark@emaxdemo.com. To learn more about the eMaximation Franchise Sales Management system, go to www.eMaximation.com. | 1/1/06 - 5/31/06
Activity by Source 1/1/06 - 5/31/06
Average Sources per Industry 1/1/06 - 5/31/06
Previous Issues May 2006 - Top Ten Portals |
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