How to attract customers through content marketing

In the fiercely competitive franchise market, how brands can attract traffic and potential customers through online marketing has become a key issue. This article will explore in depth how franchise brands can use content marketing strategies to attract traffic and acquire customers, and analyze the sources and forms of content creation and the choice of publishing platforms.

If franchise brands want to build brand potential and effectively expand their stores, they cannot do without online marketing promotion and traffic acquisition.

Currently in the investment and franchise industry, there are two main ways to attract traffic: one is bidding, including Baidu, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Tencent Guangdiantong, etc.; the other way is to create a brand new media matrix account to obtain natural traffic, whether it is recommended traffic from the network platform or search traffic, all of which are natural traffic.

Today, let’s focus on the fact that the key to obtaining this natural traffic is content marketing.

1. Where does the content in content marketing come from?

The key reason why many franchise brands are not doing well nowadays is that they don’t know how to create content. They either just follow others and do what others do, or they just pick topics at random. Without systematic planning, it is difficult to control the final effect.

To put it simply, there are two main categories of content: one is centered around the industry, and the other is centered around the brand.

1. How to do content marketing around segmented industries?

The content around an industry cannot be too broad. Although the traffic is relatively large, it tests the ability to select topics and the expressiveness of the people on camera. The traffic accuracy is not high. Even if there is a message, the subsequent conversion rate is not high.

If there is no talent in this area, then choose more precise topics for content marketing, which will be much more effective. More importantly, it is more practical and easy to implement. Even if there is no professional talent, you can get started with simple training.

One of the most effective strategies is SEO strategy, which is to rank search results based on precise industry keywords. In addition to search engines such as Baidu, Xiaohongshu and Douyin also have a lot of traffic from users actively searching through keywords, especially Xiaohongshu, which has been used as the main search engine.

Therefore, an effective strategy to obtain these precise traffic is to layout the main keywords in the industry through content marketing.

The number of precise keywords in an industry is limited. From my experience, there are only 500-1000 keywords in a niche franchise industry, which basically covers the vast majority of user needs.

These keywords can be mined through tools, such as 5118 and other keyword search tools. Another simpler and clumsy way is to organize them manually, which is done by pulling down the search box, related searches, related recommendations, etc. Generally, you can expand more keywords by organizing 100-200 keywords.

What are the categories of keywords for a franchise segment? Let me briefly summarize and classify them.

The first category is centered around core keywords.

For example, hot pot restaurant franchise, hot pot chain franchise, etc., after the core words come out, a large number of long-tail words can be expanded, and a table can be compiled.

The second category is centered around the main issues of the industry

For example, details of hot pot restaurant investment costs, profits, payback period, which brand is better, brand rankings, etc.

The third category is related to hot topics

For example, falling house prices, company layoffs, etc. These topics have two advantages. One is that everyone is more concerned about them and they have a large amount of traffic. The other advantage is that they can easily cause anxiety, which can easily inspire people to start a business and open a store.

If you guide them carefully, they may be more likely to convert, because they already have the desire to start a business and open a store to change the status quo.

The fourth category is more about region and location

Regions include first-tier cities, second-tier cities, third-tier and fourth-tier cities; locations include near residential areas, in front of hospitals, and comprehensive supermarkets.

The fifth category revolves around the crowd

For example, office workers, couples starting a business, mothers, college students, security guards, retirees, etc. This is mainly based on what type of people the brand project itself is suitable for.

2. How to do content marketing around the brand?

The brand-related content in content marketing mainly revolves around business operations. From my original operation experience, I will develop a comprehensive approach around the following 16 key points. Franchisees will be able to clearly see the panoramic information of a brand's development, and when they compare with their peers, they will most likely prefer this brand.

The logic is simple: the clearer they understand a brand, the more familiar they are with it, and the easier it is for them to make a choice. Compared to brands that are secretive or even provide very little information, their trust in them will be higher.

There is a lot of data from my actual trading cases to prove this.

Here is a brief analysis:

1. Brand introduction: briefly describe the advantages of a certain category, brand introduction, brand positioning, advantages, product features, store scenes, etc.
2. Founder Style: Focus on the founder's entrepreneurial story, work philosophy, entrepreneurial methodology, industry insights, industry views, social activities, industry contributions, etc.
3. Store model: store profit model, investment cost details, profit level, store size, store location, service items, customer acquisition, etc.
4. Daily operations: appointment inspection, business explanation, store decoration, store layout and other company operation scenarios;
5. Investment support: investment policy, franchise process, store supervision, technical training and various support, etc.
6. Franchisee witnessing: franchisee signing, franchisee success case interview, franchisee store scene display, business data display, etc.;
7. Brand honors: brand honors, various awards, various certificates, etc.
8. Brand development: charity activities, event sponsorship, brand endorsement, etc.
9. Team style: style display of relevant department heads or employees, comprehensive display of work, life, team building, social activities, etc.
10. Platform reputation: franchised store takeaway platforms, such as Meituan and Ele.me, product best-selling lists, customer price, customer volume, customer reviews, business data, etc.
11. Industry analysis: Founders, executives, or third-party media analyze the development trends and industry issues of the brand’s industry;
12. Business Opportunity Insights: Business trends, changes, business opportunities, etc. related to a certain industry;
13. Brand promotion: brand positioning, advantages, industry status, business model, brand innovation, etc.;
14. Brand ranking: comparative analysis of brands among peers, highlighting brand differentiation and innovation, etc.;
15. Brand characteristics: the brand itself has exclusive and proprietary resources, etc.

2. How to publish content marketing?

1. What are the content forms of content marketing?

Nowadays, many people don’t have much patience to read articles. Everyone prefers to watch short videos, which are very intuitive. Therefore, the most important form of content marketing is short videos, followed by pictures and texts.

Short videos and pictures and texts each have their own advantages, and it is best to use them together.

The threshold for short video production is relatively high, and it requires dedicated operators to shoot and edit. Many people think that they can just shoot with a mobile phone facing their face. In fact, this is a misunderstanding.

If you want to shoot good short video content, you still need to put in some effort. For example, the topic should be well planned, the script should be more careful, the shooting quality should be better, the editing should be more refined, etc. Each link must be done by a dedicated person to ensure the final quality.

If the pictures and texts are simpler and done better by professional editors, the traffic and conversion effects will be very good.

2. Which platforms should be chosen for content marketing?

Now, these promotion platforms are easy to increase in volume, and the best lead conversion effect is Xiaohongshu and Douyin, followed by video accounts and public accounts, and Zhihu is also good. Other promotion platforms are weaker in comparison.

If the team has more people, they can open more platforms and accounts to cover all platforms. If the team has fewer people, they can focus on Douyin or Xiaohongshu.