Reaching out to customers in any franchise location requires dedication, marketing expertise and guidance in this area from franchisors, and a clear eye for customer needs, which can vary from city to city. What about franchise locations that naturally reach out to customers and offer a huge incentive for would-be-franchisees entering the industry?
Consider some of the following locations where franchising opportunities allow for increased contact with a key population of customers:
- Sporting events arenas and stadiums, cinema, theaters, amusement parks, and other entertainment venues where potential patrons may seek refreshments while enjoying themselves
- Airports, train and bus stations, boating and ferry docks, and other transportation crossroads locations with heavy foot traffic and potentially long waiting periods
- Health care facilities, such as hospitals, ongoing construction and development sites, universities and colleges and other educational facilities, corporate buildings with various businesses, each offering potential patrons refreshment between work, class or during long waiting periods
Each of the above examples has something in common: potential customers are visiting the location for a limited time, but nonetheless, may find themselves there for a lengthy duration of time. Quite typically, food franchises do well in these scenes because visitors to the area will almost certainly stop to eat should their stay last a number of hours or even days, including over an ongoing period of time, such as is so typical of students on campuses. Retail locations may also experience noteworthy success if there is strong reason to believe that product offerings are compatible with the general visiting population’s needs or interests.
Franchises in these areas also serve to develop brand awareness in a closed setting where visitors can frequent the location in relation to their everyday lives, travel, or recreation, with each area contributing its own unique setting for brands to share products and services with the public. Existing franchisees can consider branching out to another location in a high traffic area such as this, raising the inquiry with their franchisor. Multiple unit operators may do the same and even potential franchisees not yet operating a franchise may investigate areas of development available to them through any given franchise by inquiring further during the discovery process.
Adaptation to the concept may be necessary if it is to experience success in heavy foot traffic or commercial settings, which must be discussed with the franchisor in detail to understand how the concept can be redefined for the specific area and what this means for franchisees. This may require altering pricing and offered products and services to increase profitability and better suit potential customers in that particular area. It may also involve a franchise agreement specific to the nature of the particular business setting and requirements.