We are madly preparing for IFA. Excitement is mounting here at ElementsLocal.  2011 has brought about big changes.

While Franchise Online Marketing has changed, our mission to deliver the best tools and solutions for online marketing hasn’t.

We’re looking forward to launching our ‘BrandLocal’ Campaign at IFA 2012 in Orlando FL.  

Our passion for the franchise industry and our passion for delivering the best, most comprehensive, online marketing platform for franchises has blossomed over the past 5 years. We now support over 3500 franchisees worldwide on our software.

We make franchisees LOCALLY WORLD FAMOUS. Through the use of our software, we drive national brands into local communities. This is our passion – to have every franchisee known as the Mom and Pop store of Everytown, USA.  Let us make your franchise locations the HUB of the town.

Here are some preparations we are taking in anticipation of the IFA convention and can also be applied to any conventions you will be attending in 2012:

• Find the Twitter hashtag – IFA’s is #IFA
• Download the IFA mobile app on your smartphone
• Prepare to collect contact info – business cards yes,  but better yet  get the information electronically

In anticipation of the IFA Covention, we are collecting data for our upcoming Webinar on January 18th, 2012 at 12pm CST ( register Franchise Online Marketing Boot Camp 2012).  To thank you for your time, we are giving away an IPad at the IFA convention to be drawn from those that took the time to help us by completing the survey.

Click Here to: Schedule a meeting with Elements at the 2012 IFA Conference.

Please take a few minute to take our marketing survey :  Franchisor Survey

CFE

The Institute of Certified Franchise Executives CFE accreditation courses for 2012 have been posted.

Visit this link for course and registration information:

2012 CFE Accreditation course and registration info.

People unfamiliar with email marketing often wonder what all the fuss is about. Didn’t spam kill email as a marketing vehicle? And if spam didn’t kill it, what about web feeds, instant messaging and all the other clever ways we can communicate online? Isn’t email outmoded?

Modern email marketing services, such as the integrated email marketing manager in the ElementsLocal platform, support database integration, segmentation and various other tricks and techniques for improving the targeting of outgoing messages. Advanced, franchise specific functionality, now allows Franchisor’s the ability to send out emails with the local owners names and addresses to reply to, thereby driving local marketing. Systems like the ElementsLocal platform also brand and content control email campaigns to be sent by franchise owners at the local level.

Beyond SEO

Franchise online marketing strategy is as much about engaging the visitors on your website as it is about building traffic and search engine optimization.

The goal of online marketing is to convert leads into business.  Beyond all of the SEO work to get people to your website you must also pay attention to the content, layout and aesthetic appeal of your website in order to turn attention into conversion and even better… retention (which is driving people back to your site again and again).

Here are some actions you can take today that will optimize your online marketing:

• Make sure that any links that lead visitors off of your website open in new windows. Do not direct traffic off of your webiste.  Ushering people off of your website is not productive.  By opening links in new windows,  your website will still be up when they close that window.  This is also applicable to your social media icons. Make sure they open in a new window as well.  Keep the traffic on your site as long as possible.

• Be aware of the users display.  Remember, an increasing number of people are viewing your website on mobile, or handheld devices.  Recent studies show that mobile traffic is on the rise, so having a strategy for a mobile friendly website both at the national and local levels is a must for 2012.

• Review your website for deficiencies regularly.   It may be just as easy as mending broken paths or replacing broken code. Again your site is only as legitimate as it is functional. Use websites like http://validator.w3.org/ to validate your website and find issues with it.

Following these simple suggestions will garner results. You will see a decrease in your bounce rate (visitors to your website who land on a webpage and leave without clicking deeper into your website) and an increase in the amount of time visitors spend on your website, the amount of content that they will read and ultimately the number of leads will you receive from your website.

Learn more about refining your Franchise Online Marketing by attending our Franchise Online Marketing Webinar on January 18th at 12:00 p.m. CST.  For more information visit : ElementsLocal Webinar – Franchise Online Marketing Tactics