Launching a platform that outran its forecast.

The challenge

The founder brought more than two decades of franchising experience and a clear view of the opportunity. Prospective owners struggle to make sense of the number of franchises available, while franchise brands spend heavily trying to reach people who are genuinely the right fit.

The job was to turn that industry knowledge into something both sides would understand, trust and use. That meant shaping the brand, defining the platform experience and designing how prospective owners and franchise brands would find each other.

What we did

• Marketing strategy for both sides of the platform: prospective owners and franchise brands
• Brand positioning and the platform experience, from first visit to enquiry
• Launch campaigns across paid media and LinkedIn
• Email automation in ActiveCampaign to nurture enquiries

When success created a new challenge

Before launch, we set a simple benchmark: if each franchise brand received around five to seven enquiries a month, the platform would be doing its job. A few months in, some brands were receiving 20 to 30 a month, and one franchisor received more than 50 in a single month.

That raised a better question than most launches face: what to do when demand outruns the plan. We could have cut spend and kept the savings, or moved budget into brand and content. Instead, we kept generating demand and improved the quality of each match.

Prioritising match quality

We tightened how users set their preferences, narrowed overly broad industry choices and added questions that give franchisors context on each enquiry, such as whether someone is early in their research or actively looking to buy. Franchise partners now receive enquiries with far more context, which leads to more productive first conversations.

Working closely with early franchise partners also shaped the platform. Their feedback continues to guide how opportunities are matched and how prospective owners move through the site.

More leads for less budget

Once the platform was established, the focus moved to making every dollar work harder. Ad spend came down, and the number of prospective owners completing the matching quiz kept climbing.

With leads coming in at a fraction of the original cost, the conversation has moved on to other ways of growing the business's revenue.

Source: Franchise Matcha marketing dashboard (ad spend and matching quiz completions). Starting point is the first month on the campaign dashboard. August to September 2026 shown as a monthly average.

What it reinforced

Generating demand is where most marketing conversations stop. The more valuable questions start once enquiries arrive: are they reaching the right brands, are people matched to the opportunities that suit them, and do those introductions lead to real conversations?