Looking at the Many Forms of Franchise Recruitment

Franchise Update Media has been researching franchise lead generation and franchise recruitment processes for more than a decade. An annual in-depth online survey queries franchise development professionals about a number of issues related to their lead generation and recruitment strategies. The results are presented each year in the Annual Franchise Development Report (AFDR).

The AFDR is a valuable resource that can provide crucial insights into franchise development, lead generation, and recruitment best practices. It’s the kind of information that can help brands assess what they are doing right, and what needs improvement.

The annual project seeks to identify what’s new and innovative in franchise lead generation, recognize the methods and approaches yielding the best results, and gain insights into franchisors’ perspectives on current and future business performance.

Survey participants were franchisors who completed an in-depth questionnaire online. Responses were aggregated and analyzed to produce a detailed view into the recruitment and development practices, budgets, spending allocations, and strategies of a wide cross-section of franchisors. The data along with accompanying commentary and analysis provided the basis for the 2025 AFDR.

The in-depth report features results from more than 110 organizations actively expanding their franchise systems. The thoroughly researched report spotlights the latest trends and reveals various franchise lead-generation and sales trends. The AFDR represents companies totaling more than 50,000 franchise units and 42 industry categories.

Franchise Update Media creates this report annually and shares its findings with franchise development teams to give them an edge in their lead generation and recruitment efforts.

Franchisee recruitment services

Franchisee recruitment is the lifeblood of any system and the primary goal of franchise development teams. There are many different strategies to target qualified candidates and now more platforms to share information about franchise opportunities than ever before. The AFDR examined how franchises are going about their recruitment and the services they are using to reach new candidates.

Seventy percent of the respondents to the survey said they handle franchise recruitment advertising in-house. Twenty-nine percent said they work with an advertising agency, and 16 percent work with a third party. Responses indicate that some franchises handle recruitment both internally and with an outside company.

With so many ways to reach franchise prospects, we asked development teams about the various outsourced services they use. Not surprisingly, digital and social messaging were the most popular. Web design was the leading service with 79 percent of the responses. That was followed by digital ad buying (60 percent), social media (60 percent), and digital ad creative (55 percent).

Beyond just the popular forms of advertising, we also asked franchise development teams if they have successfully used other recruitment programs over the past year. Slightly more than half of the respondents (53 percent) used targeted, custom direct marketing programs to reach candidates. Thirty-six percent said involvement in associations to connect with franchise targets. Other popular responses included text messaging (28 percent), custom local events (26 percent), and sponsored content/native advertising (24 percent).

The wide range of responses to each question in this section of the AFDR demonstrates the vast number of services and strategies franchises can currently use to reach candidates

For more information about the 2025 AFDR and how you can purchase the report, please scan the QR code below or click afdr.franchiseupdate.com/.