FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How many contacts are listed in the franchisor database for each company?
So that our database clients can contact the decision makers with each franchise system, we note both the senior contact for franchising (Main Contact) and the President/CEO (President Contact). Where there is a separate President and CEO, we frequently list both. Similarly, when there are two positions that might be the franchising decision maker, we frequently list more than one person. There is a 1 in the Columns C and D designating which area the contact falls into.

Are email addresses included in the database?
Because of the FCC’s CAN-SPAM Rules (click here), we are precluded from providing more than a single email address for each company. This is usually the direct email address for the preferred contact person for franchising. In many companies, especially for smaller franchise systems, the contact person may also be the president. In maybe 25% of the cases, the email address provided is generic – e.g. franchising@XYZ.com or info@ABC.com.

Are international franchisors included in the database?
The database includes only active North American franchisors and does not include franchisors headquartered outside the USA or Canada.

How often is the database updated? How accurate is the database?
The World Franchising Network maintains a database in excess of 14,000 unique email addresses within the franchising industry. On average, we send out one or more email blasts every week to various segments of the franchising industry. When analytic reports come back, we immediately remove all bounced email addresses from our database. Consequently, the database we provide to database clients should be 99+% accurate at any point in time.

For the number of Franchised Units and Company-Owned Units, our objective is to provide the most current number of actual operating units. Unfortunately, many franchisors also include units when an agreement has been signed, but not yet operational. The cells that relate to Total Investment are provided solely as a reference point and are not available for all franchisors. These numbers change with some frequency and may not reflect the most current information. Similarly, the data for Year of Incorporation and First Year Franchising are for reference purposes only. We provide this information when we have it, with the knowledge that it varies somewhat depending upon the source.

Do you provide a rebate for inaccurate mailing or email addresses?
While we guarantee the accuracy of the mailing addresses ($.50 rebate for each returned mailing), we do not guarantee the accuracy of the email addresses. Whereas we might generate 50 bounced email addresses from an email blast of 10,000 recipients (well under 1%), we have found that the number of inaccurate emails is often a function of how the email is sent and the software used. Accordingly, a client’s bounce rate might be substantially higher than might otherwise be the case using state-of-the-art technology.

How is the industry category determined for each franchisor?
Working with FRANdata, we have streamlined our industry breakdown to 29 distinct industry categories. In some cases, a company might prefer to be listed in another or more than one industry group. For the most part, however, we feel that most companies are listed in a category that most accurately reflects what they do.

FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

Until a year or so ago, we used the most popular email marketing software provider to send out our emails. Using this popular software, however, often resulted in as many as 600 bounces out of approximately 10,000 unique email addresses. Because of our on-going efforts to maintain the accuracy of the database, we knew, however, that the vast majority of the email addresses that had bounced were in fact current and active email addresses. We subsequently switched to another email marketing firm (Vidi Emi) that has reduced the number of bounces to 50 or less for an email blast of nearly 10,000 unique email addresses. All bounces are immediately eliminated from our database. If you would like more information about Vidi Emi, please contact Robin Simmons at (510) 667-9999. While their services are more expensive than that of the email marketing software provider we were using, our throughput of emails and the on-going design assistance we receive from them more than justifies the incremental expense.

The database we provide to clients includes over 3,000 active North American franchisors. Given these difficult economic times, we do our best to eliminate companies that are no longer actively franchising. Similarly, since we are in constant contact with the franchising industry, we are generally privy to new franchisors. The most reliable source of information on new franchisors is provided by FRANdata in their New Concept Report that comes out each quarter. To learn more about their service, please click here. For further information, please contact Edith Wiseman at ewiseman@frandata.com or (703) 740-4707.