Best Advertising and Marketing Franchise Opportunities (22 reviews)

If you have ever wondered what the best marketing and advertising franchise opportunities are available today, you have come to the right place.

In this article, we will briefly explain seven common marketing and advertising categories that many marketing-related franchisors compete within. Then, we will review several of the franchise opportunities within each category.

What are the best advertising and marketing franchise opportunities?
The best marketing and advertising franchise opportunities available are based on multiple factors. Some of the best in this industry are: Signarama, Fully Promoted, WSI Digital Marketing, Hommati, and Money Mailer, among 22 franchises in our review.

There are many metrics that are common in the franchising industry that can determine the best franchise within a competitive environment.  In this article we will briefly review some common traits so you can get acquainted with the advertising and marketing franchise industry.

Let’s get started.

7 Top Categories within the Advertising and Marketing Franchise Industry

There is no question that franchise models within the advertising and marketing industry touch a large portion of the economy.

While most have a focus on B2B marketing techniques and strategies, the underlying foundation is almost always focused on solid B2C marketing strategies.

From digital advertising to local restaurant signage to hats, t-shirts and promotional pens -- advertising and marketing franchises are necessary businesses in almost every community.

And that’s not just in the United States. Many of these franchise models we will discuss have locations across the globe, from Canada, Mexico, India, Australia, the U.K., Germany, UAE, Latin America including Costa Rica, Panama and much more.

While today’s focus is primarily on franchises in the United States, with a few exceptions, we will devote more focus on International marketing opportunities in future articles.

As we get started, let’s briefly review the 7 categories to be explored. The 7 categories are:

1. Printing and Mail Services Franchises
2. Sign and Promotional Material Franchises
3. Promotional Products and Direct Mail Franchises
4. Indoor / Outdoor Billboard Franchises
5. Website Development Franchise
6. Digital Marketing Agency Franchises
7. Coupon and Direct Marketing Advertising franchises

Of these categories, some are clear leaders with hundreds of franchise locations and decades of experience. But, choosing the clear leader isn’t always the best choice if you are looking to start your own franchise within one of these networks. 

Maybe you want to join a smaller franchise network in a growing industry and be able to grow with them. After all, by choosing a newer franchise model you may have more options to purchase master franchise rights or have more choices for buying premium territories. On the flip side, you may want to limit your risk by choosing a more well-known brand that may make it easier to gain and keep customers, if starting from scratch.

Regardless, this is part of your due diligence and based on your goals.

Additionally, many of the services of these companies are excellent. In fact, we have used many of them over the years and will in the future. After all, if you are growing your business, whether as part of a franchise or not, opening yourself up to new and better service providers is really the big goal, isn’t it?

Of course it is.

Let’s get into our review.

Review of 22 Marketing and Advertising Franchise Opportunities 

Ok, let’s now look at some individual franchise opportunities and you can see if any of these make sense for your goals. 

As we did our research for each franchise, we did our best to answer these initial questions:

1. What does the franchise do? 
2. When did they start? 
3. How many locations do they have? Big network or just getting traction?
4. Where are most of their locations (in the US or in another country?)? 
5. Plus, we searched for anything that was particularly special about the brand, the owners, the capital structure or anything else that we may have found particularly interesting.

Here’s a brief review of each marketing and advertising franchise, under their respective category:

Printing and Mail Services Franchises:

PostNet - Started in 1993, this packing and shipping franchise is one of the most well known franchises in the franchising industry. Boasting 3,000+ franchise locations across the globe, PostNet is a brick and mortar business with a solid brand.

PostalAnnex+ - Catering to local small businesses, PostalAnnex+ has 300 franchise locations in the United States. From shipping and business services, to laminating, fax and copy machines, notarization and passport services, PostalAnnex+ serves the niche with a stable brand experience.

Sign and Promotional Material Franchises:

Signarama - With 700+ locations across the globe, Signarama focuses on developing a wide range of sign products and services.  Building signs, neon signs, banners, boats, and vehicle wraps, Signarama has over 35 years in business and provides a proven product and service to a well defined niche.

FastSigns -- A long history as a franchise leader, FastSigns is a dominant franchise business model in the $29 Billion sign industry.  Headquartered in Texas, franchisees in the FastSigns franchise network averaged over $1,000,000 in sales in 2021 earning over $200,000 in net income, according to Item 19 in their 2022 FDD.

Pano Sign Service - Franchising since 1989 and born in France, Pano Sign Service is truly an international operation featuring locations in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritius, and more. Pano Sign Service sells a variety of products and services including window graphics, vehicle graphics, shop signs, interior and outdoor and more. 

Promotional Products and Direct Mail Franchises:

Minuteman Press - Franchising since 1975, Minuteman Press focuses on developing print and promotional materials for a wide range of industries. This versatile business and marketing services provider helps customers market, advertise and promote products and services to the target audiences.

Proforma - Proforma is a leader in the promotional products, printing and packaging industry. With over 600 independent owners, a strong support system and 400 suppliers, Proforma has a nice niche providing business success tools, technology and support.

Fully Promoted - Selling branded apparel and promotional products, Fully Promoted produces a wide variety of products.  With 250 locations, the B2B business model provides solutions that include branded apparel, team gear, professional attire, service wear, uniforms and more. 

BirthdayPak - This unique direct mail business takes a fresh approach to local coupon mailers. While their operations are limited to just a couple territories mostly on the east coast of the US, BirthdayPak has potential to be a nice service within the advertising space promoting high end services to a fairly targeted buyer. 

Indoor / Outdoor Billboard Franchises:

Runningboards Marketing - This unique franchise model is literally an advertising truck called “DAV”, a digital mobile billboard. Featuring multiple revenue possibilities, Runningboards Marketing is a new franchise model with the majority of locations on the east coast and growing.

N-Compass TV - A new franchise model, with 10 years experience in the indoor billboard space, N-Compass TV is a very interesting franchise with a revenue model that provides more flexibility.  N-Compass TV features low start up costs, a wide territory and a large base of potential customers. 

Website Development Franchise:

SiteSwan Website Builder - Based out of New York, SiteSwan is not a franchise model but it is an interesting business model where resellers can make money building websites for local businesses using templates and software. The platform requires no design or technical experience. There are multiple revenue streams and service upsells. The pricing structure, while it has a cap on the number of costumes a reseller can have, seems fair as long as the support structure is solid.

Hommati - With over 140 franchises, Hommati serves a unique niche in the real estate industry. With a very clear target audience, Hommati franchisees can provide a range of services largely focused around using drone technology in the real estate business. 

Eazi-Sites - Eazi-sites website design is part of an international suite of technology projects focused on helping local business.  Their services are focused on mobile apps, lightning-fast websites, eCommerce, SEO, social marketing, reputation management and much more. Headquarters in London and offices worldwide, if you are looking for a technology-heavy franchise, this may be a great model to review.  

Digital Marketing Agency Franchises:

WSI Digital Marketing - One of the longest operating digital marketing franchise business models, WSI is well-known in the industry. A large network, good franchise support and a moderate cost structure makes WSI a solid choice to enter this industry.  

Tenacious Techies -- Another truly International Marketing organization, Tenacious Techies has a wide product and services offering such as development, mobile application development, internet marketing and lead generation. This franchise model provides multiple revenue sources and empowers the owner with a large outsourced set of IT solutions.

Full Pivot - Associated with Eazi-sites, Full Pivot is a website design branch and is part of an international suite of technology projects focused on helping local business.  Their services are focused on mobile apps, lightning-fast websites, eCommerce, SEO, social marketing, reputation management and much more. Headquarters in London and offices worldwide, if you are looking for a technology-heavy franchise, this may be a great model to review.  

SocialOwl - A very interesting business model, SocialOwl helps businesses get a handle on the most important components of their social media plan. A flat monthly fee, multiple payment methods, and a full suite of services handled by the company helps franchise owners develop a social following.

Coupon and Direct Marketing Advertising franchises:

Valpak Direct Marketing Systems, Inc. - Valpak is a well-known direct mail advertiser, used by thousands of businesses for direct marketing advertising solutions. For more than 50 years, Valpak has mailed coupons and offers on behalf of local and national campaigns.

Money Mailer - Money Mailer® has been delivering ads via direct mail envelopes to American homes since 1979.  They use a branded, bright, red-white-and blue envelope featuring some of the best local offers that local advertisers can promote. Money Mailer also delivers digital coupons, email,  social media and download via the mobile app.

Welcomemat Services - With a relatively low start up cost at $47,000, Welcomemat Services franchisees have access to some sophisticated date driven marketing strategies and focused target markets. Large territory sizes of over 350,000 target populations, a home-based office is an option and complete fulfillment of operations is handled by the franchisor.

The Inside Coup - This home based business focuses on print ads in a magazine format, delivered to affluent households in the target area. For example, when advertisers place an ad with the franchisee in the magazine, their restaurant is exposed to potentially thousands of locals. The franchise also produces the ads online, digitally, for mobile access and social sharing. The corporate office even invoices the franchisee's clients, making for a more automated experience.

Coffee News - This low cost, high touch, owner-operated business can make the owner a local celebrity within the target audience.  A long running franchise, Coffee News  targets cities with at least a 50,000 population for the first franchise and up to a 40,000 population for each additional franchise. The typical Coffee News® Publisher owns an average of three to five franchises and publishes 3-5 editions of the newsletter each week.

In the next article in this series we will review some important business metrics, and marketing key performance indicators of many of these advertising and marketing franchise opportunities.