Marketing Byte: How Franchises View Revenue Goals for 2026

Franchise Update Media recently released its 2025 Annual Franchise Marketing Leadership Report. The AFMR is a survey of top franchise marketing executives that provides insights into the latest consumer behavior trends, innovative marketing strategies, technology, and the impact of digital transformation on franchise businesses.

The AFMR is the first and only report dedicated to B2B and B2C franchise marketing leaders. It includes perspectives from industry experts about the evolving market dynamics and how franchises can stay ahead of the competition. This report delivers data collected from franchisors across the franchise community with responses organized by industry, marketing budget, system-wide sales, and more.

The annual report provides franchisors with the ideal resource for studying their marketing investments, benchmarking their sales and advertising budgets against their own industry categories, as well as setting goals and budgets for the year ahead. The AFMR also includes research into digital advertising practices, the growing investment in mobile and social platforms, and best practices in building marketing teams.

Over the last several years, the AFMR was expanded to include more information about online reputation management and the use of artificial intelligence (AI). It starts by identifying how many franchises are using AI and in which ways, along with their confidence in using the technology. It also looks at how the integration of AI has impacted the customer experience, its challenges and limitations, and their plans for future investment in AI. The report also explores franchisee involvement, franchisee training and support, and feedback from customers regarding the use of AI.

Projecting revenue for 2026

Many businesses use the final weeks of the year to assess their revenues from the past 12 months and look ahead to what the new year may hold. They look at what processes can be replicated or improved and examine market trends that could affect their profitability in the coming year. In the latest AFMR, Franchise Update asked marketing executives about the stability of their revenue over the next 12 months, any trends that could impact revenue, and how they would mitigate any challenges to revenue stability.

Confidence in stable revenue projections

Starting with industry sector, most franchises felt somewhat or very confident that their revenues would remain stable over the next 12 months. Eighty-six percent of non-brick-and-mortar service brands said they were somewhat or very confident in the stability of their upcoming revenue projections.

When looking at the size of the franchises that responded, the greatest percentage also felt somewhat or very confident about consistent revenue projections over the next year, as seen in the chart below.

There was slightly more variation in the same question when grouped by systemwide revenue. One hundred percent of the respondents in two groups ($501,000 - $1M, and $500M - $1B) said they were unsure about projected revenue over the next 12 months. However, most other franchises, when ranked by revenue, responded with 50 percent or above as either somewhat or very confident about stable projections over the next year.

Upcoming trends impacting revenue

In a related question, we asked survey respondents if there were any major events or trends that could impact their revenue over the next year. When looking at industry sector, the most popular responses came in the categories of inflation and rising costs, and global economic slowdown and uncertainty.

When grouped by size of the franchise, many respondents shared similar concerns about the same question. There were also a high number of groups that added concerns about two other factors: shifts in consumer and business confidence, and trade policy shifts and geopolitical tensions.

How to overcome challenges

Given the threat of potential revenue insecurity, the ARMR survey asked respondents how they might mitigate these challenges. One of the most popular answers by industry sector was to regularly review budgets and cash flow, a response given by all respondents in the food category. Other popular responses were “strengthening customer relationships and loyalty programs” and “control costs and optimize cash flow management”.

We asked the same question to franchises based on unit size. The highest percentages of responses, regardless of size, came with the following answers:

• Strengthen customer relationships and loyalty programs
• Control costs and optimize cash flow management
• Leverage technology and data analysis

For more information about the 2025 AFMR and how you can purchase the report, read more HERE.