The right in-store music has a deep impact on your franchise’s bottom line. A carefully crafted playlist — played across all your locations — can influence customer behavior and increase your profits. 

What kind of music should you play? The answer depends, in part, on what you want your customers to do. 

How Can Music Help? 

Nearly 85% of consumers report they’re more likely to return to a store that plays music they enjoy. In an era where customer loyalty is harder to earn than ever, your musical choices can be the difference between a one-time visitor and a regular customer.

For franchise owners managing multiple locations, understanding this connection between music and consumer psychology provides a powerful competitive advantage.

Tempo & Purchasing Patterns

The tempo of your background music can significantly alter the pace of in-store traffic flow. 

Fast-tempo music tends to energize shoppers, increasing their movement speed through your store. While this might seem counterintuitive to sales goals, it can actually benefit quick-service franchises during peak hours by improving customer turnover.

Conversely, slower tempos encourage customers to move more leisurely through your space, potentially increasing browsing time and unplanned purchases. 

Genre Selection & Spending Habits

Different music genres can influence not just how much customers spend but what they purchase. 

In one fascinating study, classical music playing in a wine store led customers to select more expensive wines compared to when top-forty hits were playing.

This demonstrates how music can subtly guide customers toward premium offerings — a valuable insight for franchises with tiered product lines.

Novelty & Variety

Playing fast-tempo music that customers are familiar with can increase variety-seeking behavior. 

This is particularly valuable for franchise businesses offering product lines with multiple options, like a yogurt shop with different flavors or a retail store with various fragrances of the same product line.

Volume

The volume of your in-store music matters just as much as the selection itself. 

Too loud, and customers may feel uncomfortable and leave prematurely. Too quiet, and you lose the atmospheric benefits entirely. 

The optimal volume creates a pleasant atmosphere in which customers can still be heard. This balance must be thoughtfully maintained across all franchise locations.

Understanding Your Brand’s Musical Identity

When music aligns with your identity, it creates a cohesive message. This alignment isn’t just about aesthetics. It directly influences purchasing behavior.

Before selecting a single track, take time to define what your brand sounds like. Just as you have visual brand guidelines, consider developing an “audio identity profile” that captures your brand’s personality through sound.

Ask yourself these essential questions:

• What values does your brand represent?
• What emotions do you want customers to feel in your space?
• How would you describe your brand if it were a person — sophisticated, playful, energetic, or calming?
• What artists or genres naturally align with these characteristics?

Creating Consistency Across Locations

For franchise businesses, maintaining a consistent brand identity across multiple locations presents unique challenges, and music is no exception.

Your customers expect a familiar experience whether they’re visiting your location in Seattle or Miami. When your in-store music varies dramatically between locations, it creates a disconnected brand experience.

Take these steps to make consistency happen: 

1. Develop a core playlist strategy.
2. Create seasonal or promotional variations that all locations can implement simultaneously.
3. Establish clear guidelines for franchisees about acceptable music parameters.
4. Implement centralized management tools that allow headquarters to monitor and adjust music across locations.

The most successful franchise systems treat music as a core component of their brand identity. They deploy unified playlists across all locations while occasionally allowing for regional customization within strict brand parameters.

This balanced approach ensures brand harmony while acknowledging local market preferences.

Understanding Music Licensing Requirements

When you play music in your franchise locations, you’re essentially broadcasting a “public performance” under U.S. copyright law. 

This means the creative minds behind those catchy tunes deserve compensation for their contribution to your business atmosphere, just as you’d pay for your lighting, décor, or any other element that enhances your customer experience.

Playing music without proper licensing isn’t a minor oversight. It’s copyright infringement that can result in costly lawsuits and substantial fines. These legal battles can be financially devastating and potentially force franchise locations to close permanently.

In the United States, music licensing is primarily managed through performing rights organizations (PROs), which collect fees from businesses and distribute royalties to songwriters, composers, and publishers. 

Annual licensing costs vary based on your business type and size but generally start around $380 for hospitality businesses and $246 for retail establishments with ASCAP, while BMI fees average approximately $400 annually.

Each PRO represents different artists and musical catalogs, which creates a challenge for franchise owners. Securing just one license typically won’t cover all the music you might want to play. 

Smart Solutions for Franchise Compliance

Rather than struggling to manage this complex landscape on your own, consider these practical approaches:

• Business-focused streaming services: Services specifically designed for commercial use include licensing fees in their subscription costs, covering multiple PROs in a single payment. However, always verify exactly which PROs are covered. Some services may not include all necessary licenses. 
• Music licensing consultants: These specialists can navigate the complexities of licensing requirements, negotiate with PROs on your behalf, and develop tailored solutions that meet both your brand needs and legal obligations. Their expertise frees you to focus on other aspects of running your franchise. 
• Centralized license management: Implementing a system to track all music licenses across your franchise locations can prevent costly oversights. Consider using specialized software or assigning dedicated staff to manage this important aspect of compliance. 
• Clear franchise-wide music policy: Establish comprehensive guidelines for all franchise locations that outline approved music sources, licensing requirements, and compliance procedures. This helps prevent individual locations from inadvertently violating copyright laws.

Operational Best Practices

Managing in-store music effectively requires more than just selecting the right playlists. Implementing sound operational practices ensures your franchise locations deliver consistent, brand-aligned musical experiences that enhance customer satisfaction and drive business results.

Centralized Control With Local Flexibility

Establishing centralized control over your music programming across all franchise locations creates consistency while reducing your staff’s workload. 

Consider implementing a management system that allows you to assign specific music programming to groups of locations based on demographics or store type. Maintain central oversight while allowing for local customization when appropriate.

Strategic Scheduling & Dayparting

One of the most powerful operational techniques is strategic dayparting — changing your music throughout the day to match customer flow, business objectives, and atmosphere needs.

Play different styles of music during specific periods. For example:

• Morning: Energetic, upbeat music to start the day positively
• Midday: Moderate tempo music that encourages browsing
• Evening rush: Faster-paced music during peak times to subtly increase customer turnover
• Closing time: Upbeat, quicker tempos to naturally encourage departure

Smart scheduling allows you to ensure the right music plays at the right time without requiring attention. Many modern systems offer remote scheduling capabilities that let you program music weeks in advance.

Multi-Zone Management

For larger franchise locations or those with distinct areas, consider implementing multi-zone music management. This operational approach allows you to create different environments within the same location.

You might stream one playlist in a restaurant’s bar area while playing something entirely different in the dining section. This zoning approach can be particularly effective for the following:

• Creating distinct atmospheres in different departments
• Adjusting volume levels based on specific area needs
• Targeting different customer demographics within the same location

Staff Training & Compliance

Even the best music strategy fails without proper staff implementation. Develop clear operational guidelines and training for all franchise locations that covers the following:

1. How to operate the music system
2. When and how to make approved adjustments
3. Troubleshooting common issues
4. Understanding the strategic purpose behind your music choices
5. Compliance with licensing requirements

Remember that your employees are part of the overall experience. Train them consistently on how the music program integrates with other operational elements like customer interactions and complaint handling.

Regular Auditing & Refreshing

Establish a regular schedule for auditing your music program across all franchise locations. This operational discipline ensures continued compliance and effectiveness.

Additionally, keep your music fresh by updating playlists. Many business music services offer regularly refreshed content to prevent customer and staff fatigue. 

Consider quarterly reviews of your overall music strategy to ensure it continues to align with your brand objectives and customer preferences.

By implementing these operational best practices, you’ll create a music program that not only enhances your customer experience but also operates efficiently across your entire franchise network — turning background music into a powerful business asset that drives results.

Measuring Your Music Strategy's Effectiveness

Knowing whether your in-store music strategy is actually working or just background noise can make the difference between wasted investment and powerful brand enhancement. 

Let’s explore how to measure the impact of your carefully curated soundtracks across your franchise locations.

Tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

While it might seem challenging to isolate music’s specific impact, several indicators can help you evaluate effectiveness.

Consider the following metrics:

• Customer dwell time: Set up a simple tracking system using your existing security cameras or foot traffic counters to measure average visit duration before and after implementing music changes.
• Sales performance: Compare daily sales figures across similar periods with different music strategies to identify patterns.
• Customer feedback: Sometimes, the simplest approach works best—just ask! Train your staff to gather feedback casually. Consider implementing QR codes that lead to quick surveys about the overall atmosphere, with specific questions about the music selection.

Adjusting Based on Results

The most successful franchise owners view music strategy as an ongoing experiment rather than a set-and-forget solution. 

When your measurements reveal opportunities for improvement, take the following steps:

1. Make one change at a time (tempo, genre, or volume) to clearly identify what works.
2. Consider time-based strategies, such as slower music during browsing hours and faster-paced selections during peak times.
3. Test different approaches for different locations based on local demographics.
4. Document successful strategies to share across your franchise network.

With thoughtful measurement and adjustment, your franchise can use music as a powerful business tool rather than just pleasant background noise.

References

How do you select the perfect music for your brand and target the right audience?  (March 2025). Hoopr.

The influence of background music on shopping behavior: Classical versus top-forty music in a wine store. (January 1993). ResearchGate.

The effects of background music tempo on consumer variety-seeking behavior: the mediating role of arousal. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1236006. (2023). Sun, W., Chang, E.-C., & Xu, Y.