If your business has taken off to where you have multiple locations, congratulations! It’s a sign that you are running a successful operation. But this whole time you’ve been marketing from a single place. Now you have to figure out how to market multiple storefronts across the city, state, nation, or world. Follow these tips to promote your businesses from anywhere.
Remain Flexible
Google searches are becoming more localized, so you want to allow freedom for each of your locations to do some individualized marketing. Cultures are different from place to place, so what may be appropriate in New Orleans and Las Vegas might not apply to sleepier towns. Talk to your store managers to find out more about their community. Come up with ideas together on how you can all make the most of your marketing efforts in each unique place.
You will want to utilize different keywords for each location since user keywords will vary from spot to spot. For instance, let’s say you owned a pediatrician practice with offices across the United States. You will want to utilize keywords such as pediatrician in Abington,  pediatrician in Coeur d’Alene, pediatrician in Warrington, and so on, based on where offices are located throughout your website.
Remain Consistent
While you will want to make sure all locations have some level of freedom, you don’t want your image to be inconsistent. The tone of voice, design, logos, philosophy, and the pillars of your company should remain the same no matter where you are. This consistently helps solidify a brand, where too much variation could result in customers thinking your business is two or more separate enterprises. You don’t want your company to look like it’s in the middle of an identity crisis.
For consistency, make sure there are clear guidelines for your team members to follow. And be sure to stay the same down to the most granular details. For example, if your company’s name is Music and More, you will not want to use an ampersand, Music & More, in one location while spelling out A-N-D at another. Even a little bit of messiness reflects poorly on your brand.
Communicate
The best way to keep up consistency is communication. If you run children’s health practice with a pediatrician in Naperville and a pediatrician in Little Rock, have weekly or monthly meetings with your team leads together. The nature of your business and the rigorousness of your marketing efforts will determine how much you need to communicate. You want to make sure everyone is on the same page. There are many communication tools out there such as Slack, where all your employees can chat in one home. You can also use a shared drive or utilize planning tools such as Asana to keep everyone organized in one convenient place.
Don’t Duplicate Content
Duplicating content is one of the major red flags that Google bots see because it wants to discourage plagiarism. So if you are running a business, you will want to have a digital home where most of your information resides. Then you can make unique pages for each store’s unique circumstance, such as special events or products that are only sold in one place only. This will help cut down on confusion when someone is searching for your product or service.
Google Business Pages
You will want to make sure each of your store locations has its own Google My Business page. Your various storefronts likely operate at different hours and they have different phone numbers and addresses. Remembering to add a new listing with each new location that opens ensures that they are findable. You will also want reviews directed to each specific spot. Reviews are helpful geographically, so you wouldn’t want them crisscrossed. People who look at reviews understand that a business that is located states over can have a different reputation than the one in their hometown.
Create Different Email Marketing Campaigns
Newsletters have become a popular marketing method. The perks of owning multiple locations are your physical geographic reach. To expand on that, consider running email campaigns that are relevant to each location while also mentioning company-wide updates.
Follow these simple insights to guarantee successful marketing across the board for your multi-location brand.
