Digital Marketing for Multi-Location Businesses

The term “digital marketing” refers to any strategy that reaches your target audience online. It’s an umbrella term that includes strategies like search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), email marketing, social media marketing, and more.

But do any of your strategies need to change when you have a multi-location business? Luckily, you won’t have to worry about changing your strategy, but you will have to make some changes for it to effectively serve your multiple locations.

Call 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about digital marketing plans from WebFX, or keep reading to learn more about what goes into creating an effective strategy for a multi-location business.

How does marketing a multi-location business differ from a single-location business?

It might sound like a silly question, but the only difference between a single-location business and a multi-location business isn’t just that one has more storefronts than the other.

When you have a multi-location business, there is a lot to consider. Do all of your storefronts sell the same products? Do you only offer certain products at one location? Are the locations spread out from state to state, or county to county?

The answers to all of these questions are all important for effectively marketing your multi-location business – and they all will help sell your products and services at each location.

Multi-location businesses need a digital marketing strategy that will cater to every one of their storefronts – not just one. They’ll need to ensure that each location gets the appropriate attention and coverage online to inform users about each.

When you’re marketing your multi-location business online, you should treat every location as its own – but keep in mind that you don’t want to create duplicate content.

Make your marketing campaign one that’s fit for a multi-location business

As we mentioned before, there’s no need to change the strategies that you’re already using for your online business.

If you’re already utilizing SEO, you should continue doing so for your multiple locations. If you have a content marketing or email marketing campaign in place, you should also continue doing so.

However, there are ways that you can shift your strategies to better accommodate your multiple locations.

Here are a few changes you can make, and what area of your marketing strategy it will affect.

1. Create unique pages for each location to avoid duplicate content – content marketing

Duplicate content is one of the biggest problems that multi-location businesses run into online.

When you’re writing online content for your business, you want to ensure that you’re targeting your customers. You can do this with the keywords that you choose – and these keywords likely include the products and services you provide.

But another way to target your audience is with location keywords.

The problem with this is that if you make product or service pages that are entirely the same, but target a different location, you could get penalized for having duplicate content on your site.

Although you’re targeting a different audience because you’re using a different location, the bulk of your content about your products and services will be similar, or could even be the same.

Instead of copying the same information and putting it on each of your location pages, create specific pages that only outline what is unique about that storefront.

Most business will have a “home location.” You should let this be your main page for referencing all of your products and services. That way, users can know what to expect at your other stores, but you won’t have to create that duplicate content on each of your location pages.

For example, let’s say that your business has a corporate office in New York, but you have storefronts in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. Each of your locations offer mostly the same products and services – so there’s no need to repeat the content that you already have on your home location page.

Instead, create unique pages that outline the exclusive products that are unique to each location. You can also include local storefront news, local hours, and a map of the specific location.

You can also add a photo gallery of the store, specials that you’re having, and other location-specific information.

You should consider adding personalized testimonials for each of your location pages. This will allow potential customers to hear about the unique perks of each of your storefronts and it will help differentiate each in terms of what is offered and what customers love.

These pages as a whole will ensure that your site visitors know about each separate location, but it will also ensure that you avoid being penalized for duplicate content.

WebFX has a whole team of content marketers who can help to create the most effective content for each of your locations!

2. Create Google Business Profile pages for each of your locations –local SEO

Google Business Profile is probably something you’re already utilizing for your home location, at least. But the truth is, if you want Google to know that you’re a multi-location business, it’s best to make a GBP page for each of your stores.

This is important because each of your storefronts have different addresses, potentially different hours, and different contact phones numbers.

Your goal should be to ensure that no matter where a customer is, they can find your closest storefront along with the correct contact information and address. If you don’t have a page for each of your locations, you could be losing tons of customers that search for you and are in an area besides your main location.

GBP also allows you to accumulate reviews for each of your stores, which can also help to increase your business to each location (if your reviews are good, of course).

If you want more advice on local SEO for your multi-location business, check out this page!

3. Be consistent with listings and contact information – SEO

It’s important when you have a multi-location business to keep your business name and contact information consistent.

If you’re listing your multi-location business on numerous business directories and business listing sites, you need to make sure that you’re sharing the same information on each. This is especially important for companies that have multiple words in their name.

For example, if you own a bakery called “Sweet Stuff Bake Shop Cakes and More,” you need to decide what you’ll call your business across all listings.

Will you call it “Sweet Stuff Bake Shop,” to keep it short, “Sweet Stuff Bake Shoppe,” or “Sweet Stuff Bake Shop Cakes and More”?

You should do all of your submissions to business listings and directories all at one time, so that it’s easier to stay consistent with your information. If you spell “shop” two different ways on different listing sites, you could potentially lose customers that don’t know you’re the same company.

A difference in just a word or two in one of your listings can leave users questioning if it’s the same business – which can end up losing you customers.

It also lets customers know that you’re organized and consistent, and no matter where they are when they search for your company, they’ll be able to find you – regardless of location.

This is especially important for multi-location businesses since you’ll have multiple listings (one for each location), that you submit to each listing site or directory.

You should also be consistent with your contact information.

For example, if on one listing site you tie one of your locations to the phone number of your home office, you should do so across all listings. But if each of your locations has a different phone number, you should be sure to use that number across all listings sites that you submit to.

If you’re a small business and you’d rather have your customers call your cell phone, you should provide that number across all directories, too.

If users see that you’ve posted a variety of phone numbers, they’ll get confused, and potentially look at one of your competitors for their service.

4. Create PPC ads for each location – PPC

One of the best things about having a multi-location business is that you have a much wider customer base, since you can serve more geographical areas.

That being said, it’s important that you create PPC ads that target each of those locations so that you aren’t missing out on qualified customers in each area.

You can keep the same template for your ads, but use the geo-targeting feature in your ad platform to make sure that users see the location that’s closest to them.

Your landing pages should feature something that lets users know they’re at the right place for their specific location. This could simply mean adding the city at the top of the landing page.

If you’ve never run PPC ads before, or need help creating actionable landing pages, WebFX can help!

5. Cater to each location in your email marketing campaign – email marketing

If you have an email marketing campaign in place, it’s easy to share general information about your company as a whole – but imagine catering to every one of your locations in your email newsletters.

You should consider sharing local news for each of your locations in your business newsletter. Not only will this make the email feel personalized to your customers across your multiple locations, but it’ll also show your customer base what you have going on at other storefronts.

When done right, this will showcase your business capabilities and events across the board, and make your brand feel more cohesive – even though you serve numerous geographical locations.

Do you need help marketing your multi-location business?

If you’re having trouble creating a digital marketing strategy for your multi-location business, WebFX can help.

We are a full-service digital marketing agency that knows what it takes to create an effective campaign for multi-location businesses. Whether you have two locations or 10, we can create a campaign that will reach the best possible audience.

What services do we offer?

WebFX offers everything from SEO and PPC to content and email marketing. We have an experienced team of in-house specialists who know how to cater your specific marketing campaigns to each of your locations – bringing more traffic to your website and to your storefront.

We also offer lead generation services, web design, social media marketing, and custom infographic creation to take your multi-location business marketing campaign a step further.

We’ll start by learning all about your business – what you sell, what your customers love, and what your goal is for your digital marketing campaign.

Then, we’ll work with you to combine all of the strategies you desire to create a campaign that will increase your ROI and increase your leads.

Contact us to get started!

If you’re ready to put together a marketing plan that will benefit your multi-location business, WebFX is just a phone call away.

Contact us today to speak with a specialist and get a free quote!