August 27, 2020

Top 4 Benefits Multi-Location Businesses Get From Consolidating Solutions

Darcy Bickham

Top 4 Benefits Multi-Location Businesses Get From Consolidating Solutions

Over the past few months, COVID-19 has added an extra layer of stress to many multi-location businesses’ marketing efforts. Multi-location marketers have had to revamp their localized marketing strategies, adjusting content to a society that is now even more digitally-focused than ever before. In addition to changing content plans, multi-location marketers have also had to look for ways to consolidate their marketing efforts to adjust for limited resources, staff, and budgets. One of the most useful ways to consolidate marketing efforts is through the consolidation of technology solutions your multi-location business currently uses. Many multi-location businesses across the nation have separate platforms for managing social media, listings, and ratings and reviews. Throughout this blog, we’ll highlight the top four benefits your multi-location business can receive by consolidating your marketing solutions.

1. Save Money on Platform Fees

One of the most straightforward benefits of consolidating your marketing solutions is that your multi-location business will save money on platform fees. Saving money is always a good investment, but with the pandemic causing a financial strain on many companies, cutting budgets and saving money has become a must. If your multi-location business can find a platform that can help you execute more than one area of your marketing strategy, the price will be less than paying for two separate solutions. Many of us are guilty of sticking with the solutions that we’ve used for years because they’re comfortable and don’t require you to learn a new tool or spend time researching different solutions that may fit your business’s needs. Once you realize all of the benefits that a single marketing solution can bring to your marketing team, you’ll be more compelled to look into other options. A day or two of research can lead to years of saving.

2. Increase Efficiency

Another great benefit of consolidating your marketing solutions is that your multi-location business will increase its efficiency. You will be able to save a lot of time in your day to day tasks if you aren’t having to log in and out of various platforms. You will also decrease the likelihood that one of your tasks will get lost in the shuffle of moving between solutions. For instance, if you’re about to schedule a social media post and receive a new review on a different management platform, you may get sidetracked and forget to go back and take care of your social media efforts. If you have one all-encompassing marketing solution, you won’t have to worry about getting sidetracked from managing notifications in multiple solutions and will prevent tasks from falling through the cracks. Your marketing team will also be able to increase its efficiency by only having to learn how to navigate a single platform. When you hire someone new to the team, if you have consolidated your solutions, the new employee would only have to learn how to use the one platform, rather than learning a variety of platforms for different areas of your localized marketing strategy. The same goes for all of your employees, therefore saving your multi-location business time and making it more efficient.

3. Activate More Local Users

Over time, your multi-location business will see that consolidating your marketing solutions will allow you to increase the activation and adoption of more local business owners. Many local business owners are often intimidated by localized marketing and will avoid it altogether. Usually, there are so many different platforms that they need to know how to use to monitor their reviews, post on social media, update their local listings and more. A single solution for all of your localized marketing needs resolves a lot of this worry. If local owners of your multi-location business can manage a holistic localized marketing strategy through one platform, they will be more likely to use it. And the more your local owners are using engaging with social media and ratings and reviews, the better your business will perform.

4. Improve Performance and Ultimately Sales

Three out of four brand engagements happen on local pages vs. national pages on Facebook, Google My Business, and other platforms. If your local business owners are more engaged in localized marketing, your business will see the results in terms of leads and, ultimately, sales. A centralized localized marketing solution also allows your multi-location business to track and monitor its localized marketing efforts all in one place. This makes it easier for your business to see what is working and where there is room for improvement. If your multi-location business is consistently optimizing your localized marketing efforts, you’ll start to see the hard work pay off, and again see an improvement in your business’s performance. Now that you’re able to see the importance of consolidating your localized marketing solutions, you may be wondering where to start. That’s where SOCi comes in! SOCi is the all-in-one platform for your localized marketing needs. SOCi is the central command for multi-location marketers and has all the tools you need under a single login. From ratings and reviews to listings, social media, chatbot solutions, and more, SOCi has you covered. For more information on how you can get started consolidating your localized marketing needs with SOCi, request a demo today!