Whether your business is growing or trying to optimize, marketing demands are always increasing. Maybe you’re moving into a new region, taking on an acquisition, or even adjusting operations by closing select locations. Whether it’s an opportunity for growth or a necessary consolidation, every change requires rapid, coordinated action across all marketing channels.
And while you’re juggling these internal demands, there’s a whole market outside your doors that won’t wait for you to catch up. New competitors are constantly entering, existing players are evolving, and customer expectations are shifting faster than ever. Keeping pace in multi-location marketing isn’t just about updating local pages and managing profiles – it’s about balancing the internal workload with a proactive approach to stay competitive and relevant.
In this post, we’ll explore how multi-location marketers can stay nimble in a fast-moving environment, balancing fast operational changes while keeping a competitive edge in the market.
The weight of constant change
Managing internal pressures
From launching new locations to planning holiday ad campaigns, internal changes create a steady demand for marketing updates. Sometimes, a change in leadership—like a new CEO with a bold and ambitious vision—can shift brand priorities and require quick adaptation for your marketing team. Adjusting to a new strategic direction often means revisiting messaging, rethinking campaign goals, and realigning your brand’s voice to reflect the new vision.
Adapting to market changes
While your team is focused on aligning with internal shifts, the market outside is evolving just as fast. New competitors are emerging with aggressive campaigns, and established brands are experimenting with fresh strategies. Keeping up requires your team to balance daily operational changes with a proactive approach to external pressures.
Any multi-location marketer understands the pivot that the global pandemic necessitated in 2020. Ambitious growth plans were put on hold as teams fought the urgent fires of lockdowns and store closures. While the internal priorities might have been growth-focused, the broader market dynamic demanded survival mode alone.
Are you falling behind the market?
Signs you’re in reactive mode
When marketing teams are managing both internal shifts and external pressures, they can easily slip into reactive mode. Here are a few signs that might indicate you’re falling behind:
- Last-minute updates become the norm: Whether it’s overhauling your strategy because an exec had a shower thought or responding to a competitor’s promotion, last-minute changes are stealing time from proactive planning.
- Strategic priorities are constantly delayed: If long-term projects, like brand expansion or market research, keep getting pushed aside, it’s a sign that day-to-day demands have taken over.
- Messaging becomes inconsistent or diluted: As the team races to keep up, it’s easy for location-specific messaging to become rushed or inconsistent, which can weaken your brand’s overall presence.
- Team morale dips: When each day feels like a race to catch up, team morale can suffer. Burnout, turnover, and disengagement often signal that your team is stretched too thin and unable to focus on what matters.
Reclaiming control
Standardize and streamline processes
To handle the flow of updates while remaining strategic, establish clear and standardized processes for recurring tasks. If there’s a leadership change, for instance, a well-defined framework allows your team to quickly align the brand with the new vision. Standardization also keeps day-to-day work manageable, freeing up time for more impactful projects.
A practical step is to use templates and checklist for common updates. This is exactly what we’ve done to support some of our major multi-location clients with new location launches.
When we get the heads-up from a client that a new store is on the horizon, with one click we can activate all of the tasks required for a successful launch of digital assets.
Use technology to manage demands efficiently
Technology can help your team handle both routine updates and competitor monitoring without sacrificing quality. Tools like location management software, automated ad platforms, or social listening tools can reduce manual effort, making it easier to balance internal adjustments with a market-aware strategy.
A simple example is using Google Business Profile’s bulk upload feature to verify or update ten or more locations at once. This can be a huge time saver for overloaded teams. You can take it to the next level with a location management software with automated syncing across not only Google but hundreds of other sites in network. At seoplus+, we’ve partnered with Yext to bring this feature to clients.
Maintain a focus on brand consistency
As your team juggles updates, don’t let brand consistency fall to the wayside. There are many approaches to this, but I’d recommend starting brand guidelines and having a Q/A process to validate any new assets against approved uses. With AI, you can likely automate a lot of this, too (consider building a custom GPT to check content for proper brand name formatting, for example).
It’s also important to review existing assets and collateral and make sure they’re up to date.
When we went through a brand refresh with a client in 2023, it wasn’t just the website and store signage that needed to be updated. From the LinkedIn cover photo to logos on mall directory sites, everything had to be reviewed and refreshed.
Augment your team’s capacity through external support
Outsource time-intensive updates
When your internal team is balancing frequent updates with strategic growth goals, consider teaming up with an agency to manage operational tasks. With external support, your team can focus on high-priority projects that directly impact growth while ensuring day-to-day updates are handled accurately and efficiently.
Check out my recent blog on granular overload for multi-location marketers for more strategies.
Conclusion
Successfully keeping pace requires balancing internal demands with a proactive focus on market positioning. By streamlining processes, leveraging technology, and bringing in external support when needed, your team can avoid the trap of endless updates. Instead, you can create a steady, strategic foundation that allows your brand to grow, no matter what changes lie ahead.
At seoplus+, we’re obsessed with driving measurable, impactful results for multi-location clients and helping their marketing teams address day-to-day and big-picture challenges. Check out some of the great results we have generated for multi-location clients:
Get in touch with our team if you’d like to chat about driving better results for your multi-location or franchise business and finally feeling ahead of the curve.
