When it comes to the development and execution of a marketing strategy for businesses with multiple locations, one of the most difficult challenges is scaling that strategy to be effective for each location. This is particularly true when it comes to content marketing, and its ability to help businesses with more than one location attract and convert customers on a local level.

Often, where we see corporate level content marketing go wrong, is when businesses fail to realize the diversification of their customer base at each location – understanding that one type of content that may work for one location (or at the corporate level), may be entirely irrelevant for another. As a solution, many business then resort to generalizing their content marketing in efforts to appeal to everyone.

But in reality, as you’ve undoubtedly heard before, if you try to market to everyone, you’re actually marketing to no one.

So what’s the solution?

It’s no longer enough just to have your various store-front locations listed on your corporate website. With customers looking for content on a daily basis to help them do their jobs better or make a smarter purchase decision, there’s an enormous opportunity for businesses to create segmented, location-specific content strategies for each of their location-specific websites.

Yes – this method would require additional work and budget, but think about it this way: chances are, your business’s direct customer engagement and sales are both occurring at the local level. So when you’re local audience is searching for relevant content related to your products or services, the content they find should be consistent with their interests and geographical location. Right?

With a location-specific content strategy, your customers will not only be more likely to find you before your competitors in organic search, but they’ll also be more willing to convert into a lead if presented with a more enriched, relevant experience and content that corresponds to their interests.

So, back to that additional cost I mentioned above. Of course a multi-location content strategy requires additional planning, implementation and budget – but that expense should be measured while considering the missed business you’ve yet to capitalize on at a local level (even for just two or three locations).

Still not convinced on the power of custom content for each of your locations? Consider the following statistics:

1. Interesting content is one of the top 3 reasons people connect with brands on social media. – ContentPlus
2. 68% of consumers spend time reading content from a brand they are interested in. – The Content Marketing Association
3. Content creation is ranked the single most effective SEO technique by 53% – Marketing Sherpa 2013
4. 60% of consumers are more likely to be on the lookout for products when looking at content marketing. – The Content Marketing Association

Where do I start?

Creating content that attracts and converts starts from the ground up, beginning with a strategy for each physical location. (Don’t get overwhelmed here – if you have multiple businesses located close to one another, you may be able to merge those strategies.)

The most critical step in creating a local content strategy is to begin with persona development. At the corporate level, it can be tempting to generalize or make high-level assumptions; which is why we recommend pulling in your front-line employees – your management team or sales team who typically work with your customers on a daily basis. These individuals are your absolute best resource in accurately segmenting your target markets and creating relevant personas.

The next phase is understanding the interests, pains and challenges of your personas and how you can integrate unique, custom content that’s aligned with what they’re already searching for. From a local perspective, you’ll also want to incorporate content that’s specific to the individual location and it’s community.

If you want to learn more about creating a local content strategy for your multi-location business, we’re offering a complimentary Inbound and Content Marketing Evaluation, where we’ll review your business’s current inbound and content marketing efforts from the corporate level to the local level, and provide actionable advice on creating and integrating a localized content strategy to attract more potential customers. Click here to register.