SOCi Analyzes 12.9 Billion Data Points to Rank Digital Marketing Performance of Multi-Location Brands

Fourth annual Localized Marketing Benchmark Report offers look at competitive landscapes across industries and defines success for digital marketers

SAN DIEGO, April 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SOCi, the marketing platform for multi-location brands, today announced the results of its fourth annual Localized Marketing Benchmark Report (LMBR), the industry measure of multi-location marketing strategy performance in search, social, and reputation. The report compiles an overall benchmark score for each brand, the Local Visibility Score, as well as benchmarks by industry across 15 focus areas to give a full picture of performance against other businesses.

"Digital marketing is fiercely competitive and becoming more so every day. Multi-location brands must have a localized online presence to succeed, but managing thousands of online profiles, pages, and local consumer reviews and engagements across search and social media is an impossible task to handle alone," said Monica Ho, chief marketing officer of SOCi. "The LMBR, and associated Local Visibility Score, is an invaluable tool for marketers as it synthesizes engagements and ranking factors from top digital sites like Google, Facebook, and Yelp into a score that informs marketers on where they have specific strengths and even opportunities in their local digital visibility. This is invaluable insight given that the top positioned local search brands enjoy over 90% more conversion oriented engagements vs. less visible counterparts." 

The LMBR helps make sense of the complex digital marketing landscape and highlights the symbiotic nature between important digital channels. Data shows how consumers move seamlessly between digital channels and how they expect a consistent experience on and offline. Through the LMBR, brands can hone in on areas such as search, social, and local reviews where their Local Visibility Score may be lacking, signifying inconsistencies with their brand visibility and presence across channels. This provides brands with the targeted analysis needed to assess areas of strength and weakness in order to improve their competitive positioning across all digital channels.

In evaluating nearly 300 multi-location brands and over 12.9 billion data points, SOCi identified several key takeaways for brands looking to learn how a localized marketing strategy can help drive more visibility, traffic, and sales into their own businesses.

• Top performers ran the gamut, from restaurants and hotels to gyms and professional service brands, and are those that recognize a healthy digital visibility requires a balance of effort across search, local reviews, and social channels, and move beyond the table stakes of merely being present in local platforms.
• Multi-location brands are growing gradually in their mastery of localized marketing across channels, as the average Local Visibility Score for all businesses rose nearly 10% from the 2021 report to this year.
• Brands are responding to more Google reviews (up from 31% to 37%) but fewer Google questions (down from 12% to 7%).
• The average local Facebook page has 523 followers and 7 posts per month, with 10 reactions, 2 comments, and 1 share per post.
• Top performers are experiencing superior results across digital channels:
• They earn 66% more Facebook engagements (likes, comments, and shares) than the average.
• They receive 215% more reviews than the average.
• Businesses in Google's 3-Pack receive 126% more traffic and 93% more actions (calls, website clicks, and driving directions) than businesses ranked in positions 4-10.

Brands with more than 50 locations can take the free digital Health Check on SOCi's website here to get a peek at some of the factors driving Local Visibility in seconds. For a deeper look into how to measure the effectiveness of a brand's localized marketing efforts, download the full 2022 LMBR here.

Methodology 
The 2022 LMBR is ranked and scored based on research into 291 top multi-location companies across more than 20 industries. The list of brands was compiled from a combination of the top 200 largest brands by Franchising Times, Entrepreneur Magazine's 100 fastest growing franchises, and the top 10 property management companies according to the National Multifamily Housing Council. Through a partnership with Places Scout, researchers extracted real-world presence data on top local digital sites, which were used to score each of the more than 230,000 locations analyzed for the report. Scores were combined and averaged to determine the final Local Visibility Scores and rankings.

SOCi is the marketing platform for multi-location brands. We empower businesses like Ace Hardware, Sport Clips, and Anytime Fitness to scale marketing efforts across all digital channels in a way that's brand directed, locally perfected, and data connected. As one central place to scale marketing, SOCi makes the impossible possible by enabling top brands and their locations to strengthen and scale their digital presence across limitless local search and social pages while protecting what matters most, their reputation. For more information on how SOCi can help fuel your localized marketing success - visit us at www.meetsoci.com or message us at [email protected].

Media Contacts
Avery Nunez
BLASTmedia for SOCi  
[email protected]

SOURCE SOCi