Google Business Profile Setup for B2B Company
Background:
A company that had nearly 30 locations across several states in the U.S. and Mexico, needed to optimize and manage Google business listings across their network. In addition to their corporate headquarters, they operated both retail and non-retail locations across multiple groups and divisions. They were aiming to improve foot traffic to retail locations, increase awareness of non-retail locations, and boost positive feedback across their entire network.
Process:
With so many locations, my team needed an efficient way to manage content, so in the Google Business Profile (GBP) manager, I grouped locations into categories based on location type. For example, the company had retail store locations, industrial service centers, and multiple corporate offices. Once we had things organized, I then put together a plan for my team to post updates, add images, and boost reviews.
Posting Updates for Google Business Profiles
To stay active for each location, I worked with the social media team to create a calendar that incorporated local posts from their calendar. Essentially, anything posted that was relevant to a location was also posted on the GBP. Even with over 30 locations, by working in updates alongside our social media calendars, this kept us over a goal of at least one update per month on each profile.
New Locations and Making Moves (Literally)
Working with a fast growing company, opening up new branches in the network and moving physical locations kept my team busy. We had a set of protocols for each new facility and setting up a GBP was on that list (along with things like signage and external comms). For new locations we set up a sort of “intro pack” including an update with some images of the facility.
Importance of Google’s Business Categories
Something that’s important to do when setting up a GBP is including a primary business category and adding a few additional (relevant) business categories. It’s worth taking the time to find the most relevant categories, even (I’d argue, especially!) if they seem obscure. For our calibration laboratories, we utilized “Laboratory” as the primary category and added supplementary categories such as “scale supplier” and “scale repair service” as those were the most closely related at the time.
Adding Service Areas to Google Business Profile
Setting service areas is important, especially if you are a service based operation. Most of our locations offer mobile services within an hour or so from their physical location so we added the top 10-12 cities and small towns surrounding each.
Setting up Special Hours for GBP Locations
To make things easier on ourselves and avoid any last minute “did we update the business hours for the three day weekend?” conversations, we go through our entire profile list and add all of our special holiday hours for the entire year. It’s a bit of a time consuming early January task, but definitely worth the effort to avoid mix ups down the line.
Challenges:
Interior Facility Pictures
Being a B2B operation and working with some pretty high profile customers meant a lot of proprietary equipment was processed at our facilities. That meant we had to get creative with where (and how) we gathered images for our GBP.
Out of State Verification of Address
With our marketing team working at a corporate office and often miles away from physical locations, we had to rely on branch managers or other local team members to relay physical verification correspondence such as the post cards Google will send as an option to verify your address.
Getting Google Reviews
Even with five star customer service, reviews don’t happen overnight. It’s also especially challenging to get reviews from “few and further between” B2B customers. We send out internal communication quarterly, to encourage our associates to send our review URLs to customers to give us feedback.
Results:
With a proper structure and protocol in place, we have been able to efficiently manage GBPs for a large network of locations, with room to grow. Since implementing our infrastructure, we have been able to stay active by posting updates, boost customer reviews, and improve our overall UX within Google. The best part is that with a fast growing company, we’ve got infrastructure and protocols in place to efficiently manage the addition of new facilities.
Interested in a collaboration?
Reach out and let me know! I’m always happy to look at a project and see how I can help!