Making Local Work at Scale: Inside SUNMED’s Franchise Growth Strategy

{{quote}}

When SUNMED / Your CBD Store moved from a previous provider to Uberall in Fall 2024, the team set out to solve a familiar challenge: how to make every location easy to find, trusted by customers, and active online—without overwhelming a lean marketing team.

The fast-growing CBD retail franchise overcame inconsistent listings and limited social engagement to build a strong digital foundation across 310 locations, using Uberall’s platform to drive measurable impact.

Key Results at a Glance:

• 100% – Average profile completeness across 310 store listings
• 1.1 M – Google Search impressions (annual)
• 7.2 M – Facebook post impressions (annual)
• +312% – Increase in Apple Maps taps for directions (YoY)
• 4.9/5 – Average star rating (with 70% of reviews answered in ~3 days)

The Challenge: From Fragmented Presence to Local Consistency

SUNMED’s Your CBD Store, the largest hemp/CBD retailer in the U.S., entered late 2024 with a growing franchise network but an uneven online presence. Their previous local marketing provider left many store profiles incomplete or outdated. Critical business details were inconsistent across platforms, undermining visibility and customer trust. Franchise owners often struggled to keep listings and social pages updated, and newer platforms like Apple Business Connect were not being used.  

Moving to Uberall: One Platform, Many Improvements

In Fall of 2024, SUNMED began using Uberall to consolidate and improve their location marketing. Uberall’s Listings tool allowed them to centralize business information across all 310 locations, making it easier to keep store hours, addresses, and services up to date everywhere.

This clean-up led to:  

• 100% profile completeness across all store listings
• +11% growth in Google Maps impressions
• 1.1 million Google Search impressions
• +10% increase in Google clicks for directions

Apple Maps also became a meaningful source of traffic. With Uberall’s Apple Business Connect integration, SUNMED was able to publish and maintain rich, up-to-date profiles directly within Apple Maps—including key business details, photos, and action buttons like 'Call' or 'Get Directions.' After creating a free Apple Business Connect account, everything could be managed from within Uberall, allowing the team to keep listings consistent and engaging without extra overhead. This made listings not only easier to find but also more useful to users actively looking to visit a nearby store:

• +301% increase in Apple Maps views (YoY)
• +270% increase in Apple user interactions (YoY)
• +312% increase in taps for directions on Apple (YoY)

These updates gave each location a clear, complete, and findable profile across all major directories and platforms, helping more customers discover the nearest store.  

Reputation Management: A More Reliable Customer Experience

Before using Uberall, responding to customer reviews was difficult to manage at scale. With Uberall’s review tools, SUNMED was able to monitor and respond to reviews more quickly across locations.

Results include:

• 70% review response rate
• Average response time of 3 days
• Average customer rating of 4.9 out of 5

Having a consistent process for review management not only gave store owners the tools to engage with feedback, it also helped the brand maintain a positive and responsive public image.

Google Review Example

For more, visit Uberall’s Review Management.  

AI Social Writer: Making Social Media Easier for Franchise Owners

Many franchisees were hesitant about managing social media. Creating content for hundreds of local Facebook pages was difficult, and corporate teams didn’t have the resources to provide individual posts for every location.

That changed with Uberall’s AI Social Writer. With just a few clicks, franchise owners and marketers could generate on-brand, localized content ready to publish. The feature helped streamline content creation while preserving consistency.

As part of Uberall’s broader AI-powered suite, AI Social Writer offers growing businesses a way to scale social efforts without adding headcount. For lean marketing teams, it’s an easy way to equip every store with content that feels local, while staying aligned with the brand.

“Uberall’s new AI Social Writer has completely transformed the way we manage our social media content! Crafting engaging, on-brand posts used to be time-consuming, but now, with just a few clicks, we get high-quality, tailored content that resonates with our audience.

The AI’s ability to understand our brand voice and generate compelling copy has significantly improved our engagement and consistency across platforms. Our owners were afraid of social media before, but now with this feature, it’s a breeze.”

— Dana Gould, Digital Marketing Specialist, Your CBD Store | SUNMED

Over the past year, Facebook impressions across all locations reached 7.2 million, thanks in part to this renewed consistency in local posting.

Facebook Social Ad Example

For more, visit Uberall’s Local Social Media Management.  

Conclusion: More Visibility, More Engagement, Better Control

SUNMED’s Your CBD Store shows what’s possible when local marketing is unified under one system. They now maintain up-to-date listings across all channels, provide a reliable and responsive experience for customers, and support franchise owners with simple tools to stay active online.

For growing retail brands, it’s a clear example of how consistent visibility and engagement across platforms can translate into real-world results.

Are you a franchise or multi-location brand looking to improve your local presence? Get in touch with Uberall to see how our platform can help you scale efficiently, connect with local customers, and build a stronger reputation—store by store.