When you’re evaluating marketing services for your business, it’s tempting to choose someone local.  But is the local connection really worth it?

It’s Hard to Fire Your Neighbor

At a neighborhood BBQ, Eric mentioned he needed social media marketing for his business.  A new neighbor, Amy, turned to him and put our her hand out.  So glad to meet you!  I’m a marketing consultant who specializes in Facebook!

Within a week that friendly handshake became a marketing service agreement.

Fast-forward eight months.  Eric’s business tripled and he needs a more integrated marketing solution.  He’s trying to piece together SEO, PPC, and social media so the tactics support each other to increase his exposure in the national market.  He must ensure he’s getting ROI from all his marketing.

Amy’s efforts seem reasonable – she’s not slacking.  She provides nice looking reports with graphs and pie charts that seem to show growth in the company’s Facebook presence.

The problem is Eric can’t make a connection between Amy’s work and growth in actual sales.  When he asks Amy about it, she talks in circles.  Worse, when he asks Amy how they might tie her work into getting better organic search ranking for his website, she gets defensive.

“I don’t touch that SEO stuff,” she huffs.  “Too complicated!”

Eric wants to fire Amy, but he likes her.  She’s nice, earnest in her efforts, and she lives on his block.  At this moment, he’s paying for social media marketing services he doesn’t really feel are worth it.  He’s dropping hints, looking for ways to let Amy “down easy”.

And he’s losing sleep at night because he knows his marketing isn’t optimal.

The Local Guy

Every town with a population of more than 20k people has a local marketing company.  The truth is, anybody can self-train and claim the title of digital marketing expert.  There is a guy down the street from you.  You can go meet him, look him in the eye, and shake his hand.

If the town you live in is somewhere between lakes in Minnesota or within 800 miles of an ocean, the guy down the street does offer you something Marketing 360® cannot.  We’re in Fort Collins, Colorado, so unless some travel is arranged, the only eye contact we can make is through Skype.  The handshake will have to be emoji. ?

We talk to a lot of small businesses looking for marketing services whose decision has one, final criteria: the choice between a full-service agency like ours and the local guy.

In our favor is the breadth of experience and expertise.  We are a multichannel marketing service that integrates software, tactics, and professional consultation.  Our clients enjoy a one-stop shop for everything from design to data analysis.  We’re affordable, small-business focused, and resource rich.

In favor of the local guy is the handshake.  The undeniable personal touch you get from working with someone local.  He’s small, affordable, and somehow more tangible.  If there is an issue, you can walk right into his office.  If you like each other, you can have a beer on a Friday evening.

How Much Do You Want to Grow?

I recently had a conversation with one of my neighbors about marketing.  He’s a landscaper, which is one of the verticals we support.

Great, I thought. This time I’m the local guy and the guy with a full-on marketing service.  We can really help this client and develop a strong relationship.

Then we got to talking about his growth plans – or more accurately his lack of plans.  He was a one-man shop, and he planned to stay that way.  He had one truck and just wanted to develop a base of local, loyal clients he could build referrals on.  He wanted a basic website, some print flyers, and a bit of help with social media.  His budget?  A few hundred dollars a month.

Based on those plans, I had to be honest with him.  He didn’t need Marketing 360®.  Our service was beyond what was required for his goals.  He could go with a smaller marketing service, or even do much of the work himself.

However, I explained that if things changed and he wanted to become one of the bigger landscaping companies in Northern Colorado with multiple trucks and a dozen or so employees, then choosing Marketing 360® was a no-brainer.  We’re the best service he’d find in the US – that happened to be local to him.

Decide Based On Your Marketing Needs

Digital marketing lives online.  The work and most of the communication happens on the internet.

The reality is that the close working relationship of the “local guy” is largely a fallacy with digital marketing.  Even when businesses work with a local marketing agency, they end up communicating online anyway.

And don’t forget Eric’s situation.  When you cross business needs with friendship, it can be hard to make strictly business decisions.  Your relationship needs to be professional first.

Don’t base your decision to hire a marketing service for your business on the location of the agency (other than working with a US based firm).  Instead, base it on the level of marketing service you will need.

If you need to integrate multiple channels and use data to gain advantages in a competitive market, Marketing 360® is ideal for you.  If you want to grow your business beyond “Mom and Pop” status and open the gates to revenue opportunities, Marketing 360® is ideal for you.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in Anchorage or Miami.  We’ll pick up the phone when you call, answer your email promptly, and have all of your digital assets ready to go, 24x7x365.

If your marketing needs are limited in scope because you plan to keep your business small and local, then go ahead and hire the local college kid to design your website and your niece to write your blog.  If you’re the only barber, plumber, or landscaper in your town, you don’t have to hire a full-service agency like Marketing 360®.

Most of all, don’t confuse a handshake for competency.  The charm of working with the local guy will wear off quickly if he can’t handle the level of marketing you need to be competitive.