Overview
- Most small businesses don’t need more marketing. They need the right pieces in the right order: get found, get chosen, follow up.
- Local SEO starts at $350 a month, Google Ads management at $250 a month plus ad spend, and websites at $300.
- There’s no long-term contract on any of those. If the work isn’t paying for itself, you can stop.
- When you outgrow one-off services, fractional CMO work starts at $5,000 a month.
If you own a small business, you get pitched every week. Someone wants to run your social media. Someone else guarantees page one. A third wants to rebuild your website. Each of them sells what they do, not what you need. Most small businesses need a few basics done well, in the right order, by someone who tells you which dollars are working.
What most small businesses actually need
1. Get found where buyers look. For a business that serves a local area, that starts with your Google Business Profile and the map pack, the three listings above the regular results. It’s where most local calls start. We cover how to win it on our Google Business Profile and map pack page. Once the map is working, SEO builds the pages that rank for each service you sell.
2. A website that turns visits into calls. Your ads and your rankings all send people to your site. If it’s slow, hard to use on a phone or unclear about what to do next, you pay for traffic that never calls. Our guide to what to look for in a web designer covers what a good small business site needs.
3. Paid ads when you need calls this month. SEO takes months. Google Ads can produce calls within a week if the account is set up right, with tight keywords, landing pages that match the search, and call tracking.
4. Follow-up that doesn’t leak. A missed call that never gets a callback is a job you paid for and gave away. A text back within minutes and a quick reply to every web form fix most of that. Read our post on speed to lead. Then ask every happy customer for a review, which feeds straight back into step 1. Here’s how to do review generation the right way.
5. Tracking, so you know what pays. If you can’t say which channel brought in last month’s customers, you can’t decide where the next dollar goes. We set up call and lead tracking so every service gets judged on calls and booked jobs, not clicks.
What it costs
- Google Business Profile and local SEO: from $350 a month
- Google Ads management: from $250 a month, plus ad spend
- Website design: from $300, one time
- AI Visibility Sprint: $2,500 flat, to get named in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI answers
- Fractional CMO: from $5,000 a month
The full breakdown is on our pricing page. If you’re not sure what to budget overall, our guide to the average marketing budget for a small business walks through it by revenue.
Where to start
If most of your calls come from Google Maps, start with local SEO. If you need calls this month, start with Google Ads. If your website is old or doesn’t turn visitors into calls, fix that first, because every other channel sends people there.
You don’t need all of it at once. Most small businesses we work with start with one service, see it pay, and add the next.
Who this is for
Local service businesses that live on phone calls, professional services firms and B2B companies. If you run a retail shop or a restaurant, we’re probably not the right pick, and we’ll point you to someone who is.
We’re based in Vero Beach and work with businesses across the Treasure Coast and beyond. Local matters when your customers search by town, and we know the difference between a search in Sebastian and one in Stuart.
When you outgrow it
At some point, buying services one at a time stops working. You’ve got three vendors, nobody connects the dots, and you’re spending real money without a clear read on results. That usually starts around $2M in revenue. That’s when a fractional CMO makes sense: a senior marketing owner who runs the whole plan, for a fraction of a full-time salary.
Small business marketing FAQs
Are we too small for you?
Not for SEO, Google Ads or a new website. Google Ads management starts at $250 a month, SEO at $350 and websites at $300. Fractional CMO work is different. It starts to make sense around $2M in revenue.
How fast will we see results?
Google Ads can produce calls within a week. Map pack and SEO work usually take three to six months to show meaningful movement, and they keep paying long after ads stop.
Do we have to sign a long contract?
No. SEO, Google Ads management and websites have no long-term contract.
What’s the difference between this and hiring a digital marketing agency?
Many agencies sell a package. We start with where your calls come from and fix the weakest link first. For a broader look at your options, read our guide to digital marketing services for small businesses.
Let’s look at your marketing
Tell us about your business through our contact page, and we’ll tell you where we’d start and what it would cost. The first conversation is free. You can also call or text 772-999-4457.
