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I spent many years visiting and working with business owners and managers in the Greater Cincinnati area while supplying them with online marketing services. When sitting down and talking to them, we would eventually end up discussing their last marketing agency. At that point in the conversation, I would occasionally hear complaints. Over the years I discovered that those complaints seemed to all center around three main points:
- “They don’t meet with me,”
- “They put me into services I don’t need,”
- “I never hear from them, so I don’t know what they’re doing for me!”
Those concerns stayed with me. So, when we started Signal, I decided that they needed to be part of our core values, guiding how we would work with clients.
Local. Customized. Informed.
At our core, we believe that the best results come when we combine strong relationships with smart strategies and open communication. That’s why we’ve built our business around three simple but powerful principles:
- Local & Accessible
- Customized Solutions
- Informing with Clear, Consistent Communication
Here’s what those values mean for you, when you work with us.
Local & Accessible in Cincinnati
We’re not a distant agency with a faceless team and a generic email address. We’re right here in Cincinnati. Actually, we’re located in Milford. Our kids were raised here, they went to school here and we’re a part of our local community. That means we’re available to meet face-to-face when you need us. In fact, we would prefer to do that!
Being local means we understand the unique opportunities and challenges that we face in our Tri-State area, from seasonal business patterns to the different ways people search online for local services.
Since we’re local, we can respond quickly when you need help, answer questions without endless email chains, and even sit down together to map out next steps.
We believe this personal connection matters. When you know the people working on your marketing, trust grows, and decisions get made faster. It’s the kind of relationship you just don’t get when your marketing team is halfway across the country and trying to serve hundreds or thousands of clients simultaneously.
Customized Solutions
We don’t do “one-size-fits-all.” We don’t like “cookie-cutter” approaches. Large agencies do that so they can more easily manage their client services.
Tailored Solutions
We recognize that every business is different. They have different goals, different customers and different challenges. That’s why every strategy we build is tailored to fit your needs, not pulled from a pre-made template. We don’t force you into service bundles when you only need one of the four services in it. We’ll just do the one service for you.
Getting To Know You
We start by getting to know your business inside and out:
- What makes you different from your competitors?
- Who are your ideal customers?
- What’s working well, and where do you want to grow?
From there, we create a plan designed for your business. That might mean focusing on Local SEO to help people find you in nearby searches, ramping up your social media presence to build brand awareness, or running targeted ad campaigns to drive sales during a key season.
The point is, you’ll never get a “cookie-cutter” marketing plan from us. You’ll get a strategy that reflects your business’s unique personality and goals. A strategy that can grow and adapt as your business does.
Informing with Clear, Consistent Communication
Marketing can feel like a black hole that you’re just dumping money into if your marketing agency isn’t communicating. Typically, the way I’ve seen things work out for local businesses is that they hire an agency, the agency goes away and does their “stuff,” and maybe there was a report emailed once a month. But because it is digital marketing, you never “see” the things happening in the background, so you never know for sure if anything is happening.
You’re never quite sure what’s going on. Operating in this way only breeds mistrust and it undercuts the relationship you had with the client.
We heard that complaint a lot and decided early on that we would not work that way.
Every time we touch your account, whether we’re launching a new campaign, making Google updates, or seeing great results worth celebrating, you’ll hear from us. We believe in clear, consistent communication so you always know where things stand.
That doesn’t mean flooding your inbox with jargon-heavy updates. It means giving you the right information at the right time, explained in plain language, so you can make informed decisions without the confusion.
Our typical update involves texting the client with a message similar to this: “Hi, just letting you know we posted an Update to your GBP today and added a search-optimized photo to the Photos Section there, as well. Have a good week!” At some point, when you see a text from us you might think, “Oh geez, here’s another text from Signal.” That’s okay, we’d rather over communicate with you then under communicate.
We also do bi-monthly, in-depth reports where we pull from multiple sources regarding your online presence and we’re available to go over those reports with you, as well.
We want you to feel confident that work is being done on your behalf, not in the dark. And if you ever have a question, you’ll know exactly who to call or email, and you’ll get a straight answer quickly.
Why These Values Matter
These three core values, being local and accessible, building customized solutions, and keeping you informed, aren’t just a nice marketing pitch. They shape every decision we make and every interaction we have with our clients. When you know your marketing team is close by, that they truly understand your business, and that they keep you in the loop, you can focus on what you do best: Running your business.
And here’s the bonus: When we work this way, your marketing works better, too. Because strategies built on real relationships and open communication get results faster, adapt more easily, and keep everyone moving in the same direction.
Related Resources
The Signal Digital Marketing Story: Why We Do What We Do
Why Google Reviews Matter More Than You Might Think
Understanding SEO: Ranking on the First Page is Like a Car Race
Local Search Rankings: You Need to Get Some Stars
Getting Started
When you choose a marketing partner, you’re not just choosing a service — you’re choosing a way of working together.
If you’re looking for a marketing partner who’s local, listens, and keeps you informed, we’d love to talk. Call us today at 513-237-5530. Let’s sit down, learn more about your business, and see how we can build a strategy that helps you reach your goals.
You can also learn more about our Local SEO, Website SEO, Social Media and Content Creation services at our blog.
Illustration by Storyset.