How regional businesses can out-personality national budgets.
National brands have bigger budgets than you. They will always have bigger budgets than you. The good news is that budgets are not antennas. A small brand with a strong, specific voice can out-rank, out-remember, and out-trust a category leader for the audiences that matter most — and the things that get you there are mostly free.
This is a pragmatic talk for regional businesses, owner-operators, and the agencies that work with them. We'll look at what a “big antenna” actually is (it's not what most marketing books say it is), why it's structurally easier to build for a small brand than a large one, and the half-dozen moves that compound.
Bring a brand. We'll critique a few from the audience if there's time, gently, on camera, with permission.
Why being specific is the only sustainable small-brand advantage, and what “specific” actually means in copy, design, and operations.
Small structural changes — to your about page, your photography, your sales email signatures — that bigger brands can't easily copy because of their org chart.
What being from a place gives you, what it costs you, and how to lean into the trade.
Why narrowing your audience is the single highest-leverage thing a small brand can do, and the one conversation it requires.
Tell me the date, the audience, and one true sentence about why you're putting on the event. That's the whole intake form. I read every email. I reply within a day or two — three if it's a Monday and I'm at the rink. There is no agent. There is no booking platform. There is just a guy with an inbox and a calendar.
Founder of Seapoint Digital, a small marketing agency in Maine. In marketing since 2008. Running Seapoint since 2011. He gives roughly a dozen talks a year on marketing, AI, and the regional agency life.
Based in York, Maine. Office in Kittery, where the bridge is and the coffee is better. Plays Beer League hockey on Mondays. Not the William Cutrer who wrote the books; Google has been informed and remains unmoved.