The Local Marketing Handbook

EVERYTHING A LOCAL BUSINESS OWNER NEEDS TO GET FOUND, IN ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES OF READING. FREE, ALL OF IT, NO EMAIL REQUIRED.

The first edition of this book ran 202 pages. This one is shorter, because the work got faster. The research, drafting, and writing that used to eat a Saturday afternoon now take minutes with the AI tools already on your phone.

What has not changed is the reason any of it matters: your business is a rich and memorable part of your community, and getting found is how you stay in business long enough to keep being that.

What changed since the first edition

• Google My Business is now Google Business Profile. Same asset, new name, and you manage it from Search and Maps rather than a separate app.
• AI answers now sit above the map pack. On most local searches a generated summary appears first and names a business before anyone scrolls.
• People ask assistants for recommendations. ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are now real ways customers find a plumber, a dentist, or a wine shop.
• Everyone can produce content now. Which means content alone stopped being a moat. Specific, verifiable, first-hand local detail is the moat.

Start with the foundation

• Context Is Still King. Why the moment your customer needs you matters more than the message you send.
• Plan, Produce, Promote. The three steps behind every chapter that follows, and the one people always skip.

Then work the six essentials

• Refine Your Pitch. Who you serve, and the one sentence that says so.
• Your Google Business Profile. The highest-leverage asset you own and probably ignore.
• Your Reviews. No longer just social proof. Now they are the raw material AI answers are built from.
• Your Website. Four pages that do a job, not forty that look busy.
• Getting Recommended by AI. The new front door, and how to walk through it.
• Show Up Where You Live. The one channel no algorithm can copy.

Then put it to work

Your First 30 Days turns all of it into a checklist. One item at a time, one essential a week. Print it and work it.

Rather have someone do it with you?

I sit down with local business owners for thirty minutes, build the customer profile with them, and update their Google Business Profile live on the call. You watch it happen and you keep the work.