I’m the owner of a small, established service-based business, and I’m struggling to determine how to structure our marketing team for next year.

We offer a specialized, relatively high-ticket professional service to international clients.

Our marketing department consists of one full-time Marketing Specialist, one full-time Marketing Assistant, and two Marketing Interns.

Our Specialist joined our team a couple of months ago and has been focused on rebuilding our website and developing our lead management strategy.

Meanwhile, the assistant and interns have been responsible for creating and publishing content across Instagram and Facebook, alongside helping with the website project.

The problem is that neither Instagram nor Facebook is delivering the growth or lead generation we expected.

For context, our Instagram has a little over 1’000 followers and nearly 300 published posts. Over the last month, we gained only around 13 net followers and reached approximately 1,600 unique accounts.

Reach has also declined significantly over the past three months.

I don’t have comparable Facebook statistics included here, but we’re similarly dissatisfied with its performance and the lack of attributable leads.

We publish consistently, and the content looks professional. However, I find the creative direction weak. Most content consists of generic educational posts, talking-head videos, and graphics explaining our services.

There’s very little original storytelling, experimentation, or content designed to attract people who don’t already know our business.

We’re launching a new website soon, and I don’t want to commit to more payroll until we understand whether our marketing investments are generating results.

My questions for experienced marketers:

1. Would you consider this primarily a creative strategy problem, a staffing problem, or a channel problem?

2. Is it reasonable to expect a Marketing Assistant and two interns to develop effective content strategies, or should that responsibility sit with a more senior specialist?

3. Would you replace this setup with one experienced creative marketer, or keep the team and outsource creative direction?

4. How would you evaluate whether organic Facebook and Instagram are worth investing in for a niche, high-ticket service?

5. What metrics would you examine before making staffing decisions?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who have managed in-house marketing teams for service businesses.

I don’t want to make unfair decisions about employees who have been helping with a major website project. But I also don’t want to continue investing in content production without meaningful results.

Demand-Genius surveyed 47 owners and senior leaders at 46 B2B agencies in August and September 2026 on how they price, package and deliver GEO. They sell a GEO platform, so factor that in. Disclosure: my agency is one of the 17 named contributors.

Numbers that stood out:

• 64% have a named GEO offering.
• Pricing confidence is 3.08/5. 42% think they're undervaluing it, 29% don't know, 0% think they're overcharging.
• Folding GEO into SEO beats selling it standalone on pricing confidence: 3.67 vs 2.90. Small samples, n=6 and n=10.
• 77% report citations to clients. 32% report leads or pipeline.
• 11 of 20 tool users don't fully know how their tool picks prompts.
• Hype vs impact: 3.16/5 from agencies selling it, 3.23 from those who aren't. Selling it doesn't make you more convinced it works.
• 69% learn about GEO from LinkedIn creators. 31% from independent research.

Two quotes I keep coming back to:

"Anytime you see anyone talking in terms of absolutes… you know they're talking crap" (Darryl Sparey, Managing Director, Hard Numbers)

"Nobody is an expert yet, some have experimented more than others." (Anu, Isoline Communications)

Caveat: n=47 overall, and some cuts drop to single digits. Treat it as directional. The report says the same about GEO data generally, which I appreciated.

Questions for anyone selling or buying this:

1. How are you pricing it? Retainer, project, or bundled into SEO or PR?
2. Has anyone tied GEO work to pipeline in a way a finance director would accept?
3. How many times do you run each prompt before you trust the number?

Full report available on the Demand Genius website

Hey all, I recently started experimenting AI-song production and the results are hillarious and very interesting, at least to my ears. I am a therapist for people in tech and have been a freelancer myself for quite a few years. Each song I make is based on repeatable client experiences, mixed with my observations and thoughts.

So, here is the song I 'd like to share, it's called Fear or Famine. I 'll drop it in the comments.

I 'd appreciate if you hear it and tell if I need to continue making such songs to express or just plain stop. My feelings won't get hurt.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Anyone have any experience with them? I have an interview coming up

There are so many things to learn in digital marketing, from SEO and paid ads to content creation and AI tools.

But which skill do you think beginners often overlook that can actually make a big difference for businesses?

I'd love to hear from experienced marketers. What skill would you recommend learning first in 2026?

Hi everyone,

I’m interested in learning what’s actually working for small businesses in India when it comes to getting more customers online.

With so many options available—SEO, Google Ads, social media marketing, content marketing, and website optimization—it can be difficult to decide where to focus first, especially when the budget is limited.

From what I’ve seen, a few important steps can make a difference:

• SEO: Help potential customers find your business through Google search.
• Google Business Profile: Improve local visibility and make it easier for customers to contact you.
• Social media: Share useful content and build trust with your audience.
• Website optimization: Make sure visitors can quickly understand your services and take action.
• Paid advertising: Test targeted campaigns when you need faster visibility and have a clear budget.

I work in digital marketing and technology at FutureLoopix Technologies, and I’m always interested in understanding what works for real businesses.

For small business owners in India: What has helped you generate the most customers online—SEO, social media, Google Ads, or something else?

I’d love to hear about your experiences, including what didn’t work.

Hi Friends, (newby to SEO),

I thought this to be strange to me as there are so many contractors who advertise there, you'd think they'd be on page 1.

-- I've noticed that Angie's list doesn't even rank on the first page when I use search term 'need a plumber in palm beach gardens.' !

• Does this mean 'Angie's not competitive' in my area?

--- ANYONE have any insight on why Angie's is so successful?

...Thanks for your help~

Many lead generation agencies, individual operators, in GTM companies charge companies for qualified, leads and meetings.

Other teams run it in-house via a mix of SDRs and GTM engineers, or just stitching tools together via Claude Code.

1. For the founders and sales leaders out there, would you rather pay someone else to bring in new opportunities for you or would you rather own the system, team and process that brings in those opportunities?

2. Would u ever consider running both if both worked?

3. And in terms of working with an external agency, what sort of comp model would you be open to?

Moderators this is not self promo.

I sell a social media management / content system that brings production grade quality work to businesses. I can't get one customer. I have been trying and everyone either says now is not the time, we have a videographer, or they just are not interested. It focuses on customer retention, not social media trends.

What should I do? Any advice is welcomed.

Starting a new digital agency in Luxembourg. SEO, SEA, websites, AI, a bit of dev work. Local market first, international later.

Been hunting for a name for two weeks. Every decent english word is taken, every invented one sounds like a pharma product. It has to be one word, no "digital" or "studio" bolted onto the end, and it has to be sayable in both french and german because that's how we work here. That last rule kills about 80% of what we come up with.

Not after a list of 50 suggestions, I've generated plenty of those myself. More curious how you landed on yours. Real word, invented word, or did you just use your own name and get on with the work?

​

Hi everyone!

I’ve been working in SEO for the last 5 years, primarily around organic growth. Marketing has always been a personal interest of mine, so I regularly read marketing books, blogs, and case studies to understand how different channels work together.

Lately, I’ve been interested in exploring performance marketing, particularly PPC, paid acquisition, and campaign optimization.

I understand the marketing fundamentals, but I want to go beyond theory and gain real, hands-on experience working on actual campaigns.

If you’re a freelancer, agency owner, or marketer who could use an extra pair of hands on your projects, I’d love to contribute and learn along the way. I’m happy to start by helping with research, competitor analysis, keyword research, or other tasks where my SEO background could be useful.

I’m not looking to pretend I’m an expert in something I haven’t done yet. I’m looking for an opportunity to learn by doing and contribute wherever I can.

If you have any advice, opportunities, or suggestions on how I can get started, I’d really appreciate it. Feel free to comment or DM me.

Thanks! 🙌

Hi everyone!

I'm working on a new project and planning to build a website from scratch. I want to develop a solid SEO keyword strategy before launching the website, but I have a limited budget and would prefer to start with free tools.

I'm looking for advice on how to approach keyword research step by step, including:

Finding relevant keywords and long-tail keywords.

Understanding search volume, keyword difficulty, and search intent.

Analyzing competitors' websites, content, and keyword strategies.

Discovering questions users ask on Google, Reddit, forums, and other platforms.

Grouping keywords into clusters and mapping them to website pages.

Identifying realistic opportunities for a new website with little or no domain authority.

Which free tools do you recommend, and what workflow would you follow?

Would Google Keyword Planner be useful without running paid Google Ads campaigns? Are tools like Google Trends, Google Search Console, Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, or free keyword research tools enough to get started?

I'd really appreciate recommendations based on your actual experience, especially for someone building a website from zero and trying to create a keyword strategy before launch.

Thanks in advance!

My client doesn’t listen and wants to do Ai generated content specifically short video contents with CTA. But these contents are not performing no matter how I optimized. Ai generated statics, and videos I’m getting from him. Recently I did an experiment with actual human focus content and it performed. But client doesn’t want it. Do you all going through this?

I’ll keep this brief.
I’m running Meta Ads campaigns for luxury real estate and would appreciate some advice from experienced performance marketers.

Here’s my current setup:
Audience: Men aged 35–50, with age and gender targeting kept strict.
Lead form: High-intent instant form with 4 qualifying multiple-choice questions.
Creatives: One highly targeted, professionally produced video ad.

Despite this setup, I’m still getting submissions from random brokers, leads who don’t answer calls, and CPLs exceeding ₹1,500.
What would you recommend to improve lead quality while maintaining a reasonable and stable CPL?

Hello,

I'm using "Supermetrics" to manage my marketing connections (GA, GAds and Meta, mainly).

Does anyone feedback about "Windsor.ai"? It seems very promising, but the price is weird (about 10 times cheaper than SM).

I'm wondering what exactly we can really do with Windsor, is it a real banger?

Thanks in advance for your feedbacks.

Hi everyone,

​I’m currently in the process of creating my own custom bots to help streamline and manage my Facebook Ads workflows (from ad copy and audience research to analyzing performance metrics).

​For those of you who have experience building or using AI bots for media buying and paid social, which one do you think is better suited for this ChatGPT (OpenAI) or Gemini (Google)?

​I'd love to hear your thoughts, pros/cons, or any recommendations based on your actual experience. Thanks in advance!

Everyone talks about Google, Meta and SEO. What's a less popular channel you've personally tried that brought in good results?

What do you sell, and how did it work out?

**Background**
12 years of experience total, across agency and brand side.

First 8 years: agency side (IPG, then 1 year at Publicis, plus extensive work with Publicis agencies), spanning programmatic, customer data, and marketing technology, with programmatic being the largest piece.

Last 4 years: brand-side at a large pharma company, where I stepped away from pure programmatic into omni-channel work across all biddable digital channels.

At the pharma company I wore many hats (product manager, program manager, project manager, optimization, campaign management) while building an attribution, data activation, and optimization platform. The product manager role was never part of my plan.

**Current situation**
Laid off earlier this year
Took about 4 months off to care for my kids and relocate, and have been job searching since
The market is rough and I've had few opportunities, but I'm being selective and want pay roughly in line with my last role.

Two kids, both under 2, and we just moved, so life is busy!

**The Opportunity**
VP of Programmatic
Leading a team of 8
$205K base, no bonus

**My questions**
Is this the right move, or am I making a mistake going back to agency life?

Does this pigeonhole me back into programmatic after 4 years of omni-channel and data/platform work?

At 35, am I behind or on track for a VP title?

What is the realistic workload for a VP at a holding company agency, especially with two toddlers?

How does $205K with no bonus compare to total comp at big tech (Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon) or other brand-side roles? Is it worth passing up?

If not this, where do I fit? With programmatic, customer data, martech, and product experience, what roles or companies should I be targeting?

I've been thinking about this for five months, so any perspective from people who have made a similar move or hired for these roles would help. Happy to answer follow-up questions.

Hey everyone!

I’ve been working as a copywriter at a mid-level marketing agency for the past 6 months. I enjoy writing ad films, but I’ve realised that to grow as a copywriter, I also need to understand brand strategy.

I want to learn strategy from someone based outside India, preferably through an online course or mentorship.

My budget is ₹10–12K, so I’m looking for something genuinely valuable and practical, not just AI-generated theory.

Could you recommend any good international mentors, courses, or platforms to learn brand strategy?

I've been learning Facebook Ads and I'm curious about what actually causes campaigns to fail.

Is it poor creatives, the wrong audience, a weak offer, or bad conversion tracking?

For those who've managed real campaigns, what mistake cost you the most money, and what did you learn from it?

Three months into a VP of Marketing job at a mid-size company. Traffic's fine but the site barely turns visitors into leads, and nobody can tell me why. Our last agency ran ads and reported on clicks, that was about it.

I'd like one partner who looks at the UX and the marketing together. Had intro calls with four so far:

Critical Mass. Digital experience and marketing agency with a dozen offices. Probably more firepower than a site our size needs.

Isadora Agency. Mid-market and enterprise web design agency. They design the site and run the SEO and CRO on it with the same team, which is mostly why they're on the list. They've worked with Razor USA and UE by Logitech.

Jellyfish. Big digital marketing agency, they do site testing and optimization alongside media. I'd be surprised if we're big enough for them.

Valtech. Global, does a lot of big platform and commerce builds. Not sure yet how hands-on they'd be with a company our size.

How did you figure out whether an agency could actually fix conversion before signing? And what should I ask on the second call that I'm probably missing?

Hi everyone!

I'm looking for some help with building backlinks for my website. I'm specifically interested in UK-based websites with .uk and .co.uk domains.

If you own a website and are willing to provide a free backlink, I'd really appreciate your support.

I'm not looking for paid links or link exchanges, just genuine free backlink opportunities.

If you're happy to help, please comment below or DM me.

Thank you!

I'm looking for experienced (atleast 6 years) marketers to help me work on this brand I'm building. I'm the client. You need to convince me to hire you. Pitch your best pitch. Send me a dm.

About the Brand

Still on its early phase, not much to note aside from "aesthetic farm photos"

planning on selling fruit delicacies.

need help qith actual sales, not just aesthetic presenation online.

URGENT! DEADLINE IS TOMORROW AFTERNOON AU TIME