How can a local business use a local media brand to win customers?

A plumber I run Meta ads for hired a young woman to be the face of his local brand. She's in the Instagram videos, writes the newsletter, and even does some sales. The brand isn't named after the plumbing company. That's the whole trick.

What is the Trojan horse model?

"You're building this brand that's gonna make so many local people know, like, and trust you. And then whatever your backend business is... when you want to sell something else, they already know and trust you."

The local brand is the front end. Your business (roofing, pest control, insurance, mortgage, marketing services) is the back end. A lot of operators are already doing this.

People get pitched all day, every day, and they ignore pitches. If a roofer keeps posting roofing ads, nobody cares. Give them something they actually choose to read or watch, then pitch inside the thing they're already reading. That's roundabout marketing, and it works because you own their attention.

Big companies do this nationally. A large CRM software company bought a pile of podcasts to reach its customers. The shows aren't named after the company. The host mentions it once every few episodes, and it stays top of mind anyway. When people get value 95% of the time, they don't mind a mention the other 5%.

Why not just market the business under its own name?

The world has changed. In a '90s newspaper you didn't know who the reporters were. Now people like to buy from people and follow people. A brand called something like "[Town] Scoop" with a real person in front of it gets followed. A pest control company's Instagram doesn't.

The mistake real estate agents make is doing it in their own name and constantly pushing "I'm a real estate agent, hire me." You're building a brand. You just happen to own a pest control company. In nine out of ten videos, don't talk about pest control. Put your company's name on it and talk about it in every piece, and everyone ignores it because it's just a pitch.

A named brand can also grow past you. It can host events, run a podcast and eventually add a second or third local creator. You can't really do that if the brand is you.

What does the setup look like?

• A neutral local name, ideally the town or region.
• A human face who creates first-person social content, mainly Instagram.
• A newsletter, a Facebook page and a website.
• Optionally a local podcast. You're not doing it for audience. You're doing it for networking and sales, inviting clients and people you want to know.
• Your business in the footer or at the end, mentioned occasionally.

Selling happens through trust. Useful free advice from a local voice makes a reader pick you over a random result on Google. Hyper-local works even in a market of about 80,000 people, though that's on the small side.

How does it turn into customers?

Think about a mortgage broker. I didn't need one for the first two years of reading your newsletter. Now I do, and I don't know one. Am I going to call the guy who's given me value for two years, or go to Google? I'm going with the guy from the newsletter.

The in-person side matters as much. I was an insurance agent for years, and nobody wants to talk to the insurance guy at a networking event. You're repellent. But you don't go to the chamber as the roofer anymore. You go as the person who owns the local newsletter, and people say, "You're that guy?" Then you help everybody: a free ad here, a favor there. Your own business comes up naturally, but it's not the priority.

You also get bargaining power. You control the ad slot, so you can run free ads for a partner you want, like a mortgage broker, in exchange for something you need. Your marketing starts to look less like a cost and more like something that could pay for itself.

Does the math work?

For a high-ticket business, one customer can cover the year. These are my rough examples:

What you sell	Value of one win	Compared with
One newsletter ad to someone else	About $500	The old way to monetize
An insurance client	About $4,000 lifetime value	An agent might win eight or ten a year
A house flip from a reader lead	About $30,000	One ad to 10,000 people who like you
A business broker's deal	About $120,000 in commission	One deal a year pays for everything

Paid ads are renting. When you stop paying Facebook or a billboard, you have nothing. A newsletter is owning: costs are a little higher and it's more maintenance, but you can talk to that audience whenever you want. Some of these businesses spend $50,000 to $100,000 a month on marketing. Paying around $2,000 a month for a newsletter they own, with their own ad in it whenever they want, is small by comparison.

Which businesses is this best for?

High-value local businesses, where one customer is worth a lot. Insurance is my favorite because every household buys it (see should an insurance agent start a local newsletter). Home services may be even better than real estate, since people only buy a home about once every ten years. Mortgage fits too.

Others I'd put on the list: banks, personal injury attorneys, big home service companies, estate planners and senior advisors. Business brokers should be all over this, because owning the media company gets you a conversation with every business owner in town. For a seven-figure owner, spending a few thousand a month on this is not that big a deal.

What if it doesn't produce leads right away?

It probably won't at first, and you should know that going in. Don't count on the first six months. If you expect a payoff in the first 12, don't do it. Most people are too short-term oriented: I just spent all this money on Meta ads, did I get roofing leads? That's exactly why it works for the rare person who thinks long term.

Even then, you grew your email list, you're building trust, and you own it. If you're renting a lead source from a portal, you're hoping they send you something. Few businesses have a failure case that leaves you with 10,000 to 15,000 local people paying attention to you.

Locals will want proof before they buy in, and that takes time. Plan for a long horizon, and keep the self-promotion to a small slice of what you publish. For more on showing up as the face, see do I have to be the face of my local brand.