Field Notes
Marketing Insights for Businesses That Are Serious About Growth
Straight Talk on Strategy, SEO, Paid Media, Content, and What's Actually Working Right Now
The marketing landscape changes constantly—and so does the advice you need to navigate it. Here you'll find no-fluff insights on digital marketing strategy, SEO, paid media, content marketing, social media, and more—written by the team that actually does this work every day for estate planning firms, mental health practices, home service businesses, and established small businesses across the country. No recycled takes, no clickbait headlines, no AI content dumped onto a page without a human ever reading it. Just honest, practical marketing perspective from people who are genuinely invested in helping businesses grow.
The Ethical Gray Area Most Mental Health Marketers Ignore
Unfortunately, ethical behavior is not everyone’s default setting. While most mental health professionals and marketers have good intentions—ultimately, they entered the field to help people—caring isn’t synonymous with acting ethically. Most providers will never step back to examine whether their marketing practices cross a line, simply because the line isn’t always clearly drawn.
Is Your Website Holding Your Business Back? 7 Signs It’s Time for a Rebuild
Most business owners don’t wake up one day and realize they need a new website. The realization usually unfolds gradually. Maybe the site feels a little dated. Maybe it’s getting harder to update. Maybe you’ve added new services, changed your positioning, or evolved into a completely different business than the one your website was originally built for. Sometimes, the biggest clue is simple: people are visiting your website, but they aren’t taking the next step. An impactful website does more than just look pretty. It should help people find you, understand what you do, build trust in your business, and—ultimately—take meaningful action.
Mental Health Marketing for Different Generations
Mental health—at least, the way we know it today—is a uniquely modern concept. We have normalized therapy, made psychiatric care more accessible and less “medieval”, and gained a deeper understanding of the neurological effects that come with emotional changes. But it has not always been this way.
Why SEO Fails for Estate Planning Firms (And What Actually Works)
A lot of estate planning attorneys come to us looking for SEO…and nothing else. They don’t want social media. They don’t want paid ads or lead gen. They’re not interested in branding. Just SEO. However, when we get these attorneys on the phone and ask what their goals are and how they would measure success, it almost always comes down to this: we want more consultations with more of the right clients. But that’s not what SEO does.
The Real Reason Your Estate Planning Firm Can’t Break $500K (and It’s Not Your Fees)
You’re the owner of a small estate planning firm, and things are going…alright. Your clientele is growing, your firm is stable, you’re making enough money—but you’re feeling stuck, and a little overwhelmed. On top of managing your business, you’re also responsible for building relationships with clients, handling marketing, preparing complex estate plans…the list goes on. You’re stuck in the $500K trap, where you want to continue to grow but you’re unsure if the expenses associated with growing are too high.
The Marketing Funnel is Dead, AI is to Blame, and Branding is our Only Hope
Consumers are exposed to somewhere between 4,000 and 10,000 marketing messages a day, and yet business owners still expect them to travel neatly down a well-defined marketing funnel. Awareness, consideration, decision…right? Well, the truth is: the marketing funnel is dead, and it has been for some time now.
Fear Based Marketing: The Power (and Perils) of Using Fear in Marketing
Fear-based marketing is probably my least favorite type of marketing. I’m very much a focus-on-the-solution kinda marketer. But using fear in marketing is nothing new, and it does have its place…but you have to know how much fear you can monger without crossing the line, when to leverage fear-based marketing, and when to keep it positive.
In a World of Bots, Dare to Be a Human: 4 Ways to Humanize Your Brand
The internet is flooded with AI-generated drivel. Experts estimate that as much as 90% of online content could be AI-generated by the end of 2025. But, consumers aren’t exactly digging the bot-concocted content. In fact, studies show steep consumer distrust in AI-generated content, and internet users are growing increasingly anxious about whether they can even tell the difference between human- and AI-generated material. So, in a sea of artificial intelligence, how can you get your brand seen and heard and trusted?
4 Marketing Trends That Small Businesses Can Actually Implement in 2025
For as long as I can remember, marketing has been changing at a breakneck pace. Just in the last decade, we’ve seen the proliferation of digital media and data-driven marketing. Social media now dominates the mediasphere, while OG media channels—radio, print, and TV, to name a few—continue to fade into irrelevance. AI is revolutionizing the way businesses market themselves, political and social beliefs have become deeply connected to the platforms we use to communicate, and the customer experience is both incredibly and not-at-all important. What a time to be a marketer.
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