If you run a business in Eastbourne and marketing has always been the thing you get to later, this is the version I would give you over coffee. No jargon, no channel worship, just the order I would tackle things in.

It applies whether you fit kitchens in Hampden Park, run a studio in the Old Town, or serve clients across East Sussex from a laptop.

1. Decide what a good month looks like

Marketing gets vague when the goal is vague. "More visibility" is not a goal. "Six qualified enquiries a month for bathroom installations" is, and it immediately tells you which channels are worth your time.

Pick one number. Everything else follows from it.

2. Get the website right before anything else

Every other channel sends people somewhere, and that somewhere is your site. Fixing it first makes all the later work more valuable.

The essentials:

• Loads in under three seconds on mobile data
• Says what you do, where you do it and who for, in the first screen
• A separate page for each service you want to be found for
• Contact details visible on every page and a form that actually delivers
• Proof: reviews, photographs of real work, named results

My website builds are structured for search from the first wireframe, which is considerably cheaper than adding it later.

3. Claim your local visibility

For a local business, your Google Business Profile often outperforms your website for early enquiries. It is free and most competitors half-finish it.

• Complete every field, including services and a proper description
• Add recent photos and keep adding them
• Ask every happy customer for a review and reply to each one
• Post updates so the profile looks active

Then make sure your name, address and phone number match exactly across your site, directories and social profiles. There is a full checklist in 10 fast fixes for your Google Business Profile, and more on the approach on my local SEO page.

4. Publish content that answers real questions

The best content is the answer you give on the phone three times a week, written down properly.

Examples that work locally:

• A photographer writing up the best wedding venues in and around Eastbourne
• A roofer explaining what salt air does to guttering on the seafront
• A therapist covering what happens in a first session

Each one earns search visibility, gives AI assistants something to cite, and does useful work in the sales conversation.

5. Pick one social platform and do it properly

Being present everywhere thinly beats nothing, but being consistent in one place beats both. Choose the platform your customers actually use, post regularly, and point every link back to a relevant page rather than your homepage.

Social builds familiarity. Your site converts it. Treating them as one system is the point, which I go into in the role of your website in a social media world.

6. Start collecting email addresses

Email is the one audience you own outright. A modest list of past and prospective customers, contacted usefully once a month, often outperforms every other channel on return. Set the capture up early even if you do not send anything for a while. That is what email marketing is for.

7. Measure, then adjust

Connect Google Analytics and Search Console on day one. Look at three things monthly: where visitors come from, which pages they read, and which pages produce enquiries. That is enough to make good decisions.

Where this usually goes wrong

Most businesses do bits of all seven and none of them completely. A social account posted to occasionally, a site nobody has touched in two years, an old mailing list, no measurement. Each piece is fine on its own and together they add up to less than any one of them done properly.

Pick the first two, finish them, then move on.

If you want a plan rather than a list

Start with a free SEO audit to see where you currently stand. If you want someone to look at the whole picture and tell you what to do in what order, the Marketing Audit is two hours on your business with a written action plan back within 48 hours.