A four-sprint operational roadmap for scaling a digital marketing agency across Michigan's most competitive local verticals — cannabis, trades, hospitality, home services — through SEO, short-form video, email, and disciplined paid amplification.
Each 15-day phase has a single dominant theme so effort compounds instead of fragmenting. Build foundation → fire content engine → claim authority → convert and systematize.
Tracking installed. ICP defined. GBP optimized. 8 vertical landing pages live. Lead magnet shipped. Email engine wired.
Daily short-form across TikTok & Reels. 2 blogs/week. Weekly newsletter. Cold outreach activated. Reviews stacking.
Case studies filmed. Partner network online. Influencer trades booked. Disciplined paid amplification begins.
Funnels optimized. Workshop hosted. Referral program live. SOPs documented. Engine runs without you.
Track these from Day 01. If a metric isn't moving by Day 21, the play is wrong — fix the play, not the metric.
Industries don't behave the same. Build one landing page per vertical — that's the single highest-ROI move in Sprint 1.
Meta & Google ad-restricted. Compliance-aware education over promo. Lean into SEO, organic short-form, retention loops, and email — long-tail Detroit dispensary searches are wide open.
Urgency + trust. Emergency-service SEO, Google LSA setup, video reviews, "before-the-storm" content. Michigan winters are a built-in content calendar — pipes burst, roofs leak, power fails.
Visual-first. Instagram + Pinterest for florists. Before/after for blinds. Restaurants live or die on TikTok and the GBP photo refresh. Junk cars are pure SEO intent — "cash for cars Detroit" is the entire game.
You won't see leads in Sprint 1. You'll be installing the rails everything else runs on. Skip these and Sprints 2–4 collapse. Do them well and Day 31 onward feels effortless.
The algorithm needs reps to figure out who you are. Daily short-form across TikTok and Reels for 14 days is non-negotiable. Batch-shoot Mondays. Don't try to record in real time — it collapses by Week 2.
Volume tells you what works. Each format earns the rotation through performance — by Day 30 you'll know which two pillars to amplify with paid in Sprint 3.
By Day 31 you have ~30 videos with performance data. That data tells you where to spend. Boosting weak content is the #1 way agencies waste their own ad budget.
Each well-run partner delivers 2–4 qualified leads/month. The math compounds fast.
Pitch: 10–15% rev share for first 6 months + cross-feature on social.
Pitch trades, not paid posts. Co-host a free workshop or shout-out exchange.
Day 31 onward · Meta-led
Top 2–3 organic videos/week. Boost on Meta only. 3 days each. Goal: profile follow + retargeting pool.
Best-performing video → 30s edit → checklist landing page. Detroit + 25mi. Ages 28–55. Advantage+ placements.
Site visitors (30d) + 75% video viewers. Creative: case study + book-a-call. Most actual leads come from here.
Never boost a post under 1,000 organic views — the algorithm has told you it's weak. Don't run cold traffic to a sales page in the first 60 days. Track cost per qualified lead, not cost per click. Aim for <$40 CPL by Day 60. Pause anything below 1.5× ROAS after 7 days. Double down on winners.
That's the difference between a 60-day sprint and a sustainable growth machine. Document everything in Sprint 4.
The two failure modes: inconsistent posting after Week 3, and chasing every shiny tactic. Resist both. Schedule batch days like surgery.
Lean stack. Replace any line item with a cheaper alternative if budget is tight — but don't skip CallRail or your email platform.
Assuming 80%+ adherence. Under-deliver on consistency and these numbers halve. Over-deliver on consistency and they double.