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Marketing for New Businesses

Every new business needs a solid foundation.

Most new businesses spend money on the wrong things first, then spend more fixing them later. The decisions you make in the first few months set the foundation for everything after.

  • Does your brand match the business you're actually building?
  • Is your website ready before your first customer searches for you?
  • Do you know which marketing moves will matter most in year one?
  • Bottom line: Is your marketing foundation something you can build on — or something you'll have to rebuild?

Startup Marketing

There's no perfect time to start. Just a better one.

“I’m starting a new business.”

You have the idea, but the brand is still fuzzy. Maybe there’s no website yet. Maybe the name, logo, message, or offer still needs shape. This is the time to build the basics right — before a rough first impression starts costing you.

“I’m open, but people aren’t finding me.”

The business is live, but your online presence hasn’t caught up. Word of mouth is helping, but your website, Google Business Profile, social media, and content aren’t doing enough yet. You don’t need to do everything. You need to know what matters first.

“My business has outgrown my marketing.”

The business is real now. Revenue is coming in. Your services, team, or customer base may have changed. But your marketing still looks like the first version of the business — not the one you’ve become.

Wherever you are, the job is the same: stop guessing, get the foundation in order, and put your time and budget toward the marketing pieces that matter first. We’ve helped hundreds of Eastern Washington businesses do exactly that.

Startup Marketing Services

What every new business needs to get started.

You don't need everything at once. You need the right things first — in the right order. Here's where we typically start with a new business.

team blog

Brand Identity

A logo, color system, and brand guide that reflect where your business is going — not just where it's starting. Built to scale with you so you're not rebuilding in two years.

Website Design

A professional site that establishes credibility from day one. SEO-ready from launch, mobile-first, and built to work as your primary marketing asset — not just a digital business card.

Local Search & AI Visibility

Google Business Profile setup, local SEO, and AI search optimization — so you show up when people search for what you do, whether that's on Google or asking ChatGPT for a recommendation.

Brand Photography & Video

Real photos of your team, your space, and your work. Professional visuals establish credibility quickly — stock photos do the opposite.

Digital Advertising Launch

When you're new, sometimes you need to get in front of people who haven't heard of you yet. We build focused campaigns that stretch a limited launch budget toward the right audience — not just everyone within a radius.

Ongoing Marketing Support

Once the foundation is built, a monthly marketing partnership keeps it growing. Strategy sessions, content, campaigns, and production — all under one roof, on a budget that scales with your business.

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Starting a Business?

The biggest marketing mistakes startups make.

Starting a business already comes with enough unknowns. The goal is not to do everything perfectly on day one — it’s to avoid the early marketing decisions that cost more to fix later.

  • Building a logo before you know the brand.

    A logo matters, but it should not come before your message, audience, positioning, and how the brand needs to show up. Otherwise, you end up with something that looks fine in one place and falls apart everywhere else.

  • Launching without a real website.

    Social media helps, but it should not be your whole online presence. A simple, clear website gives people somewhere to learn about you, trust you, and take the next step when they are ready.

  • Skipping local visibility.

    If people cannot find your business on Google, Maps, or local search, you are making word of mouth work too hard. Your Google Business Profile, website content, location signals, and reviews all help people find and choose you.

  • Spending money on ads too early.

    Ads can work, but only when they have somewhere useful to send people. If your website, message, offer, or follow-up process is not ready, paid traffic can burn through budget without fixing the real problem.

  • Trying to look bigger instead of clearer.

    New businesses sometimes overcomplicate the brand, website, or marketing because they want to look established. Clear beats complicated. People need to understand what you do, who it is for, and why they should care.

  • Treating marketing like a launch task.

    Marketing does not stop once the doors open or the website goes live. The first version gets you started. The work after launch is what helps you build visibility, earn trust, and keep improving.

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Calculate Your Marketing Budget

Not sure what to spend on digital marketing?

Our free marketing budget calculator gives you a smart starting range based on your revenue and goals — in about 30 seconds.

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Why Cougar Digital Marketing?

We've helped lots of businesses start with a stronger marketing foundation.

We’ve built first websites, new brands, launch plans, and marketing foundations for businesses across the Tri-Cities and Eastern Washington. We’ve also seen what happens when the early pieces don’t connect — the rebrands, rebuilt sites, unclear messaging, and campaigns that have nowhere useful to send people.

Getting the foundation right early saves time, budget, and a lot of backtracking.

  • Brand, website, photography, content, and launch support in one place

  • Clear guidance on what to prioritize when your budget is limited

  • Local insight into how customers search, compare, and choose businesses

  • A practical plan for what needs to happen now, what can wait, and what comes next

Cougar Digital marketing team meeting around conference table

125+ 5-Star Reviews

When you do great work, people notice.

Ashley is very easy to communicate with and quick to respond when you have questions. Ashley is very attentive to your ideas. My website gets very high compliments.

We’ve had the pleasure of working with Cougar Digital Marketing on both of our company websites—Ellison Earthworks and EE Traffic Management—and we couldn’t be happier with the results. From the very first meeting, their team was attentive, creative, and incredibly easy to work with. They took the time to understand not just our services, but our brand values and voice, and they translated that into two beautiful, functional, and user-friendly websites. Their communication was consistent and clear throughout the process, and every step felt collaborative. They made what could’ve been a stressful experience feel seamless and even fun. The final products truly reflect the heart of our companies and the industries we serve. We highly recommend Cougar Digital to any business looking to elevate their online presence. Thank you for bringing our vision to life so perfectly!

I absolutely love working with Cougar Digital for every aspect of marketing our business utilizes. From digital content and graphic design work, to helping us create content (photos, videos and language) for various types of media and needs, Cougar does it all. The staff is awesome! Everyone is personable, prompt and professional. They are fun and I look forward to working with them on each project because I know the results will be incredible every time. Cougar's team members are open and flexible in helping us reach our goals and are authentic in their approach to meeting expectations and timeliness. Their consistent delivery of high level results within projected timeliness makes them my first choice for all marketing needs

Great experience designing and launching my new website!

We’ve been working with Cougar Digital Marketing for almost 6 years, and they have consistently gone above and beyond for Boiada Brazilian Grill. Josh is amazing at graphic design and always brings our ideas to life in fun, creative ways. Travis and Ashley have done an exceptional job with every aspect of our new website build — from strategy meetings and design to training and development. Cougar is professional, timely, fun to work with, and they create outstanding content. We couldn’t be happier with our new website — it’s beautiful and easy for our team to edit and update. Highly recommend Cougar to any business looking for a true marketing partner!

Josh created a style guide for us to help with consistency throughout our agency. He did a great job creating the guide with little information. He did a great job explaining everything to us. He went above and beyond troubleshooting a zip file issue. Our services with Josh Kandle were 5-star service! He was kind, patient, thoughtful with his work and helpful with creativity in our style guide as well and assisting with technical difficulties. Thanks again Josh!

I enjoyed working with Josh. Josh explains things in a way that make easily understandable for someone who is not in the marketing industry.

Travis and the Team impressed me as having great listening skills! I had them create a website and the main priorities were SEO, Responsive across all devices, Reasonable loading speed and the Contact Info was responsive so it’s easy to place a call or send email. They surpassed these objectives and did a great job of matching the graphics with the content on each page. Very punctual and professional and we’re sensitive to my schedule also. I was impressed by the way all Team members signed off before launching as a measure of quality control. Their values are put into action and not just on a plaque in the office.

Had a great experience with Cougar Digital. We lost our photographer last minute and called Cougar Digital and they stepped up and really did a bang up job for us. Plus their WSU Alum and that added good fun to the shoot. Super appreciate these guys and recommend them to anyone. #AGENT509

My class and I had a great time learning from Josh about his background, experience in design and video, and creative process. Thank you so much for volunteering!!

Great company, great people. Vision matched customer expectation!

I was looking for a photographer to do final finish photos for a project. Josh was easy to communicate with, the photos look great and I would recommend his services highly. Thank you

Excellent service and good pricing. It was a pleasure working with Travis and his team. I highly recommend them!

Shared my vision in words and they were able to make a masterpiece on print!

Josh was professional and personable. Produced great picture and he is a Coug to boot. It doesn’t get any better. Go Cougs

We love Cougar Digital! We have worked with them on various projects - rack cards, posters, banners, even a couple commercials. They're friendly, helpful, creative, and truly and do great work. We would recommend them to anyone!

We had such a good experience working with Cougar Digital Marketing for building our website. They did an awesome job and worked around our crazy schedule so well for meetings/photo shoots/etc. Would highly recommend for any website/marketing needs.

Cougar Digital has been so incredible to work with! They are always able to turn our words and ideas into a beautiful finished product quickly. The staff is responsive and professional and we love working with Josh. He is a true artist and always delivers a stunning product. Thank you Cougar!

Service is the difference!! Ashley is super sharp and ahead of the curve but the real value is access and responsiveness. Other providers I have had were great until they got paid then very slow to respond to updates and changes I needed. Ashley is lighting in a bottle and handles updates and changes with urgency as well as keeps us informed of new emerging opportunities to consider. Highly reccomend. It would be a Mistake not to give her a meeting before deciding who to partner with.

We've had a great experience working with Cougar Digital. We purchased a package deal with a new logo, photography and web design for the Grace Brethren Church of Sunnyside. Nick and Josh were both great to work with. We've had a lot of positive feedback on the work they've done.

We needed to update our website and Josh at Cougar Digital was very responsive, helpful, and capable. Our refreshed website looks great! -Jennifer Williamson Forster, Executive Director, South Sound Reading Foundation.

Josh did a great job on my headshot. He provided a timely appointment and spent the time to make sure he got the best shot. He was even willing to try several different locations. I would recommend him for anybody looking to update the professional photos.

Working with Cougar Digital to launch a campaign for kids to support the Prosser Boys & Girls Club. I was impressed with their creativity, professionalism, and attention to detail. They helped us to achieve incredible results and bring our ideas to life!

This team is awesome! they truly have most things figured out and thought through before you walk through the door. And the unknowns are easily resolved with their level of professionalism! We cant say enough about Ashley the design manager and Josh the photographer! They both made the process fun and easy and we were constantly surprised by the “WOW” factor! Thank you all and we look forward to future growth for both our small businesses.

I would highly recommend Cougar Digital Media! They worked with us on creating the exact vision we had for our website, they worked around our schedule to make sure the website matched our vision. Working with Nick went as smoothly as it could go, he went above and beyond with his creativity!

Josh and his crew go above and beyond. He offers very personalized service and is always willing to go the extra mile. He never hesitates to come in to my office and personally show my staff how they can maximize their services. I've wasted too much money over the past few years on worthless SEO. It's great to have someone local who is accountable and provides fantastic service!

Greatly appreciate the work that Josh and the Cougar Digital Marketing team did for our organization. We had a vague vision and they were able to make it better than we could have imagined. Appreciate their flexibility to work with us on a short turnaround and their suggestions for making the best video possible.

Josh and the Cougar Digital team did an amazing job with a drone video production that included narration. The quality of audio and video show a professional production level. I appreciate the attention to detail and quality of work by the Cougar Digital team.

Cougar did a wonderful job with our new site. Ashley and Travis were extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly. We will definitely be coming back for any needs in the future!

Cougar Digital should be your only call for web design. I would give them 6 stars if I could. #Silverline

I had the pleasure of working with Josh from Cougar Digital through the Prosser Chamber for photography at two of our recent events and I was so impressed with the results! He captured creative, fun, and high-quality images that really highlight the energy and personality of each event. From my experience, Cougar Digital is incredibly easy to work with, professional, creative, and genuinely cares about delivering a great product. I really appreciated how well all the little details and moments were captured that made each event special. I’m so happy with the work they provided and look forward to working with them again on future events!

So great to have a guy like Josh and the Cougar Digital team in your corner. Professional, fast, and awesome to work with.

This is the second time I've worked with Ashley Hite and Cougar Digital Marketing to revamp a website. Ashley is knowledgeable, creative, and patient. In both cases, she went the extra mile to make sure we were satisfied with the design and functionality of the websites. When we have issues (or just a question of how to do something), she is always quick to respond. I would hire Cougar Digital and Ashley again with no reservations, and I highly recommend them.

Cougar Digital worked closely with us to create a website for our business that truly reflects our vision. They dedicated time and effort to ensure every detail aligned with our goals, and the end result exceeded our expectations. We’re extremely happy with the final product and appreciate their commitment to quality.

Travis Hartliep and his crew are amazing! I worked with Josh on designing a book cover and he was great... was willing to work through numerous changes and updates, suggested helpful things to push the project along, and was very patient and courteous. We came in on budget and on time for the project and the end result was fantastic. I highly recommend Cougar Digital for any and all of your design and marketing needs.

Cougar Digital answered the phone, literally. During a company name change, we reached out to multiple design and marketing groups from the Tri-Cities to Walla Walla to Spokane. Although we'd left messages with each vendor, Cougar was the only one courteous enough to respond. After a couple consultations, Joshua Kandle, Director of Marketing took charge of the design of our new company logo. With patience and professionalism, he listened to our concepts and following a series of modifications, he created a logo that is printed on millions of labels and boxes that're shipped globally. The logo is headlined on our website and our email, along with being printed on our work garments. Digital art might be easy with today's technology, but without Joshua's patient nature and ability to listen to our ideas, the incredible logo wouldn't have been possible. Vehemently I recommend Cougar Digital. They're professional yet personable. They're communicative and driven while remaining patient.

Josh produced an outstanding web site for TRI-CITY MUSIC. He ad access to numerous resources that made for an amazing finished product. Josh also provided extensive training on how to update the website myself. I have received numerous positive comments on Josh's creation. For outstanding product and service, I recommend Josh.

Ordered new business cards and was extremely pleased with the speed and service! Definitely recommend for your next marketing push!

Josh did a great job on our logo! He even let us sit with him at his personal computer so we could be involved with the finishing touches. Thanks Josh and Thanks Cougar Digital!!

Cougar Digital provides excellent follow through on all our projects. We trust them with developing solutions for our email marketing campaigns, graphic design, and collateral creation. Their designs are used by our partners nationally. We count on them for specific website support work and they always come through for us. They are solution oriented and their upbeat, friendly customer service is unparalleled.

Working with the Cougar Digital Marketing team was an absolute delight. Truly good people who are VERY skilled at what they do. Running a large regional food company, it's a blessing to work with an experienced digital team here locally, and not have to seek services in the Seattle or Portland market. I highly recommend working with Cougar Digital!

Josh was easy to work with. He returned my calls and emails promptly! And he did amazing job. I will not hesitate to reach out to him again for up coming projects!

I really love the team approach with Travis and the group, they are very professional, organized, and skilled at what they do. I wish I had employed them for my website and advertising years ago. I regret spending so much money trying to do it on my own or with cheap services that took my money and did nothing. I feel like they are MY team, and I feel I'm not alone trying to achieve my business goals to get my services out to the public.

We have nothing but great things to say about Cougar Digital Marketing! Travis took the time to understand our goals, worked around our schedule, and went above and beyond to make our vision come to life. Ashley was a whiz and was always available when we needed her. Our site turned out better than we imagined. Can't recommend them enough.

I highly recommend Cougar Digital. I am currently working with them on 3 separate projects. They took over 2 community based websites that were painful to use and turned them into user friendly, performant websites. Their website & database design is outstanding and they have consistently exceeded my expectations. It has been a pleasure working with everyone at Cougar Digital!

Couldnt be happier with Cougar Digital! They crushed our websites!

Sonar Insights had the pleasure of partnering with Cougar Digital Marketing & Design, LLC on two separate occasions - a video campaign for the Benton Franklin Census 2020 and a video for a client. It was a big undertaking to take the script sand creatively execute on them. Josh Kandle and his team did a masterful job at realizing the vision for the projects with a fantastic end product. Could not be more pleased!

Excellent service. Creative work. They understand what you are trying to do and deliver! So enjoyable to work with them!

Cougar did an exceptional job designing and executing our website for Flex Space Business Centers. Additionally, the videos they produced turned out fantastic!

Josh and the Cougar Digital team were great to work with and delivered a quality product with website updates, tenant testimonial videos, and a commercial. I would highly recommend Cougar Digital for your marketing needs! 😊

Business Startup FAQs

Questions? We've heard 'em all.

If you’re thinking it, there’s a good chance someone else asked it too. 

What’s the first marketing move a new business should make?
What should a new business budget for marketing in year one?
Does a new business need a website right away?
How long does it take to launch startup marketing basics?
Can you help with one marketing piece, or do I have to hire you for everything?

Digital Marketing for Busy Professionals

Learn more. Grow faster.

Quick, useful reads to help you think bigger and market smarter.

Ready to get started?

Tell us where you are. We'll help you figure out what comes next.

30 minutes, no homework required. Tell us what you're building, where you are in the process, and what you're trying to accomplish. We'll give you an honest read on where to start and what it actually costs.