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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.

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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

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125+ 5-Star Reviews

When you do great work, people notice.

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

Cougar Digital Marketing & Design does outstanding work. Prosser School District has utilized their expertise on multiple occasions to assist in communicating our message. They are easy to work with and most importantly, they deliver!

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.

Working with Josh Kandle on several video projects was such a great experience . He is not only a real pro and easy to work with but he was also so open to all of my ideas for creativity and understood a lot of what I was looking for as an independent recording artist. i would highly recommend him and look forward to hopefully being able to do more in the future. ~ Lisa Mitts, Recording Artist Songwriter, Performer

We had an amazing experience working with Josh at Cougar Digital for our excavation company's new website. He was extremely professional, detail-oriented, and made the entire photo shoot and drone footage process seamless. The quality of the photos and drone shots exceeded our expectations, capturing our work in a way that truly showcases our expertise. Josh's professionalism and creative eye made a huge difference, and we couldn’t be happier with the results. Highly recommend him and Cougar Digital for any photography and digital needs!

Our website turned out great! Nick was super easy to work with really made the process a breeze. Josh was our photographer for our website, after seeing the results from the first shoot we had to schedule for another! The pictures turned out better than imagined. Josh did a great job staying out of our crews way but managed to catch all the action with great detail. 10/10 would recommend to anyone!

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.

It is always a pleasure working with Cougar Digital, especially with Josh and Mykaela. It's been a very good partnership with them. Very professional, always available for any questions or inquiries. Looking forward for more years of partnership.

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!

Great company, great people. Vision matched expectations!

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.

Working with Cougar Digital on our logo design was fantastic! Their creativity, professionalism, and attention to detail brought our vision to life, delivering a result that exceeded our expectations. Highly recommend their team!

We had the privilege of working with Cougar Digital to create a video for our annual Hospice Gala, and we couldn't be happier with the results. The team captured the heart of what we do beautifully, creating a piece that was both moving and true to our mission. Josh, in particular, was outstanding. His compassionate approach made our interviewee feel comfortable and valued, allowing them to share their story openly and genuinely. The video resonated deeply with our guests, effectively conveying the essence of hospice care and the impact of our work on patients and their families. Thank you, Cougar Digital, for helping us share our story in such an impactful way!

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!

Cougar digital has been an awesome! Basin Pacific Insurance could not be more happy about the work that they have done, the personal experience, and the creative ideas! Keep up the good work! Josh Toner/ Basin Pacific Insurance

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!

It was such a pleasure working with Cougar Digital. Not only was the process fast and easy, the work they created is amazing! Josh gave us a variety of different options to work with after taking the time to carefully listen to our needs. He made every little detail count and really brought our vision to life. We will definitely continue to work closely as our business continues to expand. Thank you, we could not be any happier.

We are SO grateful with Josh from Cougar Digital! We are a community workspace and Josh came in and took some fantastic pictures of our brand new space! We are very pleased with the work that he did!

Josh Kandle has changed the way we gain new customers by drastically improving our SEO. If you are static in your internet leads Josh can fix that. In the past week the phone just keeps ringing. Good job Josh.

Very easy to work with and extremely professional. Cougar Digital was able to take our vision and make it a reality as well as making it easy and seamless. I would highly recommend Cougar Digital to anyone!

Had a great experience working with Josh! Super easy to work with and really knows his stuff - especially when it comes to lighting and editing for interior shots. The photos turned out amazing, with just the right vibe we were going for. We ended up adding a few extra shot requests last minute, and Josh had no problem fitting them in. He also helped with staging, which made a big difference, and the drone footage was a great bonus. His pricing was very reasonable for the quality we got. Great value for money. We’ll definitely be hiring him again for future shoots!

Great work and very professional! Thank you!

Great company, great people. Vision matched customer expectation!

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 took my website to a whole new level! They are very professional and knowledgeable and did excellent work. They also filmed a few videos for me that turned out amazingly well! They were very responsive to what I wanted and envisioned and were extremely patient with me. I would highly recommend them to anyone!

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

Cougar Digital has been great to work with! With their support we have seen significant improvement with our marketplace campaigns.

Fantastic service! Cougar Digital gave me very professional one-to-one couching! This is making a significant impact on my projects!

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

We hired these guys to handle some commercial photos for both exterior and aerial shots. Josh and team were excellent to work with and made things easy while adapting to changing schedules and weather. The photos turned out amazing in the end. Highly recommend.

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.

We highly recommend Cougar Digital Marketing for their exceptional marketing services. We used them initially to build our new website for our commercial and residential General Contracting company, and we signed on with them for future partnership hours. We have been pleased with the seamless results Travis's company has provided us. The team's collaboration and communication with the website designer, Ashlie, the marketing guru, Josh, and the photographer, Mykayla, were ALL GREAT. Having these marketing resources under one roof has made our transition from our last website company, much easier than expected. Their prompt availability and amazing support made the entire experience enjoyable. We are extremely satisfied with the results and grateful for their partnership and guidance!

These guys are top notch! Very knowledgeable and helpful!

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!!

Working with Josh at Cougar Digital Marketing & Design was an excellent experience! The process was incredibly collaborative, allowing us to bring our vision for the Pasco School District Career Guide to life. Josh listened to our ideas, provided valuable insights, and worked tirelessly to ensure the final product exceeded our expectations. We are thrilled with the outcome and can't wait to share our new Career Guide with our students and families. Highly recommend Cougar Digital for any design and marketing needs!

Cougar Digital and team is very responsive, knowledgeable, and capable and has done a great job in building and maintaining our business web site, and providing needed graphic design for our needs. Highly recommend them to anyone wanting expert work and assistance in these aspects of their business.

Josh did a great job making a couple of highlight videos for me. Easy to work with and prompt service

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.

The team at Cougar Digital Marketing are great to work with! They were very professional throughout the entire process of creating a beautiful website for me. Every member of the team I worked with was attentive to all of my questions/needs and they delivered exactly what I was hoping for in a website. I am so glad I found them!

Very helpful and easy to work with. They thought about everything that we needed on our website and it looks amazing! Very satisfied.

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!

If you need a website. Call these guys and you won't be disappointed. You'll be surprised at how affordable they are and with the great LOCAL customer service they provide. These guys know their stuff.

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!

We had a short timetable and a limited budget. The end result was great. Working with the Cougar Digital team made the project very enjoyable.

Every business, large or especially small, should have professional help on marketing. As a small business owner, I only have so much time. I need to keep my focus on the daily tasks and still be able to be a family man. Cougar Digital takes this immense pressure off my shoulders. Not only does my business grow, it's easier. Highly recommend.

Cougar Digital has truly exceeded expectations with their outstanding work on our website. From start to finish, their team demonstrated peak professionalism, creativity, and technical expertise. The design they crafted for our website is nothing short of spectacular. It perfectly captures the essence of our brand while ensuring a visually stunning and user-friendly interface. Every detail was meticulously planned and executed, resulting in a site that not only looks impressive but also functions seamlessly! 100% Recommend Cougar Digital to all businesses.

The Cougar Digital team is fantastic. We recently revamped our website. I worked closely with Faith and she was super friendly and helpful every time we talked whether it was email, phone, or in person. The whole team works together to make sure everything is perfect and taken of. They really took our needs into consideration. Thanks!

Josh and Cougar Digital did an amazing job on a video for an event. We were super proud to show it to donors and had a wonderful response by community members regarding the video. Well done Josh and Cougar Digital!

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!

I used Cougar Digital Marketing for a personal Christmas gift in 2024. Josh was professional, friendly, and helpful throughout the whole process from setting up location and time for photos, to helping me through the purchasing process to get the photos printed. The Christmas gift was my father's favorite this year-- thank you , Cougar Digital Marketing!

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.