Two economies arriving at completely different speeds
Columbus already has one of the densest clusters of specialty-retail headquarters in the country. Now a huge semiconductor project is building a second economy next to it from scratch.
Benchmarks in this market
- Avg. revenue growth, retail brands
- +197%Avg. revenue growth, retail brands
- Pipeline closed, technical B2B
- $8.9MPipeline closed, technical B2B
- Qualified RFQs, industrial suppliers
- +163%Qualified RFQs, industrial suppliers
- Sales cycle length, ABM
- -27%Sales cycle length, ABM
Illustrative ranges for engagements of this type, not verified Columbus-specific client data. Orientation, not a guarantee. Your starting point changes the range.
How we work here: Remotely from our San Francisco office, with ET coverage for calls and travel for kickoffs. We don't claim a Columbus office we don't have.
Clients across every market
What's actually different about the Columbus metro
Columbus runs two very different economies in the same metro.
The first is decades old and consumer-facing. An unusually large cluster of specialty-retail and apparel headquarters grew up here. That gives Columbus deep brand marketing, merchandising and direct-to-consumer talent that most B2B-heavy Midwest cities don't have.
The second is new and industrial. Intel's multibillion-dollar chip plant in New Albany, just outside the city, is often called the anchor of the 'Silicon Heartland'. It has been pushed back to the end of the decade, but it's already pulling in suppliers and contractors with real budgets and multi-year timelines.
A retail brand's marketing team and a chip-supply vendor may be five miles apart, but they compete for different talent and different buyers, and they need different marketing.
Retail marketing talent runs deep here
Decades of retail headquarters mean Columbus has real strength in brand, merchandising and direct-to-consumer marketing. That's rare for a Midwest city, and it's an advantage for consumer brands building a team here instead of hiring on a coast.
Chip suppliers are a new buyer with no local playbook
The vendors, contractors and suppliers arriving around the Intel project buy through formal purchasing, think technically and are new to agencies used to Columbus's retail side. They want spec-driven content and account-based marketing, not brand campaigns.
Two buyers need two playbooks
A retail brand here wants creative and brand marketing. A supplier near the chip plant wants technical credibility and long-cycle lead generation. Treat Columbus as one market and you'll do a mediocre job of both.
Both economies are chasing the same talent
Retail marketers and technical talent for the chip industry are drawing from the same regional pool at the same time. That's starting to push up hiring costs and timelines for both, and most companies aren't planning for it yet.
What usually moves first in Columbus.
Based on what tends to be the binding constraint for companies in this market. Your audit may point somewhere else. We go where the numbers say.
Industry playbooks relevant in Columbus
Specific playbooks for Columbus businesses
- CRO for E-commerce & DTC
- SEO for Professional Services
- Content for Professional Services
- Digital Marketing for Industrial & Manufacturing
- Content for Industrial & Manufacturing
- SEO for E-commerce & DTC
- SEO for Industrial & Manufacturing
- CRO for Professional Services
- Digital Marketing for E-commerce & DTC
- CRO for Industrial & Manufacturing
The part clients actually remember.
Not the reports. The uncomfortable conversation that changed the trajectory.
We were running two different companies out of one website and wondering why neither side converted well. Splitting them was obvious in hindsight and something we'd never have done ourselves.
We'd been quietly tracking diversion data for years because it was good practice, not because we thought anyone would pay for it. Turns out the properties we most wanted as clients had been asking every hauler for exactly that, and nobody was answering.
We'd been telling practices we'd get them paid faster for years. Nobody had told us that wasn't actually what was stopping them from switching. The fear of switching itself was. Once we addressed that directly instead of the speed pitch, everything else got easier.
Columbus questions, answered straight.
Yes. The brand, merchandising and direct-to-consumer talent that has built up here over decades means you can grow a real in-house marketing team locally, instead of hiring from the coasts or using a generalist agency with no retail background. We see that local talent as something to work alongside.
Let's look at your numbers.
A free 30-minute teardown of your funnel, ads, and site, run against what actually works in the Columbus metro. You keep the findings either way.