Digital Terrain: The Top Towns For Building A Marketing Business

Here’s some advice if you want to build an email business (and/or your career): Forget New York, Chicago and Seattle -- the best towns for growing a digital marketing enterprise are these, according to an analysis by Clarify Capital: 

  1. Miami, Florida 
  2. Fremont, California 
  3. Chesapeake, Virginia 
  4. Lubbock, Texas
  5. Reno, Nevada 

We can understand the ranking of Miami and Fremont (a Bay area city). But Lubbock, a West Texas town that is known mostly as the birthplace of Buddy Holly? 

It probably has to do with the local cost of doing business -- and the lifestyle. Not that many people are looking to start a digital business -- anywhere. 

The results are a little different if you’re building a technology company. The top five cities are:

  1. Richmond, Virginia 
  2. Atlanta, Georgia 
  3. Minneapolis, Minnesota 
  4. Fremont, California
  5. Chesapeake, Virginia

Again, we can understand Atlanta and Minneapolis: Atlanta is the birthplace of email marketing company MessageGears.  

But this is not based on geographical analysis, or an evaluation of the local talent pool. Clarify Capital determined this by tracking the search volume per 1 million residents.  

So this is really about people searching terms related to local industries. If you’re a digital marketing vendor, you might try looking for small business clients in Lubbock.  

In general, the report states that the most business-growth searches per 1 million residents from 2020 to 2022, happened in Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Montana. 

Are you looking to grow a YouTube channel? Try these hot spots:

  1. Arlington, Texas
  2. Richmond, Arizona 
  3. Scottsdale, Texas 
  4. Fremont, California
  5. St. Louis, Missouri

The most-searched phrase for any industry was “how to grow a YouTube channel" — it accounted for 73% of searches from 2020 to 2022.  

“Ad revenue and sponsorships mean YouTube channels can be small businesses on their own. But other types of small businesses can also use YouTube to grow their brands, expand their customer bases, and even diversify their revenue streams."

The study also notes: “The most YouTube growth searches per capita came from Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, and Delaware — all of which are within the seven bottom U.S. states in terms of population. Meanwhile, residents in Arlington, Texas made more of these searches than any other city.”

Here are the most popular industries of 2022, based on searches:

  • How to grow a YouTube channel—73%
  • How to grow a real estate business—13%
  • How to grow a retail business—6%
  • How to grow a tech company—1% 
  • How to grow a graphic decision business—1%
  • How to grow a digital marketing business—1%
Next story loading loading..