The Challenge
A hundred years of credibility doesn’t automatically show up on Google.
FBFM had deep expertise, a loyal client base, and a branch network spanning Illinois — and now Indiana. What they didn’t have was a digital presence built to match. No local search footprint. No lead capture. No content strategy. When they appointed their first-ever marketing lead and set their sights on geographic expansion, the opportunity was clear: build the infrastructure that would make FBFM as findable online as they were respected in the field. The risk wasn’t that farmers didn’t trust FBFM. The risk was that farmers looking for farm financial help online would never find them at all.
Strategic Approach
The approach was comprehensive by design.
FBFM was expanding geographies and showing up digitally for the first time simultaneously which meant a single-channel approach wouldn’t cut it. We mapped out every surface their audience might encounter them on and built a program to cover it: HubSpot implementation and lead capture, on-site SEO, local search presence across every branch, content, PR, social, and collateral.
The goal was to make sure that wherever a farmer or ag professional went looking — Google, a local publication, LinkedIn, a trade show — FBFM was there and credentialed.
Digital PR
FBFM’s Indiana expansion gave us a hard news hook and we used it. We distributed a PR Newswire release announcing two new Indiana locations, reaching 128 journalists directly and anchoring FBFM’s search presence in the new market from day one. Beyond the announcement, we built local media relationships mapped to FBFM’s branch geography, connecting their consultants to the regional ag reporters who cover farm business in each county.
We also placed a three-part expert series with Farm Progress covering tax changes, farm deductions, and pre-season financial benchmarking, and secured a podcast interview with an FBFM leader on the Agbioscience podcast from AgriNovus Indiana, putting their voice in front of a statewide Indiana audience. The earned content stays indexed and continues to surface when farmers search for tax and financial guidance.
Content
FBFM’s consultants knew more about farm financial management than most anyone publishing on the topic and they already had a strong following through University of Illinois’ farmdoc publication, one of the most-read resources in ag finance. The goal was to extend that reach to FBFM’s own branded platform and amplify it through the digital PR work happening in parallel.
We developed a content program built around the questions farmers actually search (tax guidance, financial benchmarking, pre-season planning) and produced pieces designed to rank and build authority simultaneously. The Farm Progress series was the highest-visibility external output, but the broader program extended to the FBFM site itself, building a library that gives their audience a reason to come directly to them.
Search Visibility: On-Site SEO, Local Search, and Branch Presence
FBFM’s branch network spans nearly 40 locations, each one a potential local search entry point for farmers in that county or region. We claimed and verified 14 branch locations to start, building out each Google Business Profile and creating local landing pages with UTM tracking to tie visits back to individual offices. That work is ongoing as we work through the full network.
On the site itself, we implemented HubSpot, built out lead capture infrastructure, conducted keyword research, and executed foundational SEO — title tags, H1s, internal linking. The results from that on-site work are reflected in the numbers: average position jumped from 26.5 to 7.4 year over year, moving FBFM from page 3 to roughly the top of page 1. Organic clicks climbed 32% and impressions grew 24% in the same period.
Website Support
A site that doesn’t capture leads isn’t a marketing asset, it’s a brochure. We treated FBFM’s website as a conversion surface and worked it accordingly: installing forms, building lead magnets, and identifying and closing gaps where traffic was arriving but not converting. The work was ongoing rather than a one-time redesign: regular technical upkeep paired with a continuous eye toward conversion opportunities as the content and SEO work drove more traffic in.
Sales and Marketing Collateral
FBFM’s consultants are on the ground in farm country (at trade shows, county meetings, and local events) and they needed materials that reflected the brand they were building online. We built out the full collateral suite: trade show banners, business cards, PowerPoint templates, and service flyers that gave every branch a consistent, professional look in the field.
We also developed print and digital ad creative for individual offices to run in local and regional agricultural media. Beyond the core pieces, we’ve served as an ongoing resource for miscellaneous design and marketing needs as they’ve come up, keeping everything on brand as FBFM grows.
Paid & Organic Social Media
FBFM was active on social but without a real strategy behind it. We took over content and management across Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, publishing two to three times per week on each platform with content built around FBFM’s expertise and the audiences each channel attracts.
The results from August 2025 through April 2026 tell the story: Facebook page followers grew by 2,098 (+90%), post engagement jumped to 23,567 interactions (+205%), and non-paid impressions hit 107,600 (+236%). Reel reach grew 441%. On LinkedIn, net followers grew 292%, impressions climbed to over 20,000 (+693%), and link clicks increased 959% — meaning the audience didn’t just grow, it started acting on what they saw.
Lead Generation: Paid Search and Paid Social
With organic and local search building long-term visibility, we layered in paid channels to drive near-term demand. Google Search and Meta Ads launched in February 2026 — FBFM’s first paid campaigns ever. On search, we structured the campaign around FBFM’s individual service lines, running on a lean daily budget and generating intent-based traffic from farmers actively searching for consulting, tax, and financial services. On Meta, we ran four campaign objectives simultaneously across Illinois and Indiana [event promotion, traffic, engagement, and audience growth] to build signal across the funnel quickly.
Together the two channels delivered hundreds of thousands of impressions, thousands of clicks to the site, and FBFM’s first measurable paid audience. Given the long consideration cycle typical in agricultural consulting, both channels were built as much for sustained visibility as immediate conversion.
The Results
When FBFM stood up HubSpot and began tracking leads for the first time, the foundation that had been built across SEO, local search, content, and PR showed up immediately with 74 inbound leads in the first complete month of measurement. That number is a signal, not a ceiling: it reflects what compounding digital infrastructure looks like when every channel is doing its job at once.
FBFM entered this engagement as a century-old organization with deep credibility and almost no digital presence. They’re coming out of it with a verified local search footprint across their branch network, a content library that builds authority and drives organic traffic, earned media relationships in both Illinois and Indiana, and the marketing infrastructure to track and build on every lead that comes in.
“Working with Pay Dirt has been a seamless and highly collaborative experience – their team truly understands our goals and communicates them effectively. Their work has helped elevate FBFM’s value to prospective clients in a clear, compelling way. We’ve seen a stronger, more consistent message come through as a result of our partnership. Across PR, organic and paid social, SEO, and graphic design, they’ve brought a strategic, full-service approach that keeps everything aligned and on brand.”
Jenna Conrad, Lead Marketing Strategist