AI Marketing Strategy
Find out which of the eleven things you are doing actually produce customers, and which four to stop. Written plan, ranked, fixed price, yours to keep.
Read more →What a marketing consultant actually does
A marketing consultant helps a business decide what marketing to do, in what order, and how to measure whether it worked. In Pittsburgh, most small business engagements fall into three types: a fixed-scope audit and plan, hands-on training for an internal team, or ongoing monthly support. Consultants differ from agencies by selling judgment rather than execution capacity.
The practical difference matters when you are choosing. An agency is staffed to produce volume, so their model works best when you already know what you want made. A consultant is useful earlier than that, when the question is still what to do at all.
Most small businesses in this city are stuck at the earlier question. They are spending money on marketing, some of it is working, and nobody can say which part.
TWENTY YEARS, MOSTLY HERE
This career was built in Pittsburgh.
Not relocated here. Built here.
GNC in Pittsburgh, running category strategy for Pro Performance. Bakery Barn in Pittsburgh, taking FortiFX to national launch. SmartShake in Pittsburgh. Simio in Sewickley, twice, most recently as Chief Marketing Officer. An MBA from Pitt's Katz school and a marketing degree from Grove City College. Currently a member of the University of Pittsburgh CMO AI Roundtable and AMA Pittsburgh.
The results those roles produced are published in full at theerichoward.com: 730 percent traffic growth, 413 percent growth in organic search impressions, 51.4 percent lead growth in six months, a Shopify store run to 125 percent of budget.
Most consultants pitching Pittsburgh businesses have a Pittsburgh address. This is a Pittsburgh career.
CAREER RESULTS OF ERIC HOWARD, FOUNDER. NOT STEELAIQ CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS.
FULL DETAIL AT THEERICHOWARD.COM
What we do for Pittsburgh businesses
AI Content and SEO
Show up when someone in Sewickley, Cranberry, or the South Side searches for what you sell. Content that ranks, gets cited by AI assistants, and sounds like your business.
Read more →Marketing Automation
The follow-up nobody had time to send, the review request nobody asked for, the appointment reminder that stops no-shows. Fastest returning work we do.
Read more →AI Training and Enablement
Teach your team to run this themselves, on your business, in person if you are local. Documented so it survives after we leave.
Read more →Where we work
Based in the Pittsburgh area and meeting in person across Allegheny County and the surrounding region. Everything we do also runs remotely, so distance is a preference rather than a requirement.
In person, regularly: Pittsburgh city, Sewickley, Moon Township, Robinson, Cranberry Township, Wexford, Mars, Gibsonia, Fox Chapel, Shadyside, Lawrenceville, Strip District, South Side, Mount Lebanon, Bethel Park, Upper St. Clair, Monroeville, Murrysville, and the Beaver Valley.
Also serving: Butler County, Washington County, Westmoreland County, Beaver County, and Greensburg. Ohio and West Virginia border communities on request.
Everywhere else: remote. Roughly half of this work never needed a room to begin with.
LOCAL WORK // SEWICKLEY, PA
It's By Jenna
Two brands under one owner: Glossed By Jenna, a lip and cosmetics line, and Skin by Jenna Marie, a licensed esthetician practice. One person running product, services, and a full appointment book, with marketing competing for whatever hours were left.
We built the entire presence. Positioning that lets two brands share one storefront without confusing anyone, the Shopify store, product and service merchandising, booking integration, the content system, email capture, the FAQ and journal, and the local search foundation for Sewickley and greater Pittsburgh.
Read the full case study →LOCAL QUESTIONS
Questions Pittsburgh businesses ask
How much does a marketing consultant cost in Pittsburgh?
Pricing varies widely by scope and seniority. Fixed-scope audits are typically project priced, training engagements are priced per engagement, and ongoing support is billed monthly. Most consultants working with small businesses scope and quote before starting rather than publishing rate cards. For SteelAIQ, the audit is fixed price and deliberately small so you can try the thinking before committing to anything larger.
Do you meet in person?
Yes, across Allegheny County and the surrounding counties. For training engagements in particular, in person is meaningfully better than video and we will push for it if you are close enough.
Do you only work with Pittsburgh businesses?
No. Pittsburgh is where the career was built and where in-person work happens, but the services run remotely and we take clients anywhere in the United States.
What kinds of Pittsburgh businesses do you work with?
Small and mid-sized: local service businesses, eCommerce, professional services, and B2B companies under roughly fifty people. The common thread is not the industry, it is that nobody in the building has marketing as their whole job.
Are you a marketing agency?
No. An agency sells execution capacity and is staffed for volume. We sell strategy, systems, and training, and we deliberately keep the number of ongoing clients low. If what you need is forty deliverables a month, an agency is the correct answer and we will say so.
Can you help with my Google Business Profile and local search?
Yes, and for most local Pittsburgh businesses it is the highest-return item on the list. Google Business Profile, local citations, review generation, and location content usually move the needle faster than anything else for a business serving a defined geographic area.
NEXT STEP
Let's get coffee and you can tell me what's broken.
Free first conversation, in person if you are local. No deck, no demo, no discovery call that is really a sales call. If AI does not move the thing you are trying to grow, you will hear that instead of a proposal.
Start the conversationPITTSBURGH, PA // REPLY IN ONE BUSINESS DAY // NO OBLIGATION