A few weeks ago, the owner of a small family pest company in Maryland posted a question in an industry forum. Their residential business had seen a "drastic decline" over three months compared to last year. They had three suspects: AI changing how people search, an unusually cold winter, or the way they market on the web.
If your pest control leads are down this year, you've probably asked the same question. I run a marketing agency that works with pest control business owners, and this is one of the most common calls I get, usually right when the phone should be busiest. The usual answer is "probably all three." That's likely true, and it leaves you no closer to a fix.
So this guide does two things. First, it shows you how to tell a normal seasonal dip from a real problem. Then it gives you the 20-minute diagnostic I gave that owner, which uses data you already have to name the cause. After that, I'll cover what's quietly squeezing phone calls in 2026, the two fixes worth building, and what changed with Local Services Ads.
One thing up front, so you don't spend the whole article bracing for bad news. Some of the drop almost certainly isn't your fault. The ground under pest control marketing shifted in 2024, and it shifted for everyone. But "it isn't your fault" is not the same as "there's nothing to do."
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | July 08, 2026
Chad is a Partner and our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
August school marketing is the to-do-list version of standing in the kitchen during Thanksgiving prep, with the turkey going in, the pies half-made, and three timers about to go off at once. You are welcoming new families and getting the website ready for a flood of "schools near me" searches. All the while, you try to remember that the families who will enroll next fall are already out there, quietly forming opinions. It is a lot, and most admissions and marketing teams at private and independent schools are doing it with one or two people. At Cube Creative Design, we help private and independent schools turn that chaotic month into a working list, so the right things get done, and the rest can wait. This August school marketing checklist walks through the six tasks that matter most, why each one pays off, and how to do them without a giant team or budget.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | July 08, 2026
Chad is a Partner and our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
Most home service companies plan their content backward. They publish "spring AC tune-up tips" in April, right as the phones start ringing, then wonder why the post never shows up in search. A content calendar for your home service company fixes that timing problem. The companies that win local search aren't writing about what's busy today. They're writing about what will be busy in 60 to 90 days. This guide shows home services businesses how to build a calendar that leads demand instead of chasing it.
Think of it like planting a garden. You don't drop seeds in the ground the day you want tomatoes. You plant in spring, so you harvest in summer. Content works the same way. Google needs time to find a new page, rank it, and move it into a competitive position. If you publish your summer content in June, you've already missed the season.
Written By: Chad J. Treadway | July 06, 2026
Chad is a Partner and our Chief Smarketing Officer. He will help you survey your small business needs, educating you on your options before suggesting any solution. Chad is passionate about rural marketing in the United States and North Carolina. He also has several certifications through HubSpot to better assist you with your internet and inbound marketing.
The first week of school runs on adrenaline, and if you handle marketing on top of running the building, it can slip by before you capture a single frame. That is a missed opportunity, because this one week gives you more honest, usable content than any other stretch of the year. The hugs at drop-off, the new kindergartner finding a cubby, the teacher who has greeted families at the same door for a decade; these moments tell prospective families what your school actually feels like. Cube Creative Design works with faith-based and independent schools that want to capture that energy without a production crew. This guide gives you concrete first-week school content ideas and a simple way for a one-person team to capture, post, and reuse them all year.
Written By: Hannah Kilpatrick | July 06, 2026
Hannah Kilpatrick Cube Creative DesignHannah Kilpatrick graduated from Western Carolina University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in Communication with a Minor in Marketing and a Concentration in Public Relations. She has been around social media since its creation. (Meaning, she was in the first grade when Facebook became available to the general public.) As our very own professional Gen-Z, Hannah is a whiz when it comes to social media creation and paid advertising.