Michele Thornton
President & CEO
Twenty years is a long time, no matter how you slice it. It’s a long time for a marriage. It’s long enough to raise a kid from diapers to a driver’s license. And it’s an eternity in the digital marketing business. Algorithms have come and gone. Social platforms have risen, peaked, and done things we’d all rather forget. We’ve watched every shiny marketing innovation promise to deliver and still the results depend on how well the agency understands your business goals.
Twenty years, and here we are. Still standing. Still fresh.
It Started the Way Most Good Things Do: Out of Necessity
LocalFresh was born in 2006. My youngest daughter was four years old. My husband and his business partner were navigating the gut-punch of the Great Recession, and building websites for small businesses was the bridge that kept the lights on. Turns out, they were pretty good at it. And then it became something more.
What started as small websites – the kind with five pages and a contact form, grew into a full-service digital marketing agency. We added services as our clients needed them. We figured out what moves the needle for B2B companies and dental and medical practices, and we got ruthlessly focused on doing that well.
The Milestone That Mattered Most
In 2020, everything changed for me personally. My youngest daughter went off to college. My oldest daughter moved across the country. And my husband passed away. I stepped into the business carrying both grief and responsibility. I had 30 years of B2B marketing experience both on the corporate and agency side, but suddenly I was the one at the helm of something my husband had built from scratch.
I could have sold it. I could have wound it down.
Instead, I decided to grow it – strategically, intentionally, and on my terms. Not bigger for the sake of bigger. Better for the sake of our clients.
What “Better” Actually Looks Like
Here’s something we’ve learned after two decades: the clients who stay are the ones who get real results. Not vanity metrics. Not reports full of impressions that don’t convert. Actual business outcomes.
We’re proud to say that some of our clients have been with us almost from the start – which, in an industry where agencies churn faster than social media trends, is saying something.
Louisville Dental Associates has been with us for 14 years – since 2012, when we were still figuring out what kind of agency we wanted to be (spoiler: a really good one). Bula Kava House – 11 years and counting, with ever-increasing online sales to show for it. Family Dentistry of Colorado Springs has been in our corner for 8 years. Colorado BioDental + Esthetics is a client we’ve helped grow from a newly acquired business that needed brand awareness through a full digital strategy. We’ve also been a proud supporting sponsor and the marketing arm for the Pacific Northwest Defense Coalition since 2018 – an organization that aligns with the kind of community-minded business we strive to be.
These aren’t transactions. They’re partnerships. And they don’t happen by accident.
The Services Have Evolved. The Philosophy Hasn’t.
We still build websites. Bigger ones now – ecommerce, custom integrations, the works. But a website is just the foundation. What we’ve built around it is a strategic marketing approach that connects all the dots: SEO for dental practices and manufacturing companies trying to get found, paid search that actually converts, demand generation that fills pipelines instead of inboxes, and content marketing for manufacturers that speaks to buyers who don’t have time for fluff.
When we say we specialize in marketing for dental and medical practices and digital marketing for manufacturing and B2B companies, we mean it. These aren’t industries we dabble in – they’re verticals we’ve spent years understanding at a level that generalist agencies simply can’t match.
What We’d Do Again (And What We Wouldn’t)
We’d keep saying yes to clients who are a good fit. One of the best decisions we ever made was getting selective. Not every client is meant for every agency, and pretending otherwise wastes everyone’s time and money.
We’d keep being transparent about pricing. No mystery retainers. Our clients always know what they’re paying for and what they’re getting.
We’d continue hiring the best. Great teams aren’t built fast – they’re built carefully. The LocalFresh team is small by design and excellent by intention.
What wouldn’t we do again? Chase every new platform the moment it launched. We watched a lot of agencies burn client budgets on TikTok strategies for B2B manufacturers, chatbot experiences nobody asked for, and “awareness campaigns” with no conversion strategy attached – just vibes and impressions and a really nice-looking report that didn’t move a single needle.
We’ve seen whole cycles of marketing trends as they rise and fall…and sometimes rise again. QR codes went from superstar status to old school and back to superstar. Despite countless predictions to the contrary, email is alive and well and driving pipelines, and direct mail has turned into a jewel – rare and noticeable.
Being strategic sometimes means knowing what not to do – and that instinct has saved our clients more money than any single campaign we’ve ever run.
What’s Next: AI Has Arrived and We Are Here For It
The future isn’t coming – it’s already in the room. AI is changing how we do SEO, how we develop content strategy, how we research markets and build campaigns. We’re actively building our AI capabilities, and we’re not interested in using it as a party trick. We’re interested in using it the way we use everything else: as a tool that makes our strategy smarter and our clients’ results better.
More on that soon.
Here’s to the Next Chapter
Twenty years ago, LocalFresh was a stopgap and my daughters were children. Today, the company is 20 years strong and my daughters are adults tackling careers and life with equal fortitude. LocalFresh has become a strategic partner to some of the most interesting companies and practices in the country, and we’re just getting started.
If you’ve been with us from the beginning: thank you. You’re the reason this exists.
If you’re just finding us: Welcome. You picked a good time to show up.
LocalFresh is a full-service digital marketing agency based in Portland, Oregon, specializing in B2B marketing, digital marketing for manufacturing companies, and marketing for dental and medical practices.
Ready to talk strategy? Let’s connect.