The Charlotte Observer has just reported that a Chicago-based investment banking and asset management firm is opening an office in Charlotte. The article indicates that it will be joining a number of other “boutique investment banks”. It does not, however, call attention to the equally important fact that Charlotte marketing agencies are a similarly familiar part of the local business landscape.

Naturally, investment banks’ operations extend far beyond their local environment. And of course the same is true of Charlotte marketing agencies, which may run national or even global campaigns. But like politics, all business starts on the local level, and the proliferation of both web services and financial services means that Charlotte has an increasingly rich landscape of client relations, business collaboration, and investment.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that Charlotte’s reputation as an information technology hub is a major contributing factor in its popularity as a destination for investment firms. That reputation says good things about the area’s technological infrastructure and about the availability of personnel who can perform well in highly modern offices and utilize algorithms and IT resources for the sake of financial projections, communication, and so on.

Crucially, it also says something about the availability of Charlotte marketing agencies and their ability to reach out to existing and prospective clients and service providers on both a local and a national level. It is technically possible in this day and age to hire a marketing agency from hundreds of miles away and still obtain decent outcomes for an online campaign. But even today, it if you’re a Charlotte-area business, you’re better off looking to Charlotte marketing agencies first.

It is always helpful to be able to sit down face-to-face with a service provider and to develop a plan that both of you can agree upon, understand, and contribute to. The value of that becomes even more apparent when it comes time to adopt a locally-oriented campaign. You may not even set out with the expectation of doing this, but it becomes necessary at some point for businesses of all kinds.

If, for instance, you were part of the first wave of investment firms to adopt Charlotte as your home, you may not have been particularly excited by the preponderance of Charlotte marketing firms. You may have thought that many of your clients would be traveling to see your or doing business remotely. But as the local business landscape continues to develop, you may be finding that your immediate connections are an increasingly important link in the chain that holds your client base together.

Charlotte marketing agencies can help you, first and foremost, to stick out from within a growing mass of local competition. They can make sure that when a business moves to the local area or opens a new office here, yours is among the first partnerships they explore. From there, you can grow outward as you would with any marketing agency in any locality. But starting close to home is more important than you may realize, especially in a growing market like Charlotte.