One of the most underrated skills in digital marketing—especially here in Nepal—is knowing how to adjust your strategy based on scale.
I’ve worked with national brands launching campaigns across provinces and small mom-and-pop shops in places like Butwal or Boudha. The difference between them? Night and day.
Same platforms. Same core tools. Completely different approach, language, and expectations.
If you treat every client like a copy-paste template, you’re going to disappoint someone.
Small Business? You’re Marketing a Person
When working with small businesses, especially family-run operations, you’re not just marketing a product. You’re marketing a person—their story, their reliability, their face behind the counter.
I remember working with a small tailoring business in Lalitpur. The owner was skeptical of digital marketing but agreed to “try” it. We didn’t run a flashy campaign. We simply created a clean Google Business Profile, posted weekly on Facebook with photos of custom designs, and helped her ask loyal customers for reviews.
That small, honest digital presence doubled her inquiries in three months.
No funnels. No ad spend. Just local authenticity and a platform where her community already was.
Large Client? You’re Marketing a System
Now contrast that with a mid-size national electronics distributor we worked with.
They needed lead gen campaigns, CRM integrations, performance dashboards, and coordination across multiple sales channels.
Here, the challenge wasn’t storytelling—it was scale. Could our ads handle hundreds of inquiries? Could we sync with their operations team? Were their internal systems ready for digital leads?
In this case, digital marketing wasn’t just about reaching customers. It was about syncing departments, aligning goals, and making sure no lead fell through the cracks.
This is where strategy really stretches—and spreadsheets start to matter more than slogans.
What Changes With Scale (and What Doesn’t)
What changes:
- Tone: A small brand can be casual and conversational. A national brand often needs polish and consistency.
- Tools: Small businesses might manage everything from a phone. Larger clients need automation, pipelines, and CRMs.
- Goals: A café wants more footfall this week. A big retailer wants measurable ROI across multiple locations.
What stays the same:
- Clarity matters.
- Trust takes time.
- Human-first messaging wins.
Whether I’m speaking to a local artisan or a corporate board, I still start with: “What does success actually look like for you?”
That question never goes out of scale.
Lessons in Adaptation
Over time, I’ve built a kind of mental switchboard when approaching new clients:
- If it’s a small business, I think: How can we build fast trust with their immediate community?
- If it’s a larger company, I ask: How can we build predictable systems they can scale confidently?
Trying to give both the same campaign would be like handing everyone the same shoes and expecting them to run the same race.
Local Context, Always
Nepal isn’t one uniform market. A client in Kathmandu thinks differently than one in Dang. Broadband speed matters. Language preferences matter. Even festivals shift how people behave online.
That’s why localization isn’t just translation—it’s adaptation. It’s knowing when to run Facebook ads and when to put effort into your Google Business listing. It’s knowing which platform matters more to a college student in Pokhara vs. a furniture buyer in Birgunj.
And most importantly—it’s knowing when to keep it simple.
Final Thought
Digital marketing in Nepal isn’t just about being strategic—it’s about being situationally aware. Big or small, every client deserves a strategy that fits—not just in budget, but in behavior.
So whether I’m writing ad copy for a retail chain or helping a home-based baker set up her Instagram, I come back to the same principle:
Start where they are. Not where the industry says they should be.
That’s where results begin.