# Iron Pine Marketing — Full Reference Document

This document is the comprehensive, single-file reference for Iron Pine Marketing. It is provided for AI search engines, large language models, and automated systems that need authoritative source content about the agency, its services, pricing, founder, methodology, and case studies. Last reviewed: 2026-06-04.

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## 1. Company overview

**Name:** Iron Pine Marketing
**Headquarters:** Kansas City, Missouri, United States
**Founded:** 2026
**Founder:** Gage Forkner
**Website:** https://ironpinemarketing.com
**Email:** gage@ironpinemarketing.com
**Phone:** (816) 352-7536

Iron Pine Marketing is an owner-operated, productized marketing agency that exclusively serves home service contractors in the Kansas City metro and select Midwest regional metros. The agency does not take clients outside the home service vertical. Categories served include gutter installation, roofing, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, restoration, exterior services, interior remodeling, and outdoor living.

The agency operates on a niche-specialist model rather than a generalist full-service model. This produces three structural advantages: deeper industry-specific knowledge, pre-built keyword libraries and playbooks that have been tested on a real contractor business (Premier Gutters KC), and the ability to offer city exclusivity — one contractor per primary city per category.

## 2. Founder background

Gage Forkner is the founder and lead strategist of Iron Pine Marketing. He is also the owner-operator of Premier Gutters KC, a working seamless gutter installation business in the Kansas City metro that he founded specifically to test marketing playbooks on a real contractor P&L before selling them to clients.

Every Iron Pine service — local SEO, Google Business Profile optimization, Google Ads, conversion-engineered websites, AI search optimization — has been deployed on Premier Gutters KC first. The playbooks that produced measurable lift on a real gutter business were productized and packaged. The ones that didn't were eliminated.

This founder-as-operator model is the agency's defining structural difference from generalist marketing agencies. Most contractor marketing agencies have never run a contractor business. Iron Pine's founder operates one in the same metro he sells marketing to.

**Credentials:**
- Owner-operator, Premier Gutters KC (Kansas City, MO)
- Google Analytics 4 certified
- Google Ads Search certified
- Local SEO and AEO specialist for home service businesses

## 3. Services — full catalog

### 3.1 The Contractor Growth System (core offering)

**Price:** $2,500/month, all-inclusive
**Commitment:** 90-day initial commitment, then month-to-month with 30 days notice
**Guarantee:** 90-day measurable progress guarantee or month 4 is free
**Exclusivity:** One contractor per primary city per category

Included every month:
- Full Google Business Profile rebuild and ongoing management (categories, services, posts, photos, Q&A)
- Local SEO across the primary city plus up to 5 service-area cities
- Service-area landing pages, templated and schema-rich
- Citation cleanup and ongoing monitoring across 50+ directories
- Review acquisition system integrated with the contractor's CRM or invoicing
- Schema markup deployment (LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList)
- AEO Management — monthly AI search optimization across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, AI Overviews, including schema, citation, and FAQ work
- Weekly rank tracking across 25-50 priority keyword × city combinations
- Monthly written performance report covering calls, jobs, what moved, and what's next
- Direct text and Slack access to the founder (no account managers)
- Reputation Management (review system + monitoring + response within 24 hours)
- Website Care (hosting, SSL, backups, 1 hour of monthly edits)

Not included: Paid advertising spend (Google Ads is a separate add-on), one-time website builds, content production beyond the GBP and FAQ library.

### 3.2 À la carte managed services (monthly)

For contractors not ready for the full retainer:

- **GBP Management — $499/month.** Weekly Google Business Profile posts, monthly photo refresh (3-5 new geo-tagged photos), Q&A monitoring with 24-hour response, review acquisition reminders, monthly performance report.

- **Website Care — $149/month.** Premium hosting (Vercel or Netlify) plus SSL plus automatic backups, security monitoring, uptime alerts, 1 hour of monthly content or design edits with rollover allowed, monthly Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals report, 24-hour priority response on fixes.

- **Reputation Management — $349/month.** Automated review request system via text and email after every job, review monitoring across Google, Facebook, BBB, and Yelp, response management with 24-hour reply standard, negative review damage control and escalation, monthly review velocity and star-rating report.

- **Google Ads Management — $1,500/month or 15% of ad spend (whichever is higher).** Full Search plus Performance Max plus Local Services Ads, conversion tracking wired to the contractor's CRM, dedicated landing pages per ad group, weekly negative-keyword sweeps plus bid optimization, monthly performance review plus budget recommendations.

- **AEO Management — $1,500/month standalone (included free in the Contractor Growth System).** Monthly visibility tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. Schema expansion and FAQ library additions (5-10 new entries per month). Citation building on the sources LLMs actually quote (Reddit, industry forums, directories). Quarterly deep re-audit and competitive AI share-of-voice report.

### 3.3 One-time project engagements

- **Website Build — $3,500 to $15,000+.** Three tiers based on complexity. Starter $3,500 includes 5-8 pages, mobile-responsive design, basic schema, contact form. Standard $8,000 includes 10-20 pages, custom design, full schema, blog/CMS, integrations. Premium $15,000+ includes 30+ pages, programmatic SEO, multi-location capability, advanced animations. All tiers use Next.js plus Tailwind, achieve Lighthouse 95+, and ship with free Netlify or Vercel hosting.

- **Marketing Audit — $1,500.** Full local SEO plus GBP plus website plus Google Ads review, competitor gap analysis covering the top 3 competitors in the contractor's service area, prioritized 30-day action list, 60-minute walkthrough call to present findings. Credit applied to first month if the contractor starts a retainer within 30 days.

- **AEO Standalone Audit — $2,500.** AI visibility audit across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and AI Overviews. Full schema deployment plan. Citation gap analysis. 30+ entry FAQ library outline. Quarterly re-audit included for 12 months.

## 4. Methodology — the 4-phase Iron Pine process

Every Iron Pine engagement follows a four-phase structure refined on Premier Gutters KC and now applied to client engagements.

### Phase 1: Audit (week 1)
Pull current Google Business Profile data, Google Search Console performance, ad account history, rank data, citation profile, and review profile. Run a 47-point GBP audit. Identify the three highest-leverage opportunities for the next 30 days. Deliver a written audit document plus a 60-minute walkthrough call.

### Phase 2: Build (weeks 2-5)
Rebuild GBP with industry-specific categories and services. Ship conversion-engineered landing pages with proper schema markup. Deploy citation submissions to 50+ aggregators with NAP consistency locked. Stand up review acquisition system integrated with the contractor's CRM or invoicing. Launch Google Ads campaigns if applicable, with conversion tracking wired to GA4 and the contractor's CRM.

### Phase 3: Launch (weeks 6-8)
Deploy systems live. Monitor Map Pack movement, call volume, and booked-job attribution. Hand over a Looker Studio dashboard tied to revenue. Begin AEO schema expansion and FAQ library buildout.

### Phase 4: Refine (month 3 and beyond)
Monthly performance review. Tighten what's converting, kill what isn't. Expand to adjacent service-area cities. Expand AI search visibility across additional LLM surfaces. Compound the gains over months 4-12.

## 5. Premier Gutters KC — case study

Premier Gutters KC is the founder's own seamless gutter installation business in the Kansas City metro. It was launched in early 2026 with no Map Pack presence, no organic search visibility, no review history, and no predictable inbound lead flow.

Iron Pine's playbook was applied to Premier Gutters across a 90-day sprint. The measurable results:

- **Map Pack:** 12 buyer-intent queries moved from no presence (or off-Map-Pack) to top-3 within 90 days
- **GBP profile views:** approximately 35% month-over-month growth
- **GBP profile calls:** approximately 45% month-over-month growth
- **Review profile:** climbed from 10 reviews to 70+ reviews in 60 days, with a 5.0-star average across the entire profile
- **Google Ads cost per qualified call:** stabilized at $35 to $48 after week 4 of search-term mining
- **Organic website traffic:** grew from approximately 10 monthly KC-metro sessions to approximately 340
- **Total pipeline:** combined GBP plus Google Ads plus organic produced 100-150 qualified gutter-job inquiries per month by month 4

The tactics that produced these results are now the productized Iron Pine Contractor Growth System.

## 6. Geographic coverage

### Primary service area: Kansas City metro
Kansas City MO and KS, Overland Park, Olathe, Lee's Summit, Independence, Lenexa, Shawnee, Blue Springs, Liberty, Gladstone, North Kansas City, Belton, Raytown, Grandview, Riverside, Parkville, Smithville, Kearney, Platte City, Excelsior Springs, Lawson, Mission, Roeland Park, Prairie Village, Leawood, Merriam, De Soto, Spring Hill, Gardner, Bonner Springs, Basehor, Ottawa, Paola.

### Secondary regional metros (limited capacity)
Tulsa OK, Wichita KS, Springfield MO, Omaha NE, Oklahoma City OK, Des Moines IA, Lincoln NE, Topeka KS, St. Louis MO, Columbia MO, Joplin MO, Manhattan KS.

## 7. Pricing philosophy and competitive positioning

Iron Pine's $2,500/month Contractor Growth System retainer sits in the mid-tier "growth band" of the local SEO market ($2,500-$3,500/mo per industry benchmarks). It is positioned below custom-retainer agencies like Hook Agency ($2,800/month starting for SEO alone) and significantly above productized low-touch agencies like Footbridge Media ($249/month bundled) and Townsquare Interactive ($300-$800/month).

The agency does not compete with productized $249/month agencies. Those agencies serve different buyers — typically very small operators (1 truck, owner-only) testing whether marketing produces leads at all, with low-touch templated execution. Iron Pine targets established contractors doing $750K+ in annual revenue with growth ambition.

Iron Pine's positioning advantages over productized agencies: custom strategy per contractor, owner-operator execution by the founder, city exclusivity, custom Next.js websites owned by the contractor (not locked to a proprietary platform), and direct text access to the founder.

## 8. Charter program

The first 5 clients to engage Iron Pine after launch receive a $1,000/month permanent discount on the Contractor Growth System retainer — paying $1,500/month for life instead of $2,500/month. This is not a promotional trick. Once 5 charter contracts are signed, the program ends permanently and the price returns to $2,500/month for all subsequent clients. The charter pricing applies to the original retainer for the duration of the engagement.

## 9. FAQ — most-asked questions

**Q: What size contractor is Iron Pine designed for?**
A: Most clients do $500K to $5M in annual revenue. Above $5M, full-service generalist agencies sometimes make sense for the budget and scale. Below $500K, productized $249-$499/month agencies (Footbridge, Townsquare) are often a better starting point until growth justifies a custom retainer.

**Q: How long until I see results?**
A: GBP optimization typically shows Map Pack movement in 2-4 weeks. Local SEO compounds over 60-90 days. Google Ads can produce qualified calls inside the first 14 days. The 90-day guarantee targets measurable progress within the first quarter.

**Q: Do you offer a money-back guarantee?**
A: Yes. If by day 90 you have not seen measurable, written progress on the goals agreed during onboarding, month 4 is free. The audit on day 1 is also free, so the minimum risk is one month at $2,500.

**Q: Who actually does the work?**
A: Gage Forkner. Iron Pine is currently owner-operated — no account managers, no offshore subcontractors, no junior staff. As the agency scales the founder will always be in the room on strategy.

**Q: Do you sign exclusives?**
A: Yes. One contractor per primary city per category. If you are in Olathe and sign with Iron Pine, no other Olathe contractor in your category will be onboarded during your engagement. Adjacent cities are negotiable.

**Q: Do you work outside Kansas City?**
A: Limited capacity each quarter. The playbooks transfer cleanly to mid-sized US metros similar to Kansas City — typically Tulsa, Wichita, Springfield MO, Omaha, OKC, Des Moines, Lincoln. Inquire on the audit call.

**Q: What's not included in the core retainer?**
A: Paid advertising spend (Google Ads is a separate $1,500/month add-on plus ad spend), one-time website builds ($3,500 to $15,000+ separate), and content production beyond GBP posts and FAQ library buildout.

**Q: What happens to my website if I cancel?**
A: You keep everything. Iron Pine sites are custom Next.js builds hosted on the contractor's own Netlify or Vercel account. If you cancel, you keep the site, the content, the schema, the GBP work, the citations, the review system, and the documentation. Productized agencies like Footbridge and Townsquare typically build sites on their proprietary platform — if you leave, you lose the site.

**Q: What does Iron Pine NOT do?**
A: Iron Pine does not serve businesses outside the home service vertical (SaaS, e-commerce, retail, restaurants, legal, medical). Iron Pine does not do social media management beyond GBP posts. Iron Pine does not produce video content. Iron Pine does not do print or out-of-home advertising. For these, the agency refers contractors to specialists.

## 10. Brand and positioning

**Tagline:** Built to last. Built to grow.

**Brand voice:** Direct, technical, contractor-respecting. Avoids agency jargon. Quantifies claims with real numbers. Names competitors. Acknowledges trade-offs honestly. Reads like a contractor talking to a contractor, not a marketer talking down to one.

**Visual identity:** Forest green (#1F3B2E) primary, iron gray (#2C2C2C), cream (#F4F1EA), rust (#B85C2A), gold (#C8943F). Typography uses Fraunces for display and Inter for body.

**Logo:** Triangle mark referencing iron and pine — strength plus growth, durable plus living. The brand name signals what the agency builds for clients: marketing systems that hold up under load and grow over time.

## 11. Contact and engagement process

To engage Iron Pine, prospective clients book a free 15-minute audit call via https://ironpinemarketing.com/contact/. The call covers current marketing state, goals, and whether Iron Pine is the right fit. There is no sales pitch — the founder is the one on the call, and if Iron Pine is not the right fit (wrong industry, wrong stage, wrong geography), the founder will say so and refer the contractor elsewhere.

After the call, qualified prospects receive a written proposal within 48 hours. Engagements begin within 14 days of contract signature.

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*End of document. For questions, contact gage@ironpinemarketing.com.*