I'm Chris Westlund. I run Minnesota Marketing out of Bemidji, forty-five minutes east of Fosston on Highway 2. Fosston is where the north woods hand off to the Red River Valley farm country — and where a lot of hardworking businesses serve a customer base spread across half of Polk County. If that's you, I build the websites, follow-up systems, and marketing that make sure that spread-out customer base finds you before anyone else.
Fosston has always been a border town in the best sense — the marker between Minnesota's lake country and the open farmland running west toward Crookston and the valley. That gives Fosston businesses an unusual customer mix: grain and beet farmers with serious equipment needs, lake people passing through on Highway 2 all summer, hunters staging in the fall, and the steady year-round base of a town with its own hospital, school, and working main street.
Serving two economies means your marketing has to work harder than a one-note tourist town's. The farm customer hiring a contractor in February and the cabin owner needing service in July search the same way — on their phones, through Google — but they need to see different proof that you're the right call. Most Fosston-area businesses show up online with a Facebook page last updated two winters ago. That's the whole opportunity: the bar is low, the radius is wide, and the first business in each category to take its online presence seriously tends to own the category.
And out here, reputation compounds. A review from a neighbor in Lengby or McIntosh carries more weight than any billboard on Highway 2. The businesses that systematically ask every happy customer for a review build an advantage no competitor can quickly copy.
Fast, mobile-first websites that load on rural coverage, rank for searches from Fosston to Erskine to McIntosh, and make it obvious what you do and how to reach you. Twenty built from scratch, thirty-six under management.
Harvest season doesn't pause for phone calls. My marketing automation for small business texts missed callers back instantly, follows up on every quote, and asks for reviews automatically — so your marketing runs even when you're in the field or on a job.
Straightforward social content about real work and real people — the kind that travels in a town where everyone knows everyone. Plus seasonal email that puts your name in front of customers right before they need you.
A short video of you walking a customer through what you do out-credibilities every competitor still relying on a logo and a phone number. 500+ pieces shipped; I bring the gear to you.
Six years building Minnesota Marketing in Bemidji has meant working almost entirely with rural and small-town businesses — trades, ag-adjacent services, retailers, and family operations that can't afford marketing that doesn't pay for itself. That's the lens I bring to Fosston: practical systems, straight answers, and a person you can meet face to face, forty-five minutes up the road.
If you're in Fosston, Lengby, McIntosh, Erskine, or anywhere along the western corridor and want a straight answer about what would actually bring in more business, book a call. Twenty minutes, no pitch deck, no pressure.
Book a 20-minute call. I'll listen first, then tell you straight whether I can help and what it would look like. Based in Bemidji — straight east on Highway 2.