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Luke Eggebraaten
Company
Phaser Marketing
Location
Gilbert, Arizona, United States
Bio
Serial Dirt Entrepreneur - Speaker - Author I noticed a problem with Excavation Companies and other businesses in the Dirt World. A vast majority of them didn't have much for a website, a digital presence, communication online, and a plan in place to develop their brand. One of the biggest problems we are solving is having a SIMPLE solution to check those boxes in the digital marketing space exclusively for excavation companies. We take care of the things you should be doing. We have 3 phases that we have tailored for the companies we work with. Phase 1 (Set The Foundation) is tailored for 6 figure excavation companies. You get your feet wet in the world of digital marketing, get a new website built, while also growing your online presence through ongoing SEO. Our Phase 2 program (Grow Your Brand) is tailored for 7 figure excavation companies and is a bit more hands on than Phase 1. This is where we add in our ad campaigns team, graphic design team, account managers, and more, on top of the website, hosting, and ongoing SEO. Our Phase 3 (Dominate your Market) is simply a custom digital marketing plan for 8 figure construction companies. We understand and realize that when you are above 10M in revenue, the dynamic changes drastically. We offer heavier and more specialized services to our 8 figure partners. We keep Lethe billing as simple as possible. It is one payment a month, set on auto-pay so that you can get back to running your business and we can get back to work. We only want to work with people who see the long-term value in our team. We would love to be partnered up with each of our clients for the next 5-10 years! That's how business should be done. Putting the right people in our corner to help us (and them) succeed.
Serial Dirt Entrepreneur - Speaker -...
description
When you own an excavation company, you need to focus on running your business and not wasting time learning and implementing all aspects of Digital Marketing. At Phaser Marketing, we are your full-time marketing team that stays with you. We will revitalize your marketing efforts by creating a plan, and executing on your behalf. Leave it to us to focus on the digital marketing and you can focus what you’re good at. We help check all the boxes for you which include web design, SEO, graphic design, analytics, digital strategy, and so much more. Our perfect clients are already established in the Dirt World, making great money, but would like to have a team dedicated to their digital strategy. We help deliver value to your customers, employees, contractors, and anyone else that wants to learn about your business. We will walk you through the phases to ensure your business reaches the next level. It’s time to run your business smarter.
When you own an excavation company,...
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Actionable Takeaways
Niche selection requires three conditions, not one:
Luke’s framework for picking a niche: you need a genuine opportunity to make a difference for that industry, authentic passion for the people in it, and an industry whose economics can sustain your fees through downturns. All three must be present. Bakeries might meet two — but the unit economics don’t support a $2K/month marketing retainer. Excavation met all three, and that combination is what makes the niche worth a full career commitment.
Expertise is the product, not the services:
Any agency can run ads and build websites. What clients at Phaser Marketing are paying for is the team’s accumulated knowledge of the excavation industry: what ‘underground utilities’ breaks into as sub-services, what keywords convert in New York versus Illinois, and which strategies work in Canada versus Texas. The single biggest complaint from new clients who switched from generalist agencies is that they constantly had to educate the agency. At Phaser, that friction doesn’t exist.
Strategic omnipresence starts with the unsexy basics:
Before any advanced channel strategy, Luke builds three things: a solid website, ongoing SEO, and basic paid awareness ads. Every other service layer — graphic design, ATS pipeline, email newsletters — is added one at a time, intentionally, without diluting focus. The goal is to be embedded in enough operational areas of the client’s business that switching creates real pain — not because the agency is extractive, but because it genuinely manages infrastructure the client depends on.
Stickiness is operational, not just relational:
Phaser manages Google Analytics, runs ad creatives, builds ATS pipelines, and provides on-demand graphic design — all bundled. When a client considers leaving, they realize they’d need to replace a graphic design team, a website manager, an ad agency, and an ATS system simultaneously. That operational stickiness is more durable than any relationship, though the relationship layer — gift-giving, personal recognition, bereavement care — reinforces retention at an emotional level that results alone can’t provide.
Team capacity is a CEO’s primary operating metric:
Luke’s self-described number-one CEO responsibility: forecasting team capacity accurately. Keeping the team at 80% capacity or below, anticipating hiring needs three months out (job posting + interview + hiring + 1–2 months of training), and maintaining bench depth so no single hire’s delay creates a client service problem. The logic is straightforward: a specialized, well-trained team is an irreplaceable asset; burning that team out is a business-ending risk, not a manageable HR issue.
International expansion is an experiment, not a strategy:
Rather than market-research their way into the UK or Australia, Luke tested international operations by working at cost with a trusted contact who owns an excavation company in Northern Ireland. That single relationship taught the team how to rank for keywords in another country, how copy needs to shift for different markets, and what changes with billing and domain structure. One real client beats a hundred strategy slides. The model is now the operational playbook for every future international market.
Conversation Highlights
Luke Eggebraaten is the Founder and CEO of Phaser Marketing, a digital marketing agency that works exclusively with excavation, septic, and hardscaping companies — what he calls “the dirt world.” He started the agency in 2019 at age 24, went full-time in August 2021 with a first paycheck of $500 every two weeks, and has grown it to 109 clients, 26 full-time team members across six countries, and $175K monthly recurring revenue. In this episode, Luke shares the three-criteria framework he used to pick a niche worth committing to, the “strategic omnipresence” marketing model he applies to every client, and why the real product his agency sells isn’t services — it’s years of accumulated excavation industry knowledge that no generalist agency can replicate.
Topics Discussed
- Founding story: started at 24 with general small-business digital marketing in 2019, gradually stacked blue-collar trades clients, went full-time August 2021 with a $500 bi-weekly paycheck
- The coaching program that forced the niche decision: Josh Nelson’s 7-figure agency group, where ‘digital marketing for blue collar companies’ was rejected as too broad and ‘digital marketing for excavation companies’ was the final answer
- The three niche criteria: (1) genuine opportunity to help the industry, (2) authentic passion for the people, (3) an economy that can sustain fees through downturns
- The ‘dirt world’: excavation, septic, hardscaping, underground horizontal construction — 109 clients across 38 US states, Canada, and Northern Ireland; 26 full-time employees
- Team composition as of February 19, 2026: 10 US, 9 Colombia, 2 Serbia, 1 India, 1 Philippines, 2 South Africa; growing 6–8 new clients per month
- Revenue model: $175K MRR; historical average ticket $1,700; new clients at $3K/month; goal of $250K MRR and $2.5M top line by year end
- Industry expertise as competitive moat: knowing excavation keywords, service breakdowns, and regional market differences without client education — the biggest pain point their new clients cite from previous generalist agencies
- Strategic omnipresence: website (WordPress + Elementor), ongoing SEO, and paid ads awareness as the foundation; 60% of clients are B2B targeting general contractors, municipalities, and large construction companies
- Included services driving stickiness: graphic design team on-demand, ATS/CRM pipeline for applicant tracking, email newsletters — all bundled at no extra cost
- AI use: internal custom GPTs for SEO blog creation (team edits output); building client-specific external GPTs pre-loaded with each client’s location, services, team, competitors, and SEO data
- International expansion: Northern Ireland relationship built at cost with a trusted friend to learn the mechanics of ranking in another country; next targets: UK and Australia
- Client retention philosophy: unlimited client success team gifting budget; birthday and work anniversary recognition; bereavement gifts sent without approval required
- Two core values above all else: client results and team wellbeing; everything else is secondary
- Book: Digital Dirt World (2023); Podcast: Dirt Bags Podcast; website: phasermarketing.com
