Memphis has produced web agencies of remarkable staying power – several with histories spanning more than two decades – reflecting a business culture that rewards reliability and specialization over flash, and a client base that spans logistics giants, cultural institutions, and mission-driven nonprofits with equally demanding digital needs.
1. Speak Creative
Jacob Savage founded Speak Creative in Memphis in 1999, and over 25 years the agency has built a specialty that distinguishes it from the generalist web shops that define most mid-sized markets: mission-driven organizations including nonprofits, cultural institutions, aquariums, zoos, and educational clients. The agency’s Web Excellence Awards for the Seattle Aquarium, Sacramento Zoo, and Nashville Catholic websites demonstrate consistent quality across a niche that requires storytelling sophistication alongside technical execution – because the digital presence of a zoo or museum must inspire as well as inform. Speak operates with offices in both Memphis and Nashville, generating $10.9 million in annual revenue from a team that handles everything from custom web builds and mobile app development through SEO, video production, and social media consulting. Named a Best Place to Work in both Memphis and Nashville, the agency has retained the culture of a firm that still cares deeply about the quality of each individual project.
Services
Website Design and Development: Bespoke website design and development for nonprofits, museums, educational institutions, and enterprise clients is built with performance and storytelling at the center. Every site is engineered for the specific audience psychology of organizations whose missions depend on inspiring action and emotional connection from digital visitors.
Digital Marketing and SEO: Integrated digital marketing programs cover SEO, pay-per-click management, and search engine marketing to grow both organic and paid traffic for mission-driven clients competing for attention against well-funded commercial organizations.
Content Management and Strategy: Content strategy, creation, and CMS implementation give clients control over their digital presence while maintaining quality and brand consistency – a critical need for nonprofits and cultural institutions whose staff manage content without dedicated digital teams.
Mobile App Development: Native iPhone and Android application development is integrated with clients’ broader web and digital strategies, serving institutions like aquariums and museums where mobile engagement is central to the visitor experience.
Video Production: Brand and marketing video production serves digital campaigns, websites, and social media for organizations that must communicate emotional connection and mission impact as much as functional information.
Social Media Consulting: Platform strategy, content planning, and social media management builds and engages audiences for mission-driven organizations that depend on community connection for fundraising and advocacy.
Key People
Jacob Savage – CEO and President: Savage founded Speak Creative in 1999 and has led the agency through 25 years of growth, maintaining its specialization in mission-driven and cultural institution clients while expanding to a second office in Nashville.
Notable Clients and Portfolio
Speak Creative’s client roster includes the Lung Cancer Research Foundation, Maritime Aquarium, Graceland, Gathering Place, Seattle Aquarium, The Covenant School of Nashville, and Sacramento Zoo. The agency has earned Web Excellence Awards for five website designs including projects for the Seattle Aquarium, Sacramento Zoo, Nashville Catholic, The Covenant School of Nashville, and the No Small Endeavor Podcast.
Contact Information
Address: 1648 W Massey Rd, Memphis, TN 38120
Website: www.madebyspeak.com
2. HigherVisibility
When Adam Heitzman and David McElveen founded HigherVisibility in Memphis in 2009, they were establishing the city’s first agency focused exclusively on digital marketing – a distinction that gave them a head start on accumulating the specialized knowledge and client history that now underpins one of the most decorated SEO agencies in the United States. With 84 employees spread across three continents, the agency operates at a scale that most Memphis-founded firms never reach, and its awards reflect the quality of work that scale has produced: Search Engine Land’s SEO Agency of the Year in 2024, US Agency Awards SEO Agency of the Year in 2025, four total SEO Agency of the Year wins, and Google Premier Partner status. Its proprietary Targeted Growth System bridges digital strategy with actual revenue outcomes rather than the traffic and ranking metrics that many SEO agencies use to obscure the absence of business impact.
Services
SEO: HigherVisibility’s signature service covers comprehensive search engine optimization for small businesses, multi-location franchises, and Fortune 1000 companies, powered by the Targeted Growth System that connects every optimization decision to revenue outcomes rather than isolated ranking movements.
Paid Search and Paid Social: Google Ads, Bing Ads, and social media paid advertising use precision audience targeting and continuous optimization to maximize return on ad spend across every paid channel where clients’ buyers are searching and browsing.
Web Design and Development: Conversion-focused website design and development works in direct coordination with the agency’s SEO and paid media programs, ensuring that the traffic generated lands on pages optimized to convert at the highest possible rate.
Link Building: Strategic link acquisition campaigns build domain authority and improve organic search rankings across competitive categories where backlink profiles are a primary driver of search visibility.
CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization): Data-driven testing and optimization of landing pages and user flows maximizes the percentage of visitors who convert, translating traffic investment into proportionally greater business results.
Key People
Adam Heitzman – Managing Partner and Co-Founder: Heitzman co-founded HigherVisibility in 2009 and has led the agency to four SEO Agency of the Year wins and an 84-person operation across three continents.
David McElveen – Co-Founder: McElveen co-founded the agency alongside Heitzman, contributing to its foundational positioning as Memphis’s first digital marketing firm.
Notable Clients and Portfolio
Specific named clients are not publicly detailed by HigherVisibility. The agency’s recognition includes Search Engine Land SEO Agency of the Year 2024, US Agency Awards SEO Agency of the Year 2025, four total SEO Agency of the Year wins, and Google Premier Partner status. The Memphis Business Journal recognized the firm in its 2016 Pacesetters fastest-growing companies list.
Contact Information
Address: 6070 Poplar Avenue, Suite 760, Memphis, TN 38119
Website: www.highervisibility.com
3. Archer Malmo
Archer Malmo was founded in Memphis in 1952 – before television advertising had fully established itself as the dominant force in American marketing – and has spent more than seven decades serving national brands from its downtown Tennessee headquarters at 65 Union Avenue. The agency is 100% employee-owned today, a structure that aligns incentives around long-term client relationships and quality of work rather than short-term profit extraction, and employs 101 to 200 people across Memphis and Austin under CEO Russ Williams and SVP of Business Development Shannon Robichaud. Five consecutive Inc. 5000 appearances across a recent period demonstrate that a 70-plus-year-old agency can grow as fast as startups when it is structured and led correctly. Twenty-one awards at the 2024 Memphis American Advertising Federation Awards punctuated a track record of sustained creative excellence that spans multiple generations of the advertising industry.
Services
Brand Strategy and Creative: Full-service brand development and integrated creative campaigns span broadcast, digital, print, and out-of-home, backed by seven decades of strategic experience that most agencies cannot draw on. Archer Malmo’s campaign work is grounded in deep audience research and category understanding rather than aesthetic trend-following.
Digital Marketing and Web: Digital strategy, SEO, social media, email marketing, and web design and development are integrated with broader brand and performance goals, treating digital channels as extensions of a coherent brand strategy rather than separate tactical programs.
Media Planning and Buying: Strategic media investment across traditional and digital channels combines audience research with data-driven execution to ensure that creative campaigns reach their intended audiences with precision and measurable impact.
Public Relations: PR strategy, earned media campaigns, and crisis communications for national brands and regional organizations leverage relationships and strategic positioning built over decades of Memphis market presence.
App Development: Mobile application development integrated with digital experience strategies serves enterprise clients requiring custom functional platforms beyond standard website capabilities.
Video and Production: Full production services for broadcast, digital, and social video content are delivered with the creative depth and production quality that national brands require for campaigns competing for attention across saturated media environments.
Key People
Russ Williams – CEO: Williams leads Archer Malmo’s strategic direction and operations across its Memphis and Austin offices and its 101 to 200-person employee-owned team.
Shannon Robichaud – SVP of Business Development: Robichaud leads business development across Archer Malmo’s national client portfolio and new business efforts.
Notable Clients and Portfolio
Archer Malmo’s client roster includes CITGO, FedEx, International Paper, Implus, Palm Beach Tan, Smile Doctors, University of Memphis, USAA, Zoetis, Delaware North, and Dell. The agency earned 21 awards at the 2024 Memphis American Advertising Federation Awards and has appeared on the Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private companies list for five consecutive years.
Contact Information
Address: 65 Union Avenue, Memphis, TN 38103
Phone: 901-523-2000
Website: www.archermalmo.com
4. LAB Digital Creative
Michael Newsome and Alan Hudgins founded LAB Digital Creative in 2019 in Memphis’s South Main Historic Arts District – a neighborhood choice that signals something about the agency’s ethos before a single portfolio piece is reviewed. LAB is an acronym for the agency’s core values: loyalty, accountability, and boldness. The four-to-six-person boutique team has built a portfolio anchored in Memphis institutions – Corky’s restaurant, Crosstown Concourse, Ozark Motor Lines, ETFC Architects – demonstrating genuine community embeddedness rather than a surface-level local positioning claim. Rebuilding Corky’s website with Memphis-inspired rustic design and full e-commerce integration, and creating the digital presence for Crosstown Concourse (Memphis’s landmark mixed-use vertical village), represents the kind of civic-scale work that shapes how a city presents itself online.
Services
Web Design and Development: Custom, mobile-friendly website design combines brand-aligned aesthetics with SEO-optimized architecture and intuitive user experience for businesses across Memphis and beyond. Every build is designed to function as a lead generation and brand communication tool from the day it launches.
SEO: Search engine optimization is built into the foundation of every website from the initial architecture phase, with ongoing strategy to improve organic rankings and drive sustained qualified traffic for clients in competitive local and regional markets.
Branding and Logo Design: Brand identity development covers logo creation, visual systems, and brand guidelines that distinguish clients in their markets and provide a consistent visual language across every application from web to print to signage.
Email Marketing: Targeted email campaigns nurture leads, retain customers, and drive repeat business for clients who need to maintain ongoing relationships with their audience between website visits.
Social Media Advertising: Paid social campaigns across platforms are calibrated to reach specific target audiences and generate measurable engagement and conversions for businesses investing in social media as a direct business development channel.
Key People
Michael Newsome – Co-Founder and President: Newsome co-founded LAB Digital Creative in 2019 and leads agency operations, client strategy, and business development from the South Main Historic Arts District office.
Alan Hudgins – Co-Founder and Creative Director: Hudgins leads the creative direction of all client work, bringing a design-forward perspective to every web and brand project in LAB’s portfolio.
Notable Clients and Portfolio
LAB’s client roster includes South of Beale, ETFC Architects, Ozark Motor Lines, Corky’s, Fisher Arnold, and Crosstown Concourse. The agency rebuilt Corky’s restaurant website with Memphis-inspired rustic design and full e-commerce integration, designed Ozark Motor Lines’ recruitment-focused website to streamline the driver application process, and created the digital presence for Crosstown Concourse, Memphis’s landmark mixed-use vertical village.
Contact Information
Address: 40 S Main St, Memphis, TN 38103
Website: labdigitalcreative.com
5. Harvest Creative
Harvest Creative operates from downtown Memphis’s North Main district, led by Owner and Creative Director Daniel Brown with a practice built around the intersection of brand identity, web development, and point-of-purchase design. That third discipline – point-of-purchase experience design – is what separates Harvest from standard web agencies, reflecting a recognition that digital and physical customer touchpoints must work together for brands selling through retail channels. For businesses where the shelf, the showroom, or the trade show booth is as important as the website, having an agency capable of designing cohesive experiences across both environments eliminates the fragmentation that comes from working with separate digital and physical design vendors. The agency serves clients seeking brand-led creative work that flows from initial identity development through web presence through physical retail environment.
Services
Brand Development: Strategic brand identity creation and development covers visual systems, messaging, and positioning to distinguish businesses in competitive markets. Harvest approaches every engagement with the premise that brand clarity is the prerequisite for effective design across any channel.
Web Development: Custom website development supports brand goals with an emphasis on design quality and integration of point-of-sale systems for retail and commercial clients where the website must connect to the physical purchase environment.
Point of Purchase Design: Retail display, signage, and experiential design extend brand identity into physical sales environments – the service that most purely digital agencies cannot provide and that gives Harvest distinctive value for clients competing in retail channels.
Advertising: Traditional and integrated advertising services span print, digital, and broadcast channels, connecting brand positioning to campaign execution across the full range of media available to Memphis-area businesses.
Key People
Daniel Brown – Owner and Creative Director: Brown leads Harvest Creative and serves as the primary creative voice across all client projects, maintaining direct involvement in brand development, web design, and point-of-purchase design work.
Notable Clients and Portfolio
Specific named clients and portfolio projects are not publicly listed by Harvest Creative. The agency’s downtown Memphis presence and practice structure reflect sustained operation as a boutique creative firm serving North Main area businesses and clients across the city’s commercial landscape.
Contact Information
Address: 348 N Main Street, Memphis, TN 38103
Phone: 901-526-6244
Website: harvestcreative.com