Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Seeley.
Hi Scott, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I came to digital marketing the hard way; through dirt, sun, and southern heat.
I spent years as a landscape designer in Huntsville, Alabama. I loved the work, but the southern sun had other plans. After enough seasons outside, I started thinking about how the same principles I used in landscape design; the design concepts of mass and form, the movement of the eye, framing a scene, telling a story through space could translate to the page. It turned out they translated beautifully. I started designing for print and then picked up digital skills as the web developed. Eventually the whole thing became a practice: helping small businesses show up, stand out, and compete.
That’s how PlayBig Digital was born. The name has a story behind it, too.
My son played travel hockey in Huntsville. On his team was the son of Doug Ross, a well-known college hockey coach who’d played on the 1976 US Olympic team. Doug wasn’t a big guy. Neither were his sons. But they could skate, and they could read the ice like nobody else.
One morning before a game against Atlanta, a bigger, faster team that had always beaten Huntsville, I was sitting in the lobby with my young daughter, who wanted nothing to do with the cold rink. Doug’s son Jared walked up to his dad before taking the ice. Doug leaned in, and in the simplest, most direct way, told him two words: ‘Play Big.’ No X’s and O’s. No strategy session. Just that.
I asked Doug if I could use that line. He said of course. Jared, all 5’9″ and 165 pounds of him, went on to play for his father’s college program, then the Philadelphia Flyers, then in Europe. Today he’s an exceptional businessman.
That moment stuck with me. I applied that simple approach to Business. To PlayBig™ is to perform beyond expectations. To not let size dictate spirit, ability, or outcome. It’s the smaller competitor who outplays, outworks, and outwits the bigger opposition. That’s what we do for our clients every day. We help businesses in the Central California area compete. Our smart digital and real world marketing and strategy levels the playing field.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The biggest challenge we’ve faced as an agency wasn’t a campaign that underperformed or a client we couldn’t crack. It was a cross-country move in the late summer of 2020, right in the middle of Covid.
My wife and I relocated our family and our agency from Huntsville, Alabama to Monterey, California in September of 2020. If the timing sounds challenging, it was. California was shut down. Businesses had their doors closed. Networking events didn’t exist. The typical ways you’d introduce yourself to a new community were all off the table. We arrived in a beautiful place that was holding its breath.
And before that: in Alabama, we’d built something real over years. Relationships, reputation, a client base that trusted us. We packed up and drove west anyway.
Monterey is a small, tight-knit community under normal circumstances. It’s loyal and deeply rooted, and that’s exactly what makes it hard to break into as a newcomer. The established agencies already had the relationships. Local businesses already had their people. We were an unknown quantity in a market that runs on trust. We arrived at a moment when building that trust in person was nearly impossible.
For months, we worked remotely with clients back in Huntsville while slowly, quietly planting roots here. California reopened in stages. Life crept back. And when it did, we were ready.
The answer was never to push harder or spend more on ads. It was to get genuinely involved. Support local causes, do work that exceeded expectations and let it speak for itself. We took on clients who needed real help and delivered more than they asked for. Slowly, the referrals started. The network grew.
Looking back, arriving during Covid forced a kind of patience and intentionality that made us better at building community relationships than if we’d shown up in easier times. There was no shortcut. There was just the work, and the people, and time.
We’ve been impressed with PlayBig Digital, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
NO HEADING FOR THIS SECTION – BUT IT LOOKS LIKE … WHAT WE DO & WHAT SETS US APART
The simple answer is that we help small and local businesses get found, get chosen, and grow. But the honest answer is a little more interesting than that.
Most small businesses have a great story. They’re run by people who are genuinely good at what they do, who care about their customers, and who’ve built something worth finding. The problem is that nobody can find them. They’re invisible in search. Their website isn’t working. Their Google profile is incomplete or wrong. Meanwhile, a bigger competitor with a bigger budget is sitting at the top of every result. That’s the gap we close.
We’re a full-service digital agency providing websites, local SEO, search marketing, social media, paid advertising, brand identity, and print. But what we’re really selling is competitive advantage for businesses that don’t have a Fortune 500 budget. We use the same tools, the same platforms, and the same strategies that big agencies use for big clients, and we bring them to the owner of a pool service company, a fishing charter, a photographer, a landscaper, or a local professional.
Local search is where a lot of our energy goes, because it’s where the game is won or lost for most small businesses. When someone searches for a service in Monterey, Carmel, or Pacific Grove, the businesses in those top map results capture the vast majority of the clicks and the calls. Getting a client into that map pack and keeping them there requires a coordinated strategy with an optimized website, a strong Google Business Profile, consistent citations across the web, quality content, and a link profile that builds real authority over time. We know how to do all of it, and we know how to do it affordably.
What sets us apart? A few things.
First, we come from design. Before digital, I was doing print; layouts, publications, advertising, brand identity work. My wife , Christina has a unique eye with wide ranging real world design skills and interests. That background shapes how we approach everything. We don’t just think about whether a website ranks. We think about whether it moves the reader’s eye in the right direction, whether it frames the story correctly, whether it earns trust in the first five seconds. Good design and good marketing aren’t separate disciplines. They’re the same thing.
Second, we’re local. We work directly with our clients. There are no account managers, no offshore contractors, no support ticket queues. When you’re a PlayBig client, you’re talking to the people actually doing the work. We understand the Monterey Peninsula market in a way that a national agency sitting in a downtown high-rise simply doesn’t. We know which directories matter here, which local publications carry weight, and what your neighbors are actually searching for.
Third and maybe most importantly, we don’t take on clients unless we’re confident we can move the needle for them. We’re not in the business of collecting retainers and delivering reports. We want to show clients a real return on what they’re spending. If we don’t think we can do that, we’ll tell you.
The PlayBig ethos applies to how we work as much as it does to what we do. We’re a small shop competing against agencies with bigger teams and bigger overhead. We stay lean, stay sharp, and outwork the competition. That’s exactly what we ask our clients to let us do for them.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
That’s easy. Central Coastal California Blue Therapy. So much of my time is online, connected to the firehose of information, I love to unplug. And try to do so several times a day. Both our home studio and our Monterey office is close to ‘blue therapy.’ It works and I’m surprised how many people I come across that don’t take advantage of it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://playbigdigital.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playbigdigital
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playbigdigital
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/playbigdigital
- Twitter: https://x.com/playbigdigital
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PlayBigDigital
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/playbig-digital-monterey
