BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Ted Galluci from Plum Direct Marketing

Each week on 5 Minutes With, our host Susan talks to experts in the media industry. Today, Susan talks to Ted Galluci from Plum Direct Marketing. Plum Direct Marketing is small family owned business based out of Dartmouth Massachusetts, they are a full fledge marketing company, both in direct-mailing and direct-marketing. Plum Direct Marketing provides PPC, Marketing strategy, etc for their clients. To learn more, visit https://plumdirectmarketing.com.

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Kelly Alexander from KCo Advertising

Each week on 5 Minutes With, our host Wes Benwick talks to experts in the advertising industry. Today, Wes is joined remotely by Kelly Alexander from KCo Advertising. KCo is an Ad agency that helps businesses grow their sales and revenue through platforms that is fitted to reach their target customer with branding, media placement, digital marketing and more. To learn more, visit http://www.kcoad.com.

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Scott Markman from The Monogram Group

Each week on 5 Minutes With, our host Wes Benwick talks to experts in the advertising industry. Today, Wes is joined remotely by Scott Markman from The Monogram Group. Founded in 1990, Chicago-based Monogram Group are experts at repositioning brands for business performance. Some are local, many global. They all have one common denominator: the need to adapt, engage and thrive. To learn more, visit http://www.monogramgroup.com.

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Quentin Gause from Iron Visuals LLC

Each week on Bluhorn TV, David Sillick talks to experts in the media industry. Today David talks to Quentin Gause from Iron Visuals LLC.
Company: Iron Visuals LLC
Website Address: www.ironvisuals.com
Interviewee: Quentin Gause

Short company description: Iron Visuals is a digital media, marketing company specializing in capturing content telling your story through high quality video, Graphic Design creating a beautiful master piece for your brand, and Digital Marketing helping you reach your target audience.
What makes your company unique?: Our services, customer services, and professionalism.
Tell us about a recent success story: Helped a client organically convert leads into sales and gave them a great ROI.
In the next few years, what is the biggest change that you feel will happen in marketing?: There is an even more huge demand for video. Around 68 % of people prefer to learn about a product or service through video. 15% text based articles, 4% infographic , 4% Presentation & Pitches, 3% Ebooks & Manuals.
What is one tip you would provide someone asking for your marketing advice: Marketing your brand today and getting it in front of people has become even easier because of the social media platforms. Using the right strategy and adjusting your brands strategy when need be is very critical to your brands success.

David Sillick
So tell us a little bit about the company and what inspired you to start it and come up with a name like Iron Visuals

Quentin Gause
So Iron Visuals comes from Proverbs 27:17, iron sharpens iron, another man sharpens another. That’s why I came up with the name. And you know when I was playing in the NFL I always would continue to think of like Hey I wanna create something that is generational, that my family can continue to keep building on. It’s something that I enjoy doing. I got my degree in sports journalism and media and I went to ESPN and you know got a lot of experience over there. In our company what makes us different is just like our customer service the way our videos are. We try to bring forth that cinematic feel to our clients instead of just the basics.

David Sillick
What would be one piece of advice you would give a prospective client

Quentin Gause
What are you trying to accomplish with your brand? Are you looking to to generate leads? You want to get people to come in and you want to know you are going to get sales. We want to know and understand your business’ issues. And it’s our job to go in and figure that out and what we do is we love to get to know the client. We want to get a chance to really dig in and understand the client like build that relationship with them. So the biggest thing is like for them just to really understand where are their strengths and weaknesses are.

BluHorn TV – 5 Minutes With Zontee Hou from Media Volery

Each week on Bluhorn TV, Mike White talks to experts in the media industry. Today Mike talks to Zone Hou from Media Volery.

Company: Media Volery
Website Address: mediavolery.com
Interviewee: Zontee Hou

Short company description:
Media Volery is a New York City-based strategic marketing agency and consultancy with a digital focus. We support growing businesses and help them tell their brand stories compellingly, while achieving their business goals.

We believe in research, metrics-driven insights, and keeping our eyes on the prize. Our clients include retail brands, luxury brands, software companies, professional services, and nonprofits.
In the Next 5 years, the biggest change to marketing will be what?: Marketing will need to become more customized to individuals–technology will facilitate customized content and ads being targeted and displayed. But marketers must change how they think about their audiences to ask them what they need, rather than to assume broadly about general market segments.

Mike White
Tell me a little bit about your company and the digital services you offer.

Zontee Hou
Media Volery is a digital marketing firm focused on results driven business calls, meaning that we really like to dig into the metrics and the data to better understand what are the ways that we can best serve our client’s customers and really connect them to the brand value propositions.

Mike White
How do you see over the next three years digital changing for corporations?

Zontee Hou
I speak to a lot of industry professionals at events around the country and the things that we’re talking about right now are how the access to information is changing. So think about the voice assistance that you have in your pocket or on your desk at home or think about the fact that we are now all carrying a supercomputer in our hands basically every day the week right. Our customers are so easily accessing information about not only our brands but our competitors and the industry as a whole. Every second of the day and so that means that what they are looking for is information to be delivered to them in a more friendly conversational way that’s more intuitive. We’re going to have to keep an eye on that in the next couple of years when it comes to marketing. People are already expecting the information to be highly tailored to them.

Mike White
Are there a specific two pieces of software that you guys utilize that you ultimately love and that works best with your clients?

Zontee Hou
Yeah. So I think there are a lot of different ways of gathering analytics to tools that are in our tool belt that we think are really essential. Our first rival IQ which allows us to build competitive landscapes of the social media landscape for our clients and track those over time can better understand what’s happening not only with conversations around the brands but also on what those competitors are doing more or less effectively. The second tool that we use very consistently is since most or now it’s called meltwater social which is from meltwater Of course. And it allows us to gather broad sets of social listening around topics so we can build a profile for all of the brands within a client’s portfolio or around the conversation in their industry so that we can better understand what’s happening not only on social media but on blogs in the news in forums et cetera so that we can better analyze the conversations and the trends that are happening within that specific space.

Five Minutes With Kenny Harper from Rock My Image

Each week on Bluhorn TV, David Sillick talks to experts in the media industry. Today David talks to Kenny Harper from Rock My Image.

Company: Rock My Image
Website Address: https://rockmyimage.com
Interviewee: Kenneth Harper

Short company description: I help businesses increase profits through increased sales and efficiencies by leveraging strategy & systems.
What is your favorite advertising campaign that you have created for a client or participated in?: Poison Billiards – Brand Launch
How does your marketing strategy change from working with a local advertising client to a national advertising client?: That really varies depending on the client, their goals, needs and budget.

David Sillick
Tell us a little bit about Rock my Image. What inspired you to get it started. What inspired the name.

Kenny Harper
So my background as a young kid is always always looking to be artistic and creative, to have that visionary perspective. So I got into music playing rock and roll and then as I started to grow into my career of marketing and advertising and professional development I wanted to do something that was different. That was fun and really created the name Rock My Image.

David Sillick
And looking at your website and your LinkedIn profile I noticed you mentioned a proprietary system that you have. Walk us through that. What’s that mean and how do you use that with your clients.

Kenny Harper
We created a software that really helps to look at not just the marketing but what companies are doing to generate leads, close more sales, and retain clients or referrals and ultimately become more profitable as a business. And so we walk through an assessment that really helps to identify areas of opportunity so that they have a plan and a structured plan to amplify their business.

David Sillick
So what would be one piece of advice that you would give someone.

Kenny Harper
Take time to take a step back and really assess your business and create clear goals. I’ve talked to a lot of different successful business owners business owners that have multiple operations been in business for over 20 years and a lot of them don’t have clear goals define for improving their business. They are not tracking this on a regular basis. There is not a plan to help them move the business forward. So that’s that’s a place to start is really identifying what your goals are and then you can work on the strategies to implement. Far too often people jump to a tactic a marketing tactic they see oh there’s a social media app we should be on it but they really don’t know how that’s going to apply and work for their business in the long term goals. Share with us.

David Sillick
Tell us a recent success story.

Kenny Harper
So I met Jamie Clavin. She owns almost home senior services and then I met her at a local chamber event and she was telling me the competition is just blowing up in the senior services market. I don’t day care. There’s all these little operations popping up. She needed some fresh perspective on what she could do to elevate her image elevate her systems so she can stay competitive in the market. So we took a step back to really look to see what she was doing and developed an action plan. Since then she’s authored a book is generating more leads and has really worked through her sales process to automate that providing a better experience. And ultimately she’s growing her business.

firstmike lastmike

firstmike lastmike
title at Companymike
Website Address:12345.com

What services does your company provide?

Creative, Media Buying and Plannin, Social Media

About Companymike:

Short company description:

In the Next 5 years, the biggest change to marketing will be what?

In the Next 5 years, the biggest change to marketing will be what?

What percent of your advertising service offerings does media buying make up?

What percent of your advertising service offerings does media buying make up?

When buying media, what percent of your advertising investment is spent on traditional media and how much of your advertising budget is spent on digital advertising?

When buying media, what percent of your advertising investment is spent on traditional media and how much of your advertising budget is spent on digital advertising?

Why is it important for a business to hire an outside ad agency as opposed to having just an internal marketing director?

Why is it important for a business to hire an outside ad agency as opposed to having just an internal marketing director?

Business Profile Media Volery LLC

Business Name: Media Volery LLC
First Name: Zontee
Last Name: Hou
Website: mediavolery.com
Address: 540 President St, Floor 3
City: Brooklyn
State: NY
Zip: 11215

About Us: Media Volery is a New York City-based strategic marketing agency and consultancy with a digital focus. We support growing businesses and help them tell their brand stories compellingly, while achieving their business goals. We believe in research, metrics-driven insights, and keeping our eyes on the prize. At Media Volery, our focus is on developing digital strategies and content that help tell your brand’s story and achieve your goals.

Led by digital marketing expert and speaker Zontee Hou, named one of TopRank’s most influential content marketers in 2019, our diverse team has experience across industries. We bring years of experience in marketing professional services, CPG, retail brands, luxury goods, financial services and banking, and nonprofits.

Current clients range from influential solo-preneurs to mid-size companies looking to focus their resources with targeted marketing strategies built with metrics in mind. With our help, our clients create genuine connections between their brands and their target audiences every day.

Our offices are in the vibrant neighborhood of Gowanus, Brooklyn.

What is your favorite advertising campaign that you have created for a client?

How does your marketing strategy change from working with a local advertising client to a national advertising client?
With local customers, we often focus on geo-location based targeting, as well as messaging that speaks to relevance, convenience, and local expertise. With national clients, messaging might be more focused on relevance through customer motivations and behaviors.

Why is it important to hire a digital marketing agency and not just a full service marketing agency with a digital marketing component?
In this day and age, all brands need to be digital natives. While some legacy marketing firms have gotten good at digital, they’re not digital first and they’re not necessarily focused on keeping your brand on top of current digital trends, so much as tacking digital onto traditional methods.

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Ed Faroulo with VitaLincs, INC.

Each week on 5 Minutes With, our host Mike White talks to experts in the media industry. Today, Mike talks to Ed Faroulo with VitaLincs, INC. Ed Faruolo has an exceptional track record for creating and securing sustainable market opportunities for new and existing business ventures. Ed created VitaLincs to help companies be more vital to the markets they serve, and to design how they continually add value and grow with their customers. Ed’s consulting clients actively seek him out to quickly evaluate and design the fastest path to sustainable customer growth and engagement. To learn more, visit http://www.vitalincs.com.

BluHorn TV – “DIgital Champions” with Chip LaFleur with LaFleur Marketing

Each week on Digital Champions, our host Mike White talks to experts in digital marketing. Today, Mike talks to Chip LaFleur with LaFleur Marketing. LaFleur is a forward-thinking digital marketing partner. They create innovative, data-driven marketing strategies and assets for law firms, healthcare organizations, and growing businesses. LaFleur provides all types of services to its clients, such as: Creative, Media Buying and Planning, Social Media, SEO, Marketing Strategy, etc. To learn more, visit https://lafleur.marketing.

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Clayton Joyner from Turbo Medical Marketing

Company: Turbo Medical Marketing
Website Address: turbomedicalmarketing.com
Interviewee: Clayton Joyner

Short company description: We are full service Aesthetic Medical Marketing Growth Membership organization.
In the Next 5 years, the biggest change to marketing will be what?: Hyper personalized content delivery

Mike White
Tell us about the services you provide.

Clayton Joyner
We are a full service digital marketing agency. We’re in the process now of expanding it to multiple products within the digital realm and we niche in the aesthetic medical marketing space. So we typically are working with plastic surgeons, med spots, cosmetic terms. Our whole objective really is to get a 360 degree presence for them digitally to make sure that there’s no gaps in their marketing strategy and they can continue to grow. Part of that in turn obviously is to provide feedback. We’ve come up with a four section framework for growth that we’re making sure that we have digital strategies that will mirror what we need in each of those segments to make sure that not only does our practice get results and today but they need to be able to sustain that result level for 10-15 years from now.

Mike White
So when you sit down with one of your prospective clients and they say well I’ve got an in-house marketing person why do I need you. Why is it important for someone to hire an outside resource to handle their digital or additional marketing needs.

Clayton Joyner
I love that question. Okay I love that question. So it is impossible. There are things that we could do and there are things that we should do to get the level of performance out of the strategies that we deploy, that you should have in place to sustain and grow your business. And in this case of practice, one person can’t do that. In our case we’re a little bit unique because we’re dealing with surgeons who’ve been through medical school or residency. I mean they’re really smart people so the idea of them thinking that they couldn’t figure something out on their own is really a challenge. If they can’t figure out how to get any success and they realize the next limit is going to be time, no one has enough time to be a surgeon, and be a marketer, and run a business, it just doesn’t work.

Mike White
Over the next three years what do you think the biggest trend in digital marketing is going to be?

Clayton Joyner
You know it’s a fantastic question and there are so many different changes that I can see on the horizon that we’re about to face. People assume that all digital marketing is going to kill all the traditional media and then everything we used to do is now going to just completely shift and it’s all the new things. You know some of that might be true but I think the reality of the situation is that there’s a whole lot of very successful strategies. And I want to point that keyword out, there’s a very big difference between strategies and tactics. When you talk digital marketing versus traditional marketing, the changes that we’re going to see I think we will see a lot of shift in actual tactic. I think the strategies are going to remain the same.

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Kenneth Lempit from Austin Lawerence Group

Company: Austin Lawerence Group Inc.
Website Address: www.austinlawrence.com
Interviewee: Kenneth Lempit

Short company description: Austin Lawrence Group is a content marketing agency that helps SaaS companies to accelerate growth through content marketing and thought leadership initiatives.
In the Next 5 years, the biggest change to marketing will be what?: AI will no doubt change a lot of the busy work of marketing. Administrative tasks that are at all repetitive will be automated partially or fully.
Why is it important for a business to hire an outside ad agency as opposed to having just an internal marketing director?: This is a big one… internal teams may start strong but ultimately calcify. Agencies bring a wealth of experience and context that internal teams gradually lose, and as this sharp edge dulls, the power of the ideas being generated goes down.

Mike White launched Client Focused Media in 2002, the leading integrated marketing firm in Northeast Florida with extensive capabilities and experience providing strategic planning, marketing, creative, advertising, printing, branding, public relations and crisis communications services. He also serves as the Publisher of Jacksonville Buzz Magazine which reaches 150,000 readers each month and is the CEO of Bluhorn Solutions. Because of White’s commitment to provide the broadest range of integrated marketing services possible for CFM’s clients, he also founded an events production company as well as a promotional product company to support CFM’s cutting edge marketing campaigns and to yield measurable results for CFM clients at the most efficient rates.

Mike White
Tell me about the Austin Lawrence Group and what you guys provide services or what services you provide and for whom.

Ken Lempit
Austin Lawrence is a growth marketing agency. Our business is primarily online. We build content and engagement experiences for our clients which are primarily SAS software companies. We operate in three areas. We provide thought leadership programs, and those are campaigns designed to change the way people think about an industry a company or a market. We do business effectiveness consulting for these SAS companies touching them everywhere that they touch customers or prospects. Then we do the day to day lead generation marketing of content work and blogs, ebooks, webinars, white papers, et cetera.

Mike White
At what point did you start transforming into the content development and the digital aspects that you provide the SAS businesses.

Ken Lempit
Yeah. So the agency was traditionally an advertising agency fully print and in real life events. Things really changed for us about six years ago when we started getting involved in tying the performance of Web based content sales outcomes. And I think that the ability to link up the activities online with what actually occurred in sales has been really the revolution. The ability to do the analytics in a closed loop fashion has really been a game changer over the last five years.

Mike White
You’ve got an entire team, out of the team what is your favorite worker and why.

Ken Lempit
I think that as a leader you have to look at the people that actually do the work and make you successful. And Kelly Burke is someone on my team who is just unflappable and what I really appreciate about this woman is that you know I haven’t given her an assignment yet that’s failed and she’s never said I can’t do it. She’s only said let me figure it out. And I think for people in the early to mid stage of their career perhaps the most important thing you can do is be that can do person who figures it out gets the job done. So that’s Kelly Burke.

Mike White
What do you feel are gonna be the biggest trend centers or trend setters or game changing activities that are gonna take place in the near future when it comes to digital marketing.

Ken Lempit
Well I think there’s two things ones right on us and one’s coming real soon. What’s right on us is that content marketing, while very effective and very important, it’s become almost impossible for many companies to search organically as the main way to generate inbound leads. So we’re gonna have to promote our content more than we previously might have wanted to. And that means we’re going to need to budget for advertising, for promoting our content in ways that we didn’t use to do. I think coming right on the heels of this the next two to three years AI in marketing automation is going to take away a lot of the jobs the need for the repetitive tasks that we that we staff today and I think that’s going to catch people by surprise from what I can tell. So I’d say that we’re in automation interestingly we’re creating a lot of manual labor. And I think some of that’s going to go away and the pace will accelerate over the next two to four years. So somewhere between two and three years it’s going to really be a trend.

BluHorn TV – 5 Minutes With Jonathan Greene from LeadCrunch

Each week on Bluhorn TV, David Sillick talks to experts in the media industry. Today David talks to Jonathan Greene from LeadCrunch.

Company: LeadCrunch
Website Address: www.leadcrunch.com
Interviewee: Jonathan Greene

Short company description: We utilize advanced artificial intelligence and new, proprietary targeting data to provide B2B lookalike audiences.

What is your favorite advertising campaign that you have created for a client or participated in?: Oracle + Bronto. We were able to reduce their COA by over 50%

David Sillick
Tell us a little bit about the business.

Jonathan Greene
Lead crunch is a B2B marketing company. We try to answer that real tricky question of you know if if technology continues to advance and things continue to get more and more complex, there’s artificial intelligence and there’s CRM and there’s ABM strategies, then why is B2B marketing not improving? And we’ve found that the causes the underlying targeting is pretty terrible. So what we strive to do as a company we’ve come up with a new way to target outside of that demographic. From a graphic modality right which is to say most people begin by saying Let me figure out how many people are in the company and how much revenue they have and what industry they’re in. But the problem is that those underlying information points like next codes and all the things that people use for targeting are really inaccurate.

David Sillick
So tell us about a recent success story.

Jonathan Greene
We worked with Oracle and Bronto and we were able to decrease the cost of acquisition about 200 percent for them. Oracle grotto is just one case study. We’ve got a bunch of people we’ve been able to really move the needle in terms of cost of acquisition for new customers.

David Sillick
How do you usually work with your clients are you retainer based or project based.

Jonathan Greene
Not at all which is actually exciting. We do a cost per lead lead generation so you can come to us with a relatively small amount of pilot a budget you know five grand 10 grand and we can run a program for you and you’ll be able to press that through your funnel and see what the return on that’s going to be. It’s a no risk situation.

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Brandon Forschino from Out of Dust Marketing

Company: Out of Dust Marketing
Website Address: www.outofdustmarketing.com
Interviewee: Brandon Forschino
Short company description: Located in Jacksonville, FL, Out of Dust Marketing & Communication is a full-service online marketing and communication agency. Out of Dust Marketing & Communication exists to help organizations communicate their message effectively and brand that message over multiple types of media. We’re passionate about coming up with solutions that focus on simplicity, practicality, and impact. We adapt how your clients do business to the rapidly-changing marketplace.
What is your favorite advertising campaign that you have created for a client or participated in?: New Single Release for some of my Artists. Using Facebook/Instagram, we created a 30 second video ad with a snippet of their single to the defined audience. From there, led people to listen and presented the streaming platforms of their choice. This resulted in an exponential increase in reach, engagement, and online streams.
How does your marketing strategy change from working with a local advertising client to a national advertising client?: Our process works for any client, local or national. We begin by helping clients overcome their identity crisis. Following that step, we help them identify their audience. Once we understand their identity and audience, we can move to the final step – craft the message and deliver that message to the right channels.

David Sillick
Tell us a little bit about a Out of Dust and what inspired you to start the business and serve special meaning behind the name.

Brandon Forschino
The reason I started the business was actually inspired after successfully starting a business while I was in college. And when I was 18 years old I had kind of drafted up an idea in my dorm room. What later became a social networking application on campuses all throughout the nation and about three years or four years into that we went through a merger acquisition. I got a chance to continue on the marketing and branding side of of that company and I quickly realized you know the kind of passion that I had for building organizations.

David Sillick
So how do you do that. What types of industries or clients do you find as your best clients.

Brandon Forschino
Yeah our best clients and where we’ve seen the most success has to definitely be nonprofits. There’s a lot of stories to tell. Some other industries we really enjoy have been music and entertainment. So those are some of the industries that we have been focused on and specializing in and the services that we really favor are traditional PR and obviously translating that into more of a digital public relations strategy. Social media is as a big platform for us.

David Sillick
So can you share a recent success story.

Brandon Forschino
Absolutely. We’ve had so many and it’s hard to really pinpoint one I think some of the most recent one would be just in the music entertainment industry. One of the things I first proposed to a record label early on was to use digital media as a tool to really reach the right audience and guarantee some streams of plays. What we’ve been able to do recently is work with a couple of record labels and about 10 different artists collectively, we’ve been able to really take some of the music that they’re coming out with and exponentially increase their streams right off the bat.

David Sillick
How do you work best with clients?

Brandon Forschino
Our goal is to create a retainer based relationship which ultimately you know looks at a long term relationship and where we’re really you know constantly going back each month and meeting with our clients and on a weekly basis in contact with them.

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Kurtis Loftus from Deck the Chairs

Company: Deck The Chairs
Website Address: deckthechairs.org
Interviewee: Kurtis Loftus
Short company description: Deck The Chairs is a non profit founded in 2013 to fill a void for the Beaches area during the holiday season. DTC promotes the arts and art education through development of a nationally recognized holiday display featuring decorated lifeguard chairs. Jax Beach Deck The Chairs is produced through public/private collaborations with strong volunteer support in an accessible family-friendly environment.

David Sillick
What inspired Deck the Chairs?

Kurtis Loftus
For whatever reason, about eight years ago we had no Christmas in Jax beach. I mean the place went dark and I’m talking no lights anywhere. The following summer I was running on the beach and looking at lifeguard chairs, one every half mile, and the lifeguard chair was hitting me as a beautiful symbol for Jax beach. Thinking back on the Christmas before and imagining what we could do in a decorative way, displaying those lifeguard chairs and putting something together for a Christmas event.

David Sillick
How do you keep the momentum going with it being an annual event?
Kurtis Loftus
A great question and I didn’t do a good job in the beginning. The first thing I had to do is just figure out how to run a nonprofit. We did that work a couple years, growing slowly and making mistakes. I did some more things with marketing. I mean I bought traditional marketing and that’s expensive. We still are learning the whole social media business. It’s kind of interesting. It’s interesting to look at last year and what we do with social media and what I started to do earlier in the year with the story of deck chairs. But simultaneously this big cultural experience that we’re putting on in the park that’s free

David Sillick
So what’s your biggest challenge and what are your pressing needs?

Kurtis Loftus
The bigger one is keeping the event fresh. We have a huge park space and we’re lighting you know lots of trees lighting space and we want the exhibits better. So you have to encourage people to invest a little more time and energy. And then there’s a whole build and decorate aspect, it’s a lot of fun.

 

BluHorn TV – “Digital Champions” with Jim Walker from CloudHesive

Each week on Digital Champions, our host Mike White talks to experts in the technology industry. This week, Mike talks to Jim Walker from CloudHesive. CloudHesive was founded in 2014 by veterans in the cloud computing space and provides helps our customers adopt and grow their use of the public cloud through consulting and next generation managed services with a focus on Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency and Cost Optimization. CloudHesive’s services help companies reduce their operating costs and increase productivity while improving their cloud security posture by deploying their mission critical workloads onto the CloudHesive Fabric. To learn more, visit cloudhesive.com

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Austin Van Horn, Direct Response Consultant

Each week on 5 Minutes with, our host Mike White talks to experts from the media industry. Today, Mike talks to Austin Van Horn who is a direct-response consultant. Austin has learned the ins and outs of the media industry over the course of his career, spanning decades. Today, we invite him on the show to pick his brain.

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Chris Searles from Searles Graphics Inc.

Company: Searles Graphics, Inc.
Website Address: https://www.searlesgraphics.com
Interviewee: Christopher Searles

Short company description: 2 companies, Searles Graphics does commercial print and graphic design, Searles Media is our agency arm that handles planning, buying, and digital media.
In the Next 5 years, the biggest change to marketing will be what?: That it won’t really change. Marketing is about effective storytelling – it always will be. Yes, the mediums we use to tell those stories change frequently, so trying to predict those changes is an exercise in futility, but they don’t shift as fast as we’d like to believe. TV advertising still works, direct mail is as valuable as ever (maybe more-so), and the cost of digital marketing is on the rise while reach on most of those platforms decreases. Doubtful many felt that would be the case 10 years ago. It’s more important to understand what your story is and who it resonates with, and then find the places that allow you to most effectively communicate with your audience in a genuine way. Jumping on the next medium bandwagon and abandoning what’s working for you now is a quick way to lose your audience. There can be a lot of value in early adoption, but there can be a lot of wasted time too.
What percent of your advertising service offerings does media buying make up?: Very little, we primarily focus on creative.
When buying media, what percent of your advertising investment is spent on traditional media and how much of your advertising budget is spent on digital advertising?: For ourselves it’s probably about 70 / 30 if you’re looking strictly at buys, however we dedicate a lot more time to our digital outlets than traditional which would skew that ratio in the other direction.
Why is it important for a business to hire an outside ad agency as opposed to having just an internal marketing director?: We often find owner-operators and/or internal personnel get too enamored with their own company and have a hard time removing themselves from that role to view their organizations objectively as an outsider. Hiring an agency helps cut through they hype to bring an objective perspective.

Wes Benwick
When did you open your business and why did you open?

Chris Searles
Searles graphics actually was the original company and has been in business since 1974 been around for about forty five years now. And so we started as a commercial print company. But with that we kind of very early on got into graphic design and we are now getting into the digital side.

Wes Benwick
What are your thoughts about digital. Is it an effective form. Is it the future form. Are we going to forget about the days of broadcast years from now?

Chris Searles
I mean I think in terms of you know if you want to compare digital versus traditional, if you want to call traditional or digital versus print. I mean digital certainly is not going anywhere. I think that that print is still going to be around for a long time. I mean really there’s there’s nothing that has kind of replaced that tangible connection that you can make with a brand by just being able to hold something. You know the tricky part of digital is it just it has the ability to change very frequently and it does. So trying to keep up with that and stay current with that I think is the challenge that a lot of people have and especially a lot of small businesses and small business owners that don’t really consider themselves very technical.

Wes Benwick
Do you think it’s best to be an early adopter and jump on the latest newest digital social whatever platform or tech there might be?

Chris Searles
I mean follow quickly is I think it’s good advice. You know the being the first person there has can have some really really huge benefits. I mean if you think about if you were one of the first Twitter users and you were able to build a following that way. You know there’s there’s a lot of advantages. Same thing with Instagram. The problem is there are how many other platforms like that that either don’t go anywhere or went somewhere and then just disappeared. I mean you think about how many people spent time building a vine following and where where has I’ve gotten them today.

BluHorn TV – “5 Minutes With” Sharon Miller Extend Marketing Partners

Company: Extend Marketing Partners
Website Address: www.extendmp.com
Interviewee: Sharon Miller

Short company description: We are a full scale digital marketing company with a grow with Google partnership. We under stand it all starts with Google.
How does your marketing strategy change from working with a local advertising client to a national advertising client?: With a small business we normally start with making sure they have a strong Google presence and build out from their. With a large client we will have an in depth meeting to understand thier wants, needs and budget. Then we build out a pitch and proposal.
How do you define success?: Success comes from helping our clients grow. For some the growth is in new business and for other the growth comes from having a more attractive presences online so their existing client base has a positive experience when engaging with them.
The biggest change that your predict will happen in marketing in the next 5 years is what?: That marketing will continue to become more and more digital and staying ahead that growth.
Why is it important for a business to hire an outside ad agency as opposed to having just an internal marketing director?: A company’s job is to be great at what they do and for most marketing takes a back burner. Our job is to be great at marketing for our clients. We have a team of employees constantly understanding what is going on in the marketing world so we can take that burden off their shoulders.

Mike White launched Client Focused Media in 2002, the leading integrated marketing firm in Northeast Florida with extensive capabilities and experience providing strategic planning, marketing, creative, advertising, printing, branding, public relations and crisis communications services. He also serves as the Publisher of Jacksonville Buzz Magazine which reaches 150,000 readers each month and is the CEO of Bluhorn Solutions. Because of White’s commitment to provide the broadest range of integrated marketing services possible for CFM’s clients, he also founded an events production company as well as a promotional product company to support CFM’s cutting edge marketing campaigns and to yield measurable results for CFM clients at the most efficient rates.

Mike White
So tell me a little bit about the background of Extend Marketing Partners and how you guys got started.

Sharon Miller
So Extend is actually four different businesses that recently came together back in May. So all of us had our own independent businesses and did a lot of work together and just decided that it made sense to be one big business versus four small ones.

Mike White
What are the biggest changes that you think are going to come to the digital industry.

Sharon Miller
I think right now one of the biggest things we’re seeing is the Google My Business page. Google has made a significant amount of changes to that in the last 18 months.

Mike White
The page is becoming such an important part of a business’s way of marketing. Number one I mean Google’s over ninety four percent of every search done every day. And you know Google Maps is just increasing in search. So if you don’t have an or take the time to make that Google business page listing be the best representation of your company. You’re really missing out.

Sharon Miller
Well I appreciate you joining us on the program today to find out more about Sharon and her company visit BluHorn.com and Sharon. Thank you for joining us on five minutes with today.

BluHorn TV – 5 Minutes With Susan Walsh from Sales Link Inc

Company: Sale-Link,Inc.
Website Address: www.sales-link.net
Interviewee: Susan Walsh

Short company description: Changing the sales role by taking a grass roots rather than a top down approach. Traditionally, sales always commanded the high pay, the high clout when in fact many hunters (also known as lead generators) are the ones carrying the heavy load, bringing in the new business.
How does your marketing strategy change from working with a local advertising client to a national advertising client?: We are an international company.
How do you define success?: Blowing up the “norm”.
The biggest change that your predict will happen in marketing in the next 5 years is what?:That marketing tools and processes will replace traditional sales.

Mike White launched Client Focused Media in 2002, the leading integrated marketing firm in Northeast Florida with extensive capabilities and experience providing strategic planning, marketing, creative, advertising, printing, branding, public relations and crisis communications services. He also serves as the Publisher of Jacksonville Buzz Magazine which reaches 150,000 readers each month and is the CEO of Bluhorn Solutions. Because of White’s commitment to provide the broadest range of integrated marketing services possible for CFM’s clients, he also founded an events production company as well as a promotional product company to support CFM’s cutting edge marketing campaigns and to yield measurable results for CFM clients at the most efficient rates.

Mike White
Good morning. Tell us a little about what you provide customers.

Susan Walsh
We provide our customers with an opportunity to gain more business and we do that by bringing in tools to them so that they can learn to use the tools.
Mike White
What is kind of your rebuttal on why they need to bring you in as an outside contractor or vendor to assist their business and sales.

Susan Walsh
I first asked them, Did you make your sales numbers and then they always say no. We always want more. And so then the next thing I do is I ask them what is the relationship like between sales and operations. I start asking those important questions that can help you see if the company is sales centric.
Mike White
How are you advising businesses to stay ahead of the shift.

Susan Walsh
First I’m advising them that they always have to be ahead of it. And I have recently been doing some talks about how the industry is changing with social media with videos with ways that customers can learn about you before you’re even talking with them. The email campaigns of the past, even though you still have to do them, they aren’t enough. I always tell them there’s a three hit process. It’s got to be email campaigns, it’s got to be a call center, and then it’s got to be Linked In.

Mike White
What sets you apart from the other companies that are doing similar tactics.

Susan Walsh
I really appreciate that question because there is something key with our tool called form of VDI. It’s an information system we has a half a million texts in our system and we have 15 people in our back office that keep that data fresh and clean. So you will not find another organization, another company like mine, that has the information readily available so that salespeople can access it. We’ve got 21 years, three million dollars into the system, and it’s ready to go and sales people can access it tomorrow and get going on creating new business opportunities so that’s our key differentiator.

Mike White
Well Susan thank you very much for joining us on the program today. If you’d like to find out more about Susan’s company and Sales Link, visit us at BluHorn.com. We look forward to seeing you next time on BluHorn TV.