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.