Ron Callis reflects on the past five years of hosting AU and the memories he’s made along the way

Five years ago, Automation Unplugged (AU) live streamed its first episode over Facebook Live. Since then, Ron Callis, CEO of One Firefly, has hosted over 200 guests on AU, which currently produces a new show every week. Unlike the majority of podcasts focused on the AV industry that discuss technology and new products, AU shines a light on the diverse set of individuals who make up the professional AV community. 

Automation Unplugged doesn’t adhere to any agenda or formal interview format — every show is an off-the-cuff, live (and lively) discussion between Ron and his guests. This year, in honor of AU’s five-year anniversary, the One Firefly team sat down with Ron to learn about how AU started, what it means to people, and where it’s going. Keep reading to learn more. 

SEE ALSO: Subscribe to Automation Unplugged Today!

An integrated marketing strategy protects you today, tomorrow, and in the future

Would you feel safe driving your car without car insurance? Would you feel secure running your integration firm without business liability insurance? The answer is probably a very firm “no.” 

The primary purpose of any insurance policy is to protect your person, business, or property against the possibility of a future event that leads to loss or damages. It’s a risk management tool that ensures you have safeguards in place to support you when the unexpected happens. 

Similarly, investing in strategic digital marketing offers you short and long-term benefits that can help your business thrive during the good times, weather the bad times, and maintain an active online presence every day in between. 

Just like your car, health, and business insurance policies are developed with coverages that meet your specific needs, One Firefly can help you find the right services to create an integrated marketing strategy that keeps your business moving forward today, tomorrow, and in the future. 

Like a good marketing agency, we’ve got you covered. Keep reading to learn more.   

SEE ALSO: An Overview of One Firefly’s New Blog Products

We’ve gotten a lot of questions about our new service — here are the answers you’ve been looking for 

After almost a year of researching, gathering feedback from our client base, and moving through the product development process, we’re finally ready to bring our new Video Pioneer service to market. 

Video Pioneer is an industry-focused, personalized video solution designed to help you showcase your unique team, facilities, and flagship projects on your website. In 2022, video is the most powerful branding and marketing strategy that you can deploy to attract new prospects, inspire job seekers, and engage existing customers online. With our new turnkey video service, we’re making it easy to create and obtain professional, personalized video content to display as web headers across your site. 

Learn more about our turnkey solution to bring personalized videos of your people and projects to your website

Here at One Firefly, we’ve been teasing the launch of our brand-new personalized video service for the past few weeks — we hope you caught our livestream on Facebook last week, but if you didn’t, catch up here. 

And now, we’re almost ready to bring this new service — called Video Pioneer — to market. Video is the fastest-growing type of content in 2022, and personalized video can help custom integrators showcase their people, facilities, and projects in a compelling way and engage prospects and existing clients on their website. Additionally, personalized video is a powerful tool to differentiate your business and stand out in your local marketplace. 

We’re weeks away from bringing our new industry-focused, turnkey video services solution to market

In 2022, video is the fastest growing and most effective channel for attracting and keeping the attention of your prospects and customers online. One study reports that 72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. Furthermore, 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.

At One Firefly, we have a long history of producing and deploying professional, beautiful video content on our clients’ websites. And this year, we’re taking the next step in video marketing with a new, long-awaited product launch: personalized video production services. 

Within the next few weeks, we’ll be launching an industry-focused, turnkey video services solution to help technology companies easily fund, create, and obtain high-quality, unique video content of their teams, projects, and showrooms to display on their websites. We’re bringing the production and management of the entire process under one roof and will fully manage every step so that you don’t have to. 

Don’t Leave Social Media Out of Your Marketing Strategy! Here’s Why.

If there’s one constant thing about life—it’s change. Years ago, if a business wanted to advertise their services to the local area, they’d purchase an ad in the newspaper or run a commercial on the radio or TV.

Today, we can no longer guarantee that your audience is listening to the radio or flipping through channels. Some might be there, but many are not. But what we can guarantee is that most of your current or future customers are on social media.

In fact, half of the world’s population is already using social media, with 11 new people joining every second. You can reach new and existing audiences through organic postings or ads that target users already interested in your industry in your area.

In this article, we’ll look at how sharing on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more can help businesses, and five reasons why you should include it in your marketing strategy.

SEE ALSO: Marketing Horror Stories: I Was Locked Out Of My Own Social Media Accounts

We’re expanding our blog product offerings to help meet your unique needs

Blogging is the cornerstone of any successful content marketing strategy. Publishing high-quality content increases brand awareness and visibility, drives search engine traffic to your website, builds credibility and authority in your industry, and feeds robust social media and email newsletter campaigns.  

At One Firefly, we’ve spent many years building a team of industry-focused writers and marketers to produce well-written, SEO-optimized blog content to help custom integration businesses grow. 

And tens of thousands of blogs later, we’ve realized: one size does not fit all when it comes to blogging. That’s why we’ve created a scalable, tiered blog product with multiple options to meet your budgetary needs and marketing goals. 

Keep reading to learn more. 

SEE ALSO: Blogging: Why It’s Important & Helps Businesses Stay Relevant

Do Businesses Really Need Blogging? Yes, Yes They Do!

What do a toothpaste brand, a furniture company, and a farm equipment manufacturer have in common? They all have a blog on their website! And if you own a business, you should start a blog, too. 
But “Why?” you might ask. Why do Crest toothpaste, IKEA, and John Deere write a blog? Does anyone actually read it, and does it do any good for marketing? 

The answer to all those questions is a resounding “Yes.” 6.9 billion searches are sent to Google every day, and 70,000 searches every second. Every month, 135,000 people search, “Why is the sky blue?” and 49,500 people ask, “Why do cats purr?” Imagine how many people must be searching about home or commercial technology in your area. When they hit ‘Enter,’ does your website show up? 

That’s what blogging is all about. It connects your company to an audience that’s already looking for information and, ultimately, your services. Below, we’ll dive into why blogging matters and how it can help your AV and custom integration business thrive.

SEE ALSO: 5 Effective Ways to Engage Your Existing Audience 

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to attract new customers and retain existing clients

Is email marketing still relevant in a digital environment dominated by social media posts, interactive ads, and mobile campaigns? While email is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, in recent years the strategy feels like it’s become overshadowed by newer, flashier ways to grab peoples’ attention online, like social media and Google Advertising. 

Don’t get us wrong — these strategies are important as part of an integrated digital marketing plan. But the data (and consumer input) reveals that robust email marketing has yet to fall out of style. Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective strategies to put your products and services in front of consumers, has the highest return on investment of all digital marketing channels, and is unmatched in its ability to drive direct traffic to your website or landing page. 

And your clients are on email — more than 90% of people over the age of 17 use email, and 99% of consumers check their email daily (some admit to checking over 20 times a day). 

Trust us when we say that email marketing isn’t dead — far from it. Keep reading to learn why.

SEE ALSO: Surprising Email Marketing Statistics That Will Make You Rethink List Segmentation