An AV and integration-focused podcast broadcast weekly

This week's episode of Automation Unplugged in our Marketing Experts segment, we’re shining a light on a powerful integrator–agency duo: Melissa Mitchell from Wipliance and her One Firefly Account Manager, Katie Frogge.

About this episode:

Melissa is the Marketing Manager and systems designer at Wipliance, a nationally recognized integration firm known for stunning video content and award-winning marketing. Katie, Lead Account Manager at One Firefly, helps integrators like Melissa scale their marketing with strategy, structure, and consistent support.

This episode is hosted by Kat Wheeler, and together she, Melissa, and Katie get real about what it actually takes to build a strong marketing presence in the custom AV space.

In this episode, David and I discussed:

• When to stop DIYing and bring in outside help.
• The marketing tasks integrators should always delegate—and the ones that are still worth doing in-house.
• How agency support has helped Wipliance stay ahead of SEO changes, AI, and evolving customer expectations.

SEE ALSO: #316: David Warfel on Lighting the Way - Design, Education, and Innovation

Transcript

Kat:

Hi everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Automation Unplugged Marketing Experts, where we talk candidly about what actually works when it comes to growing your AV business. Today's episode is all about a marketing crossroads that many integrators find themselves in either trying to do everything themselves or doing well. Nothing at all. One is exhausting and the other one leaves you invisible and both are holding your business back. So that's why today's episode is called From DIY to delegation when it's time to bring in a marketing team, whether you're posting sporadically on Instagram between job sites or haven't touched your website since 2017, we are here to talk about how bringing the right support can make all of the difference. First up, joining me from the one Firefly team is Katie. Katie helps integrators structure and scale their marketing with the right strategy and the right systems. Katie, welcome to the show. Thanks, Kat. It's great to be here.

Katie:

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and about your role at One Firefly? I. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I have been in the world of digital marketing for about 10 years now, and, um, I've been with one Firefly for a little over three years. Um, and just recently in February, I actually received a promotion here, um, where I'm now leading the account management team. So if you're doing digital marketing with us or have any type of content marketing services, you will have an account manager assigned to you and, uh, they're there as your partner. Um, and your advocate for one Firefly through our integrated internal teams. And, uh, we're just driving, driving you to success.

Kat:

Thanks Katie. And can you say your last name for everyone? I did not wanna attempt it.

Katie:

Yeah, so it's from, I get, I get asked that a lot, as you can probably imagine. Uh, a lot of people call me froggy or fro or something along those lines. Um, I made fun of my husband a lot when we first got together and now jokes on me 'cause I have the last name, so I was gonna go with froggy,

Kat:

but, you know, I'm glad I didn't track, glad I didn't track well and, okay. So thanks Katie. Let's go to our next special guest. Who I'm very excited to have on the show today, she's gonna be representing the integrator perspective, and that is Melissa Mitchell from Y Client. Who, as many of you may know, is an integrator widely known as an absolute standout in our industry, especially when it comes to content creation and the overall customer experience. If you haven't seen their marketing yet, you are truly missing out why clients sets the bar with their captivating video content, including project tours and product spotlights that bring technology to life in a way that. No other integrator can match. Their YouTube channel is practically a masterclass in showcasing smart homes, luxury spaces, and cutting edge technology, integration beyond video. Why Appliance is a proven leader in the AV industry consistently earning recognition and prestigious awards from some names you may know, like CE Pro C Dia, and Control Four, just to name a few. Their featured projects re regularly make waves in industry press and their case studies. Reflect an unmatched commitment to delivering next level experiences for their clients. Melissa's here today to share her insights into how, why clients balances their own exceptional in-house marketing initiatives, like their outstanding video content and community-focused events with strategic support from one Firefly, enabling them to continuously elevate their brand and achieve consistent growth. So welcome Melissa. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Uh, can you tell everybody a little bit about yourself?

Melissa:

Yes, so I am with Y clients. I am the marketing manager, and I also am a little bit of a system designer as well on the lighting and shading side specifically. Um, I have been with y clients for 10 years now, and I'm originally from North Carolina. I help with crafting our brand messaging and all that digital marketing and video that you mentioned. Thank you for that amazing description. Um, I've got a little bit of a hat rack, but I, I love my job.

Kat:

That's amazing. Thanks Melissa. And thanks for being here. Uh, so let's, we're gonna start off easy. We're gonna, we're gonna ease everybody into this. So, Katie, why do you think so many integrators either try to do everything themselves or avoid marketing entirely? I.

Katie:

Yeah, great question. So I think most integrators are wired as entrepreneurs, not marketers, right? They got into the business because they're passionate about technology and problem solving, but not necessarily because they wanted to run Facebook ads or write blogs or do anything like that. So when it comes to marketing, there's often a lack of knowledge or maybe a comfort level, or even trust, and I think that they either try to DIY because they don't really know where to turn to. Or they avoid it altogether because they've been burned by maybe empty promises or generic agencies in the past. Um, and I also think that there's a perception that marketing is optional. Um, or it's only for companies that are struggling, but in reality, the most successful integrators are the ones who are consistently building their brand.

Kat:

I love that. I think that's a great point. I think you hit on something really. Smart there. And I think another thing too maybe is that sometimes integrators have maybe tried marketing, did it themselves, didn't do super well, and so then they're like, yeah, it doesn't work. I don't need that. Yeah, exactly. All right, Melissa. Well there for you guys at why clients, there's a point where doing all of it or doing nothing starts, you know, hurting more than helping. So we'll talk about the tipping point. How does an integrator know when it's time to stop DIYing and bring in outside help?

Melissa:

Sure. So I mean, you know, there's several levels to that, right? One perfect example is do you have a dedicated person that that is within their role, or is that somebody who is a hybrid position, maybe that's an owner or an admin that is doing a few social posts here and there, and what's the opportunity cost of that person working on that and learning through it, versus hiring a professional that knows how to target audiences and reach the people that you want and help to. Uh, efficiently spend an ad budget, right? You can burn through an ad budget very fast if you don't know what you're doing and who you're targeting. So to have that help, to really, I like to call it the sniper method. You know, really get in there and figure out exactly who you're trying to target it. You need a professional, I think, at a certain level when you, when you've got a certain amount of investment. Mm-hmm. And there's also, you know, ev, all the platforms want consistency of posting, right? They want content happening on a regular basis. So if you're the kind of business owner that only posts on Facebook, when there's something super relevant in that moment or timely, then you may be missing out on audiences with, without having that. Content calendar and um, you know, having one firefly on our team has allowed us to grow, obviously what we're doing internally and take on bigger projects such as our video and our partner marketing with manufacturers. Um, and we have people that can help support us with some of that regularly scheduled programming. I'm still crafting that messaging and the calendars, so I have control over. What is happening and what's going out to clients. And I review everything in advance. Your team is very great about giving me that transparency where we can catch things well before they go live. Um, but that me actually creating all of that content and putting that out would be a much bigger time investment if it, if I was doing it all on my own. And there's, there's an opportunity cost there to have me do all of that.

Kat:

I think you just nailed it with two key words, uh, time and investment. Yeah. 'cause those are, those are both real things, right? Yeah. So figuring that out is important.

Katie:

Okay. It's like when it, when it starts costing you more and missed opportunities, then it's actually saving you money. Or if you're like guessing more than strategizing, right. So, yeah, I think you have to nail the head.

Kat:

Yeah. Or if you just wanna dip your toe in the water and don't wanna invest in bringing a person in to actually do that at your company, you can, we're like a little bit of a subcontractor. You can hire that out until you're ready to do that.

Melissa:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Kat:

Okay. All right. Well, we've, we've started it out a little bit. We've got a good little momentum going here guys. And now we're going to do, my favorite part of all of these, uh, is play a little game. You guys wanna play a little game? Sure. Everybody ready to play a little game? This is the little game that we, uh, are gonna play. It's called Delegate It or DIY it. So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna list out some common marketing techniques, and you guys are both gonna tell me whether you DIY or delegate it. Okay. Okay. Everybody ready? You guys all hyped? I'm excited. It'll be fun to see what we

Katie:

each

Kat:

say. I'll be keeping schooling. There will be a winner at the end, as always in our games. Okay, so here is the first one, and this is a little bit of a combination, so go with me here, but SEO and content writing, DIY or delegate, I would say Delegate

Melissa:

Melissa. I would say delegate, definitely for SEO, 100%. For SEO. Mm-hmm. For content, for content writing, I would say yes. Work with a professional if you do not consider yourself a writer. Right. If you, if that is not one of your strengths, um, I, I'd love it. So I love to help craft that messaging, but that's not gonna be everybody's strength. So I would say if you love it. Have a hand in that messaging, um, you know, maybe get input from a professional if you're consistently doing that writing as well to make sure that that is resonating the way that you want it. There are marketing consultants that can help with that.

Kat:

Yeah. Uh, okay. DIY or delegate capturing customer testimonials or case study videos. So. Yeah, so

Melissa:

it is interesting you're giving me two things each time. So Kate, customer testimonials. Yes, 100%. There are professional services out there that can help you collect those very quickly and put them directly on Google, uh, so that you're not having to follow that up. Um, I do think that there's a very powerful layer to that when our technicians are asking for that review in the living room as an added layer. Um, but then they're able to give them a quick link or a QR code. That's where your services make that. Really easy for us to facilitate getting those reviews and making sure that they go out. Mm-hmm. Um, hey, study videos, I'm gonna DIY that 'cause, you know, we're the, we're the video house. Right. Um, that being said, you know, there are companies that need to bring on a firm to do that. Um, and that's, that's a very powerful tool when you have have video production brought in as well.

Katie:

I would agree a hundred percent. I would say DIY for both of them. But to your point, having some type of reputation management software or an easy way for your team to get involved, um, around that is, is something that's very, very important as well. It's definitely something that you have to get your team rallied around and something that they have to be willing to do. And you know, asking and you've made a good point too. There's that pivotal mo moment in the living room or you know, when you're closing out a job or something. Um, and then from a case study standpoint, definitely DIY collecting that information, but having a trusted partner that you can pass that over to, to be able to make it do things across the internet is a great point as well.

Kat:

Okay. All right, here we go. Just one for you, Melissa. This time. It's just one now. Uh, website design, DIY. Delegate,

Melissa:

definitely a professional. Um, I mean, you know, I think the, the benchmarks are always moving in terms of, I. I, I, there's an expression I like to use when it comes to websites. You are designing for the search engine and then you're also designing for the eye. And you really have to balance both of those things. Um. Sometimes marketing firms can lean too much towards designing for search engines, right? So it's very important that they have, uh, separate people on their team that are dedicated more towards the graphic design of it all and, and making sure that it looks really good both. On a desktop. And of course, as we know, more and more mobile friendly, it must become mobile friendly because we live on our phones. Um, so that's where having a professional that's gonna think about designing for all those things, how fast are the photos and videos, loading, all those little nuances, again, there's an opportunity cost for bringing all that in-house. If you have a dedicated person that can do it, but likely their salary is gonna be much higher than hiring professional.

Katie:

Yeah, I would agree a hundred percent. Or if you have someone like a Melissa on your team who sometimes just gets right in there and learns how to make the edits, which I think is really cool too. You know, you have some people that are comfortable jumping into the backend of a website and making tweaks and doing things, but then you have other people that are just not comfortable and bringing in a professional to help you design and manage and keep all of your technical elements up to date. Speed of your site. All of those things is extremely important. It's really not just about putting some pages together and some images or video and some copy. There's so much on the backend that has to be managed as well for successful.

Melissa:

You bring up a good point though, in terms of having a good CMSA content management system that is easy to use. It's always been very important to me as somebody who's a bit of a Swiss Army knife and can get in there and maybe do a little bit of design. Um, you know, occasionally I'll crawl our site and I'll see a piece of content that is like maybe that could be updated or maybe that photo could be swapped out. And it's, it's nice that if I feel comfortable to do so, I am empowered by your team and have the tools. To be able to go in and make that quick change. Um, you know, it saves me time, effort, energy sometimes to make that quick, uh, change myself. Uh, it depends on what it is, right? But, you know, there's other pages that I crawl and I'm like, oh man, this one really needs an overhaul. And like, the look of it needs to be changed. And that would be where I would wanna bring somebody in because they can maybe give me a couple of the ideas, right? You know, they're gonna give me. Some different perspectives. Um, you do have a lot of really amazing, um, templates built into your CMS as well that that can give a good foundation for if I need to build my own little page within, within the website you guys have provided. So even if I am maybe am feeling less graphically inspired that day, I would say the templates are, are a good solid foundation.

Kat:

Okay. Uh, creating social media content, DIY or delegate. Ooh.

Katie:

I think it's a double-edged sword. I think it's both. Yeah, that's

Melissa:

both. A hundred percent. There you go. We're on the same page. Yeah. I mean, you know the, that, that is, there's gonna be timely things. We do events, you know, especially right after I do a big video launch, usually that initial post it's going, like right when the YouTube goes live, that's all happening very fast and so there are certain things that are more timely that. Just have to be in house with the nature of content calendars and teams working on something. Um, but yeah, having messaging that's hitting on different points and seasonally relevant and is happening consistent, that's where you have that, that back end of of support.

Kat:

Okay.

Melissa:

Yeah.

Kat:

Um, hold on. Loading. Okay, so the, yeah, sorry. So I knew I was somewhere and I lost my place. Um, so in addition to creating the social content, then the next step of that, which I think is where you guys were going, but DIY or delegate, social media scheduling and consistent posting.

Melissa:

Yeah, that's, that's, that's where we're at. That's where the professional comes in, right? Making sure that you've got that constant presence that you are, you know, like there's certain manufacturers that I wanna make sure that I'm hitting on, on a consistent basis because, um, they're key vendors for us, or, you know, partner, uh. Specifiers that we have in our community as well, you know, making sure that we're having that combo platter of different topics. And then again, you know, we, we have different seasons. We operate both in Arizona and in Washington, so there's things that are relevant to Arizona at certain times of the year. And there's things that are relevant to Washington at certain times of the year. And as, as our relationship has deepened year over year, you guys have kind of come to predict some of those things as well, which is nice.

Kat:

No.

Katie:

Um, I also say too that, you know, social media, like our social media team has data and insights that just a single individual wouldn't typically have as far as like time of day for posting or engagement or being able to really dive into the data to be able to see what is producing results. And then emulate that across your campaigns on a consistent basis. So if you're, you know, if you don't have a Melissa on your team and you're just a, an integrator over here that's really trying to figure this out on your own, that's another reason too, why it's so important is because somebody like a one Firefly team has data and insights and things that they can really dive into to help you make informed decisions.

Kat:

Okay. Well, I love it, you guys. That was fun. I thank you both for playing my little game with me and, uh, we did tally up the score and, uh, sorry, Katie, but Melissa took this one. Of course

Katie:

she

Kat:

did. So, sorry.

Melissa:

Melissa, what do, what do you want for your prize? Oh my goodness. I don't know. Your presence is present enough. Yeah,

Kat:

Melissa, we'll send you, we'll send something your way. Very nice.

Kat:

All right, well let's dive in. Okay, diving. Okay, so we're gonna dive in a little bit deeper here. So, Melissa, when why clients started working with an agency, what changed for in your team on your, like, day-to-day life? Like what, what's time saved results, peace of mind, like what was the initial impact that you felt?

Melissa:

Yeah. So, um, and we actually, before one Firefly we'd worked with a different marketing agency. So I can kind of speak to, you know, comparison a little bit. There are a lot of marketing firms out there that cater to all industries and they have to get to know that industry very well. They have to understand their messaging, their target customer, all of these things that make their, their, uh, work effective. Right. One Firefly because you are already in the industry. There is a lot of work that I did not have to do to communicate certain things. Now every integrator is even still going to be different in terms of size of business and the kind of business that they wanna take on. Not all of us are doing things like lighting yet, right? So there's, there's messaging that is still gonna be unique, but. You know, you know who Lutron is, you know, what we're trying to target in terms of, um, you know, homeowners. So there's a lot of of. Benchmarks that were already handled. I would say that where we have grown is again, you know, as we continue to move the goalposts, right, Google keeps changing what they've decided is the new normal. Um, you know, that has continued to keep us a pace ahead of everybody else in our local markets in terms of how we're showing up on search engines. And, um, you know, we know that that's still incredibly important. With AI coming into it, we're starting to filter into AI results now because we were already being there. So, you know, like it's just, there's, there's several things in terms of just staying one step ahead that I feel like we are now at versus working with a traditional firm. Um. You know, where, where things can can be a little bit more stale. Now, I will say that was some years ago. You guys, we've got, we've got quite a relationship going now, right? But I do feel like even still the iterations of working with one Firefly, our scope today is very different from the scope that we had when we first started. Because all these products are different. Google is different, right? You know, word. Yeah. And you guys, you guys do a good job of, of trying to stay ahead of that.

Kat:

Well, I think you hit on something interesting there, so I'll go to Katie for this one. Um, Katie, on your side of the table, what makes a great integrator agency relationship? What do you wish that all of our clients understood going in?

Katie:

Yeah, well, I First thing is trust, right? Trust is a must that rhymes, uh, didn't even mean for that to happen, but it, it truly is. Um, there has to be a level of transparency, teamwork, collaboration, and you really have to believe in the team that you've hired to help you with your marketing efforts. And, you know, that kind of ties into the point that marketing is not a light switch, right? It takes time and consistency. In collaboration to build real momentum. So being committed to the process and leaning in, even when you're busy, even when you have 1,000,001 things going on, is what is going to help make that great relationship. It works when there's mutual respect and accountability and truly just a shared vision for growth. Um, would be another thing that comes to mind. I'm hearing communication.

Kat:

Yes. That's what I'm saying, communication. Just keep the lines of communication open between all parties.

Melissa:

Yeah, yeah. It is. It is. It is absolutely not plug and play. Um, and it's not. You know, coast mode either, you know, we, Katie and I meet, what, twice a month, um, at least. And there are conversations happening in between those meetings. There's content calendars being sent. Um, you know, it's, it's important that I'm staying in informed on what that team is doing so that I can make sure that it's, it's what we would ultimately want to be doing because it is an investment. Mm-hmm. And it's one that we wanna make sure that we're active with. Right.

Kat:

Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's, let's put another fun one out here. Let's liven up this party for all of our listeners. Can you guys tell me, we'll start with you, Katie, give you time to think about it. Melissa, Katie, what marketing lesson have you had to learn the hard way? Did you have a fail or something you wish somebody told you sooner or something funny happened to you out there in the world?

Katie:

Oh, well, okay, so I do have, I'll, I'll share two, but make it really quick. So I really wish that somebody had told me sooner that success isn't about doing all the things right. It's about doing the right things so that you have consistency. It's based on strategy. Early in my career, I thought more was better. More posts, more blogs, more emails, more activity. All of those things. But over time I realized that marketing without a clear purpose is truly just noise. So that is a, a true lesson that I think is important for people to understand. And then on the funny side, when I first started with one Firefly, I didn't even know that this industry existed, this audio visual integrator industry. And so. I was learning, um, drinking from a fire hose, you know, just all the things within the industry. And I remember one time I was on the phone with a client and I was sharing my screen and I was doing some type of like, um, we were building out like a blog editorial calendar. And I just could not understand the difference between Sonos and Sonance and he just was not having it. It was driving him absolutely nuts. And I just, no. And um, you know, so that's one of the things that I think some of the account managers and some of our team when they come on board, there is a little bit of a learning curve sometimes with learning this industry. Um, but again, that goes back to like what makes a good partnership is just that trust and that collaboration and really just. Helping each other see it through, you know? Um, but I did, I got chastised for that one. You know, he's like, how do you work for this business? And you don't know the difference between Sonos and Sonance, you know? Sorry.

Melissa:

Oh, they do sound similar, but they do different difference. Well, they

Melissa:

throw, so just throw Sony in there too. Right. You know, and I know. So, yeah, so I think a major learning lesson for me was just continuing to adapt my tools, tools get better and better, and not staying with the same tool just because it's what I'm comfortable with using. Like a perfect example is I'm a Photoshop girly, right? Like I've been in Photoshop for a really long time. There's things that I do in there that take way more time than they do in Canva. Know, it's something that I've had to learn over the last year. It's like, okay, Canva is really a shortcut, you know? Mm-hmm. It's not the perfect shortcut for everything all the time, but you know, continuing to add those tools to my arsenal so that I'm not. I'm able to do more fast. Right. And I think, um, you know, AI is also starting to become more and more of a component of that as well, just in terms of not, uh, doing things the long and hard way, trying to figure out the shortcuts and the back doors and things that allow me to, to get there twice as fast, but hopefully with the same, you know, amount of of work done. Right.

Katie:

Yeah. What's the saying? Work. Smarter, smarter,

Kat:

harder, smarter, not harder. Yeah. Yeah. Guys, I learned something from both of you there. I, not that I didn't expect you to have smart answers, I don't wanna diminish that because I do expect that from you guys, but. It's way above the bar that I thought we were hitting there. But these are life lessons I'm taking from this. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna have a great team. Yeah. Yeah. That's why you're here. That's why we brought you in. Uh, we knew how good of a team you were and lessons we're learning today. Okay, Melissa, speaking of lessons we're learning today. Uh, yes. My clients, you guys are known and you do some truly impressive video work, both from like short form highlight videos, and really long in-depth project tours on your YouTube channel. Uh, can you tell us a little bit more about the kind of the thought process behind those videos, what you guys are doing out there, why that's such a priority for your team, and the kind of impact you've seen from that?

Melissa:

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So that's it also been an evolution as well, so it's been kind of fun to see that growth. Um, you know, the, the expression a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, if you have a thousand pictures or a million pictures contained in a video, how much information are you able to get across? Right. And I've always found in our marketing, it's very hard to find one photo that shows. A TV and shades and lights and all the things that we do, right? Like it's, it's very hard. Um, so you know, you're either communicating that with like, just luxury and people aren't sure what they're looking at, right? Or you take that up a notch and find other vehicles to communicate that. And video has been really powerful. Um, it's evolved from. B roll, like just kind of looking at technology with fancy music to hey, what if we talked on camera? And you know, Lee has been on camera in almost every single one of our videos. Uh, but we continue to bring people into the videos as well, which is really fun. Uh, manufacturers are starting to pick up on it, so they're asking if we can partner and do something. Um, we've developed a little bit of a, an editorial. Style, if you will. And, um, a lot of that actually is very much in-house, um, in terms of the creative control, editing, et cetera. Um, you know, Lee and I actually collaborate really personally on the, the messaging and what's the story, right? Why are we watching that? And I think that's become more and more important over the years as we get into, oh, how do I put this nicely, A shorter attention span society. Um, we have to get to the point right away, right? You know, we've got maybe five seconds in the beginning of that video to capture their attention. So that's, I think one of the biggest takeaways I've had in like the last couple of years is that you really have to give them that boom at the beginning and then maybe you can come back to a nice, smooth intro, but you gotta hook 'em.

Kat:

Good welcome. I love what you said there. I think that's, I think that's really important and really relevant. You know, before when you were talking about updating your tools as time goes by, don't keep doing the same things, just comfortable adapt. Mm-hmm. Our, our culture has kind of changed the way that we consume content. Not only are the mechanisms that display that content or, or bring that content to you changing, but people's desire for content is much different than it used to be. Mm-hmm. And so I think adapting to that is really powerful.

Melissa:

Yeah, it's fun. I always like to say that I'm in every one of our videos, but I'm rarely on screen. I'm usually hiding behind a countertop or over in the chair. You know, I. I

Katie:

love it.

Melissa:

You said something else, or like the boat video

Katie:

when you're like in the boat, but you're laying down in the boat. Down

Melissa:

the boat. Yeah. Yeah. Or like I've been caught on the drone before, you know, like I can't always hide. Um, and then I am actually in one of our videos in, uh, RA's headquarters tour in Austin, Texas. Um, if you've ever seen me give a catcher demo, you know, that's something I'm also very passionate about as well, just having. Really good quality light should be accessible to everyone. Um, and you know, Ketra has made a product that I love talking about, and so when we showed up at their Austin, Texas headquarters and I showed up ready, like camera ready, Lee's like, all right, I guess. You can go on today. So, you know, we did a safety take. We did, we did one with me and one without me so that I could decide as, as a good editor, whether I really wanted to be in it or not. Um, but I ultimately decided that I did. So

Kat:

I love that. I think that was a great one. You nailed something else there. And that's, um, what we do is hard to explain. Mm-hmm.

Kat:

And video does a really interesting job of communicating what technology can do. All of our stuff moves, it automates it, there's. Things are happening.

Melissa:

Yeah. And when you press a button, when you press a button and you engage a scene and four or five things start happening, like that's a wow factor moment for sure.

Kat:

Yeah. Okay. Katie, let's say someone out there is listening because we know they are. What if they realize their current approach isn't cutting it? Whether that's they're not doing anything or what they're doing isn't just, isn't just happening, it's not popping somewhere. What's the best place to start?

Katie:

Hmm. I would say a proper discovery in goal defining. I mean, definitely, you know, you need to sit down. You need to understand what are your goals for the business, what are you, what are your revenue goals? What does success look like to you? And really start to dive that in, have a true discovery of what that looks like. And then you can start plugging and playing strategy around what that looks like. But the first thing is, is like, do you have your goals to find, you know, and do you know what it is that you're trying to go after? So that's definitely the best place to start.

Kat:

Melissa, for you, what's the best place to start?

Melissa:

Yeah, I mean, I would definitely say to, to Katie's point, you wanna define things like your target customer. You wanna know who you're trying to reach, you want to know where they are. And like in our different markets, for example, there are. Suburban areas, neighborhoods specific thing. I can get very specific in terms of who I know I want to go after, but I have to be able to communicate that. And so I think that's the really important part is having an idea of that. Um, a perfect example is. A very broad umbrella term in our industry is the word smart home, right? Mm-hmm. So I'm very careful about how I go about using that word in marketing because you can blow through a budget really fast. Um, there's a lot that can apply to a term like smart home. It's a, it's applicable. It, it has its place, but you have to really know how to execute that. So, you know, I could say I want to go target smart home, um, but that's. Really not what I want to do. Right? Because that ultimately applies to every smart widget that's out there today, including washers, dryers, and all kinds of other things. So, um, yeah, having, having that goal in, in, in, in mind and then also having some idea of a budget, you know, I mean, you're, you're a business owner, you have. Many things to balance. You do wanna know ultimately what you feel comfortable with spending. I would say that ultimately there is an investment here that is, um, a long-term investment and there are a couple of different. Buckets when I'm talking about my marketing investment. Um, and an analogy I use quite often is like oven versus microwave methods. Mm-hmm. Right? Uh, what's the slow bake? I'm investing certain things into my website that are gonna live there forever and ever and continue to expand my presence online. That's not going anywhere. So that's a nice oven casserole, right? But then on the other side, I've got, you know, Google ads and things like that, and that's a microwave method that's gonna get me out there really fast. It may or may not be like it doesn't last. Right? Because I'm, I'm going through that budget every month. Yeah. Um, so, so knowing kind of the breakdown of what you wanna spend on both sides of that, I think is really important because that second number, the microwave number, I think is the one that can sometimes scare people. You know, like it's just you, you're spending it every single month. So knowing. What you feel comfortable with that investment beforehand, and then get a marketing opinion, a marketing company's opinion, in terms of what that will get you for that money. Because you may be surprised that like, you know, at a certain benchmark level, you can double your results versus if you are under a certain threshold, it may or may not be effective at all. So, you know, knowing kind of where that sweet spot is is important. But just kind of going into that conversation, knowing. What you feel comfortable with too.

Kat:

Nailed it guys. This? Yeah, go ahead. No, that just a great point, great point. Thought you wanted to add something in there, Katie, I apologize. Um, no, you're good guys. I learned a lot today and I'm excited we had you both on, 'cause I think this is a really powerful conversation that kind of highlights knowing your strengths and your weaknesses. And the hardest thing for anybody to have to do is ask for help. So if people want to, based on your conversations today, or just to say hi, wanna reach out to you, Melissa, where can people find you?

Melissa:

So I am on LinkedIn. I also manage all of our y client social media. So if you end up shooting me a DM there, you may or may not get a response directly from me. Um, and then of course, uh, on, uh, on her email as

Kat:

well. Um, yeah. Okay. And just for the people out there, Melissa is a swifty and has some cool cats. So if you guys wanna chat with her about that, you're welcome to do that as well. Uh, Katie,

Katie:

where can people find you? I'm also on LinkedIn as well. Um, and I can be contacted here at one Firefly. Um, or truly any social media avenue. I have all the socials. So

Kat:

have all the socials. Alright,

Katie:

all the

Kat:

socials. Well, uh, thank you guys for, for coming in. I'm gonna drop you guys out if I can. I can. It's. All right, so thanks everybody again for tuning into another episode of Automation Unplugged Marketing Experts. Uh, we'll see you next time.

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Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

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Resources and links from the interview:

• Wipliance LinkedIn Profile Page


• About Wipliance Company


• Melissa Mitchell LinkedIn Profile Page

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