Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Neumark and Holly Bowyer, partners in Media & Marketing Minds, a marketing services agency.
Julie and Holly, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Julie: Holly and I met while working at YP.com (The Yellow Pages). We were part of the B2B marketing team working to bring awareness to SMBs about YP’s digital suite of advertising services. It was seriously one of the most fun jobs I’ve had—such a talented, awesome group of people, including of course, Holly! At the time, my formal marketing background was limited to tech startups or smaller businesses, so this was my first corporate job. Prior to marketing, I was a touring musician—so, slight jump there.
Holly: My career has been mostly in corporate America in the media and technology space. I graduated from college with a marketing degree and went to work for a magazine publisher, Knapp Communications, who published Bon Appetit and Architectural Digest. That was such a fun job! I felt like Anne Hathaway in Devil Wears Prada, but my boss was amazingly nice and extremely smart. I went on to work at JD Powers & Associates heading up their media research before heading to the LA Times for ten years to head up their Advertising Marketing team. There came a time when I realized that I NEEDED to get some online, digital experience if I was going to stay in the media world, so I got a job at Yahoo! I loved that job too and met some amazing people who are now spread around at so many different companies. As Julie mentioned, my last corporate gig was at YP.com where I headed up Portfolio Marketing and was responsible for taking our products to market. The team was great! We called ourselves the FUNZONE because we all had fun working together and doing our jobs. Unfortunately, YP was acquired in the summer of 2017 and then it was time to go out on my own and apply all that wonderful corporate experience to something else.
Julie: Ya, it was tough to lose the FUNZONE! But, like Holly, I decided to go out on my own as well, after a friend asked me if I could help her with the online marketing of her business. I found that I really enjoyed the consulting world and so I started my agency, Neu Marketing Group. Holly was doing the same with Media & Marketing Minds and we started partnering on a bunch of projects. After a year of doing that—and delivering 1099s to each other—we decided to bring it all under one roof and we formed a partnership under Media & Marketing Minds at the start of 2019.
Has it been a smooth road?
Julie: Being a business owner has its challenges for sure—there is no doubt about that—but I can honestly say that out of all my endeavors in life, this one has been the most smooth sailing. Holly is the best partner I could ever imagine having. I think she may have ruined it for me ever going into business with anyone else because the bar has been set too high! I think the key to our success as partners comes down to two things: trust and balance. We naturally balance each other out—which is nice, because that is effortless—and the trust factor? You simply can’t go into a business venture with someone if you don’t have rock solid trust.
As for the business development side of things, 90% of our clients come from word of mouth and we are going on about two years of that. It keeps us so busy that it’s sort of embarrassing that our own blog and social media handles aren’t given as much love as they deserve! We’re too busy loving our clients! We’re working on that though and I suppose it’s a good problem to have. I guess for me, the biggest ongoing challenge is scaling what we do. We are both so hands on with our clients, but we know that in order to grow, we need to bring on other team members in a larger capacity.
Holly: My time in the corporate world was great. I gained experience, met amazing people and realized the kind of leader I wanted to be (and one that I didn’t want to be). The tough part was the amount of re-organizations, mergers & acquisitions and downsizing that happened in each of my jobs. I was laid-off more times than I cared to admit and had to manage through downsizing a few different teams which is never any fun. When I finally decided to leave Yahoo, it was because I was spending so much time doing organizational things and not doing the creative marketing stuff I loved. My energy was sapped and I was not enthusiastic about going to work each day. Starting my own agency was a bit daunting at first, but I quickly realized that all that experience I had could be put to good use and I was working on projects that gave me energy again.
And partnering with Julie was one of the best things I could have done. It makes a difference to have a partner at your side to work with, brainstorm with, commiserate with and have some fun with. I don’t think there is a day that goes by where we do not spend time laughing together about life and work situations. M3 has done well and we have managed to stay busy with a variety of clients, but we are always focused on business development. As Julie mentioned, our business development has been mostly word-of-mouth and tapping into our network and our challenge is to implement a broader variety of marketing tactics to expand our awareness and grow the business. We do that for our clients everyday!
I think one of the toughest things is to spend time with a prospective client and put thoughtful proposals together but then the project does not come to fruition for a variety of reasons. We put a lot of thought into our proposals and each one is unique and customized to the business and their marketing needs. When we submit a proposal, we are invested and committed and when it doesn’t happen, that is tough.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Media & Marketing Minds story. Tell us more about the business.
Julie: Media & Marketing Minds (M3) is a marketing services agency, specializing in helping business of all sizes across a variety of industries to enhance their brand awareness and grow their business with their “Tell it, Plan it, Sell it” approach:
– TELL the story, through the development of a brand narrative and messaging
– PLAN the right marketing strategy
– SELL it to the right audience through the creation and execution of awareness and lead generation campaigns.
I think we’re realists who aren’t afraid to dream big with our clients when creating and implementing marketing plans to achieve their business goals. Our hope is that working with us is a collaborative experience that feels like you’ve hired an in-house marketing team.
I feel like one of the things we’re known for is that not only do we get the job done well and on time, but our clients tend to have a lot fun working with us. I’ve come to learn that fun and likeability are pretty important qualities. Life is too short to work with people you don’t like!
Holly: I think Julie said it well! What we bring to our clients is creativity, experience and a passion to do the job well. We have had a number of clients tell us that they love working with us because we become part of their team. We get to know them and their business and we are invested in their success and their goals.
And we do have fun! With Julie’s musical talents, there is usually an original song that is written and sung for the client about our overall experience. For me, my job in those situations is back-up singer and flailing dancer.
Julie: Flailing?! You are NOT flailing!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Julie: Timely question in the current climate! If there is any prediction that I dare to make, it is that the digital/virtual world will only continue to be a bigger part of all of our lives. Take events and retail, for example. They have had to adapt digitally and virtually and find new ways to keep their businesses alive. Because of this, I believe that the technology that supports and enhances these experiences will develop at an even more rapid pace than before. Necessity is the mother of invention! What does that mean for a marketing services agency like ours? I think it means that we will need to keep up on all of these emerging technologies and how they can help solve the needs of the businesses we serve.
Holly: I think that the use of technology to connect and purchase digitally will become even more prevalent as we move forward. Think about where we were five years ago and how many modes of communication that we use today did not exist or had only recently started. I think there will be so many innovations in the tech world that connect people to people and people to businesses for communication, guidance and purchasing. I wish we had that crystal ball so we could get ahead of the game and be even more ready to apply those emerging technologies to unique and creative marketing strategies.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mediamarketingminds.com/
- Phone: 8187311985
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mediamarketingminds/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mediamarketingminds/
Image Credit:
Robin Foley (main image), Emma Bertrand
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