Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucy Rendler-Kaplan.
Lucy, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today. My very first job out of undergrad was in marketing – I had always wanted to be a writer and was all set to move to a really small town and write for their local paper when a friend told me her job was hiring – it was for this new energy drink (Red Bull!) and they were hiring for more field marketing managers. I’d always been drawn to marketing but had never thought about making it my career until that day.
I went for the interview and have been hooked ever since! I worked in corporate America and for really great, exciting start-ups, and had always wanted to start my own company, but was scared to death to take that next step.
Finally, in 2011, the start-up I was working for seemed that it was going to be acquired and the fear of not being able to pay my rent was bigger than my fear of trusting myself to go out on my own, so I opened Arkay Marketing & PR.
Has it been a smooth road? If anyone tells you that being an entrepreneur is a smooth road, RUN! But, it’s been the most fun and rewarding. I think my struggles have been what any other person that starts a business faces – scaling, knowing when to say no, finding the line where you know what you can handle and when it’s time to ask for help, finding those people that you can TRUST to ask for help….and like others, that’s burned me in the past, but everything is a lesson and you learn and grow, and now I’m in a position with my business that I never could have dreamed of.
So, let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Arkay Marketing & PR story. Tell us more about the business. I think what sets Arkay Marketing & PR apart from other firms is the breadth of experience we bring and the variety of opportunities we offer to clients. We don’t do straight marketing, we blend social media with field marketing, content writing with organic and paid instances…we have field marketing street teams in every major city in the country, and some of those members have been with us for over 15 years as I moved to different jobs before opening my own doors! Arkay Marketing & PR has worked in many industries as well, from CPG to the NFL to fashion to Lucy building a developing her own app that will be launching this spring.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade? I love that the world is waking up something we, as marketers, have been doing for years in influencer marketing. And not simply looking and focusing on the numbers of follower’s people have, but what it TRULY means to have influence and how to really build mutually beneficial relationships with each person you work with. It used to be that brands would throw money at celebrities to take a photo holding their product (c’mon – we’ve ALL been guilty of that at some point!) and now it’s really finding ways to engage with everyday people like we are – to show how our brands can seamlessly fit into people’s daily lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.arkaymarketing.com
- Phone: 847.347.2102
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/lucyrk78
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/arkaymarketing
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/lucyrk78
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