How Did I Get into Digital Marketing?
When we began in 2011, Mathnasium Corp. was still developing their support structure. There weren't any FBCs or Start Up Specialists - There wasn't even a marketing department! Jen and I got a 1-week training course in Los Angeles and 4 days with an "Apprentice Center" (Thank you Reggie Kellum!) and then we were "ready" to open our center! Thankfully, things have changed for the better. Owners are starting with a lot more support and confidence, but there is still one challenging question we face: "How do I market and advertise my Mathnasium?". Jennifer and I came from an entrepreneurial background and I’ve known I was going to be a business owner since I was 14. I have tried and failed many times over the years and one thing I've come to understand is that marketing and advertising will make the difference in whether you fail or succeed. You have two resources that are like oxygen for your business: money & time. You have to treat both as a precious commodity.
Marketing and advertising methods have fundamentally changed over the years I’ve spent as a business owner, and they continue to evolve today. These days people shop, research, make decisions, and buy from their phone or computer. I had to ask myself – if I needed a service, what actions would I take to make it happen? Then, I reverse engineered the process and quickly understood that I needed to be advertising on the internet so that I could be placed right in front of those actively looking for my services.
Like many of you, I went to the owners group to see what other franchisees were doing and not a single person was happy with the digital advertising vendor at the time. I was in charge of advertising for my location, and after getting the impression that I’d be wasting money using the recommended vendor, I decided to learn the ins and outs for myself. I attacked it like a job, spending days and nights building a plan and then executing that plan. It took me about six months of continuous learning, tweaking, and A/B testing to get to a point where I felt like things were going well. However, I kept pushing. After the first year of running my own digital campaigns, another owner asked me to help them learn how to manage their account. I figured why not?! I love helping others. However, I quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be easy, and I may as well have been trying to teach him Chinese over the phone out of a book. Clearly, it wasn’t going to work. Just like in Mathnasium, if you don’t know the “Why” behind the “How”, you’re going to struggle. He ended up just asking me to take it over completely and manage it for him.
So, at this point in time I was a relatively new Mathnasium owner and now someone wanted me to manage their digital marketing account? Sure - why not. What’s crazy is that it worked better for him than it did for me. I could not believe it!
He asked me if he could refer someone else to me, and then another, and then another! And then his referrals had their own referrals! The cycle repeated a few times and before I knew it, I’d accidentally backed into a new business. I’ve been helping other Mathnasium owners since 2012, and now find myself working with 100s of centers across the US and Canada.
I think what really sets me apart from the other digital marketing services out there is the fact that I’m a Mathnasium franchisee first and foremost. As a franchisee, I have unique insights into the business that 3rd party agencies are completely unaware of. I’m continuously testing and experimenting with my own locations to make sure that I’m getting the best results possible, and then I pass the improvements on to each of my clients so that they may reap the rewards as well. I’m always thinking out of the box and looking to innovate in order to help your business grow and will continue to do so! Contact me today and let's start pushing your location to be the best it can be!