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Getting Their Message Across

Seth Stratton wasn’t belittling what he does. He was just stating what most would consider the obvious — “business law isn’t what you would call sexy.”

Usually.

Indeed, when the state Supreme Judicial Court overturns a $3.5 million settlement awarded to a couple living next to a golf course after 651 stray golf balls hit their property, frightening their young child and forcing them to confine themselves indoors for fear of injury — which it did almost a year ago — that’s business law that tumbles into the ‘sexy’ category. (The case became front-page news in the Boston Globe and other large daily publications.)

Understanding this, and also understanding that his firm, East Longmeadow-based Fitzgerald Law, P.C., has a few golf courses in its portfolio of business clients and would like to add more, Stratton posted this item on LinkedIn:

“Interesting SJC decision worth noting in the context of golf course neighboring residential developments. In essence, the SJC overturned a $3.5 million verdict in favor of the neighboring homeowners on the basis that the jury needed to consider the reasonableness standard in connection with an easement for the ‘reasonable and efficient’ operation of a golf course. Always a good sign when courts emphasize reasonableness in trial decisions.”

He then attached a link to a Mass Lawyers Weekly article on the case.

While the post falls into the category of education, it can also be considered marketing and building brand awareness, said Stratton, adding that the item speaks to how the marketing and advertising of legal services, something first permitted 46 years ago, has certainly changed over that time, even over the past 10 years or so, and certainly since the days when the yellow pages, and especially the back page of the phone book, were at the top of the list of options for many firms and sole practitioners.

“We’re not trained for this; they didn’t teach it when I was in law school. In fact, it was the opposite — they were teaching you how to be thoughtful about what you do, while marketing is sort of shouting from the rooftops, ‘we’re greater than sliced bread.’ And they still don’t teach it now.”

“That post took me five minutes to prepare and share,” he told BusinessWest. “Twenty years ago, firms would spend hours on a client alert, color, printing, and mass mailing.”

With that, he explained how a LinkedIn post can reach a large audience quickly, efficiently, and at minimum expense, and how social media has become a larger force in an equation that has many components — and questions to be answered.

Indeed, there are many aspects to be considered with marketing, said Tim Mulhern, a partner with the Springfield-based firm Shatz, Schwartz & Fentin, noting, as others we spoke with did, that marketing isn’t something law students typically study.

Amy Royal

Amy Royal says the importance of law marketing continues to grow, as does the number of options for law firms to consider.

“We’re not trained for this; they didn’t teach it when I was in law school. In fact, it was the opposite — they were teaching you how to be thoughtful about what you do, while marketing is sort of shouting from the rooftops, ‘we’re greater than sliced bread,’” he said. “And they still don’t teach it now.”

So lawyers and firms have had to learn as they go, he said, adding that there is much to learn as the methods for getting a message across have evolved. Meanwhile, firms have to decide if they want to do it themselves — many have marketing committees comprised of lawyers — or hire a marketing director or an outside PR firm, an expensive step (one that didn’t have to be taken years ago), which many of them have taken.

And the job descriptions for these marketing directors have certainly changed as the times have.

“When I began my career in legal marketing in 1995, law firms were just starting to introduce websites as a tool to differentiate themselves from the competition,” said Jennifer Jacque, head of Marketing and Business Development for Springfield-based Bulkley Richardson. “Responsibilities of marketing professionals in law firms were limited to tasks such as writing bios and planning events. Since then, law firms have expanded their core portfolio of marketing services to include branding, public relations, advertising, social media, digital marketing, market research, communications, accolades and awards submissions, and more.”

Meanwhile, the importance of marketing and building brand awareness has grown steadily, said Raipher Pellegrino, managing partner of Springfield-based Raipher, P.C., which specializes in personal injury, medical malpractice, and related fields. He cited several reasons why.

Competition is one of them, he said, noting that firms in this market now compete against regional and national giants that open small offices in markets like this one — and they have for some time now. More recently, there is increased competition from firms from Boston and other large markets who can take advantage of shifts brought on from COVID — especially Zoom calls with clients and Zoom court hearings instead of the in-person variety of both — to take cases in this market that previously would have been prohibitive.

These same shifts bring down the cost of client representation, Pellegrino went on, making it possible for a potential client to hire a firm in a larger market that might previously have been out of their price range (more on this later).

All of this points to the importance of marketing and business development and the need for firms to stay on the cutting edge, said those we spoke with — whatever that might be.

 

Case in Point

As he talked about marketing and the many changes that have come to the profession and the legal landscape, if you will, in Western Mass., Mulhern noted that, among other things, the names of many of the firms are shorter — in some cases, much shorter.

“Years ago, if you added a new partner, you added their name to the firm,” he said, noting that some firms had six, eight, or even more names on the letterhead and sign over the door.

Shorter names are, for the most part, a function of marketing and branding, he said, adding that there are myriad other parts of this equation, from a strong web presence to involvement in the community, such as with his firm’s charitable foundation.

Indeed, as Jacque noted, marketing and business development covers areas ranging from PR to submitting nominations for the many ‘best of’ awards that lawyers can put on their résumés, the press releases for which start flooding the inboxes of media outlets each fall, when the announcements are made.

The world of law marketing changed dramatically in June 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, essentially striking down prohibitions against advertising by attorneys.

Tim Mulhern

Tim Mulhern says that, while law marketing has certainly evolved, word-of-mouth referrals are still effective.

Until then, marketing was a function of signage on a building or office door, networking — everything from joining the Rotary Club to being active with the local chamber of commerce — and word-of-mouth referrals, all of which, and especially the last two, are still very important pieces of the puzzle and perhaps the most important, said those we spoke with.

Indeed, Stratton said he and other lawyers at Fitzgerald are very visible, attending a number of business functions (the recent Developers Conference in Springfield is a good example) and fundraisers for area nonprofits. Meanwhile, word of mouth has long been perhaps the most effective way to build a book of business.

“Word of mouth has always been important,” said Mulhern, who specializes in business organizations, estate planning, and real estate. “My favorite way to get a new client is to have another lawyer say, ‘Tim knows how to do this stuff.’”

But while advertising was frowned upon by many in the business for years after the 1977 ruling, the many aspects of marketing and brand building have become more accepted and increasingly important over the years, for those reasons mentioned earlier. The questions have always concerned how to market.

And the answer usually depends on what type of law one specializes in and what audiences they are trying to reach.

“Marketing of law firms comes down to messaging — and then targeting who you want to be receiving this message,” said Jacque, noting that the work of targeting takes many forms and involves different mediums.

Amy Royal, founding partner of the Springfield-based Royal Law Firm, agreed, noting that her firm, which represents and counsels businesses on all aspects of labor and employment law, focuses on that specific audience.

That’s why she never took out ads in the yellow pages — she was solicited annually but always said no — and instead focused on business publications like this one.

“We’ve also expanded over the years into the digital space — and while we don’t do advertising, we do brand awareness on social media,” she said, adding that some firms have gone to platforms ranging from Facebook to Instagram and even TikTok to get their message out with videos, articles, links to reports on recent rulings, and more. Doing so enables them to reach large audiences inexpensively.

“Now, in order to be competitive, you have to advertise in some form. But you have to figure out what works for you.”

Meanwhile, the firm’s web page has become a valuable asset, especially since the start of the pandemic, for introducing people to the firm and its lawyers, and also disseminating information through a blog, articles, and links to articles, such as the ones Royal’s attorneys write regularly for BusinessWest.

 

Weighing the Facts

Overall, Royal said law firms often need to use several vehicles, including traditional forms of media, depending, again, on the audience they want to reach and the messages they want to send.

Pellegrino, who uses billboards, television, print, and other mediums, agreed, but added that, for many lawyers, especially those who specialize in different areas, targeting specific audiences can be more challenging.

“Now, in order to be competitive, you have to advertise in some form,” he told BusinessWest. “But you have to figure out what works for you; it’s a very difficult business to advertise in. If you were selling engagement rings, you’d target the 19- to 30-year-old audience. But who gets in accidents? What type of clientele are you targeting? Personal injury is a very difficult business to advertise.”

Meanwhile, measuring return on investment from whatever forms of marketing are used is more difficult with legal services than other products or services, Pellegrino went on.

“There’s no guarantee of what you’re going to get in return,” he said, adding that, while it’s like this for all industries, it’s especially true with the law and especially personal-injury law, where the goal is to get the higher-end cases with bigger returns.

Despite these challenges, he said marketing is ever-more important because the level of competition continues to increase, with regional and national firms specializing in personal injury moving into this market — and making their presence known.

And the advent of virtual hearings and client meetings enables firms in other markets to woo clients in the 413.

“Before, the Boston lawyers didn’t want to take cases in Western Mass.,” he said. “But now they do because they can do a lot of the hearings by Zoom, so they don’t have to drive out here; it’s more cost-effective, and it’s really good for the consumer. And it means that it’s more important to advertise.”

Stratton agreed, noting that, overall, success in this industry is about forging relationships and continually strengthening those relationships. This is accomplished by staying visible and front of mind — in every way imaginable, be it by attending functions, being active in the community, writing articles to be published in BusinessWest, or, yes, sending links to articles on developments and cases like the one involving that couple living just off the golf course.

Doing so helps show that, while business law isn’t sexy — usually — it’s important, especially to those in business.

Legal advertising usually isn’t sexy, either, but it’s equally important, and while the landscape has changed dramatically since June 1977, and even over the past five years, the basic mission remains the same — to build a brand and put one’s best foot forward.

Business Talk Podcast Special Coverage

We are excited to announce that BusinessWest, in partnership with Living Local, has launched a new podcast series, BusinessTalk. Each episode will feature in-depth interviews and discussions with local industry leaders, providing thoughtful perspectives on the Western Massachuetts economy and the many business ventures that keep it running during these challenging times.

Go HERE to view all episodes

Episode 107: April 11, 2022

George Interviews Darby O’Brien, founder and principal of Darby O’Brien Advertising

BusinessWest Editor George O’Brien engages in provocative discussion with Darby O’Brien (no relation), founder and principal of Darby O’Brien Advertising. Speaking from 42 years of experience, Darby believes businesses have become too cautious in their marketing and advertising and far less willing to take on anything approaching risk — to their detriment. The give and take between the two O’Briens is must listening, so join us on BusinessTalk, a podcast presented by BusinessWest in partnership with Living Local and sponsored by PeoplesBank.

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Sales and Marketing

The Art and Science of Story Telling

The team at BRIGADE

The team at BRIGADE shows off the many honors garnered at the recent Ad Club of Western Mass. award show.    Photo by Stephanie Craig Photography

It was just a few weeks after Kirsten Modestow and her husband relocated to Western Mass. from San Francisco that she got the phone call that would ultimately change her life. The person at the other end was looking for someone to do some freelance work for a fledgling vodka brand called Svedka. As many people know, Svedka has gone on to become the top-selling imported vodka in the U.S. What they may not know is that, with that notable first client, Modestow created the marketing firm BRIGADE, one that has certainly built on that solid foundation in every way.

Kirsten Modestow says the branding company she would call BRIGADE (yes, all caps) was started on her kitchen table.

Which doesn’t exactly make it unique; many startups are blueprinted in such a setting. Which makes this one different is what happened after it was conceived.

For starters, that kitchen table would later become an official work station for one of the first hires, and soon other parts of the house were absorbed by additional team members as they came on board.

“The first person was in the living room, the second person was at the dining-room table, the next one was in the spare bedroom … then we all moved into the garage,” she explained. “When there was no room in the refrigerator for people’s lunches, we knew it was time to go.”

By that, she meant move into larger quarters, which the company has done a few times, but we’ll get back to that later.

The other thing that separates BRIGADE from other ventures hatched on the kitchen table is the pace of growth. Indeed, over the past 13 years, the company has expanded to 35 employees, most of them artists and designers who commute to the current home on Route 9 in Hadley from across Western Mass. and well beyond.

And their client list includes a number of prominent national brands, including Svedka vodka, the Wyndham Hotel Group, Black Box Wines, and Vertical Water, as well as some local businesses, such as Esselon Café, just a few hundred yards down Route 9.

Actually, Svedka wasn’t a national brand when Modestow was hired as a freelancer to help with a branding campaign. It was a fledgling vodka label looking to break out — and it did, big time; a few years ago, it surpassed Smirnoff as the top-selling imported vodka in the U.S.

The team at BRIGADE designed packaging for Svedka strawberry seltzer.

The team at BRIGADE designed packaging for Svedka strawberry seltzer.

“We’ve been along for the ride,” Modestow said, noting how the growth of Svedka and BRIGADE have mirrored one another. “Over the past 13 years, we’ve grown with them.”

But BRIGADE hasn’t outgrown Modestow’s kitchen table, then a space on University Drive, and then a totally renovated foreign-car sales and service shop further down Route 9 because of one client — although Svedka certainly has played a huge role in that transformation.

Instead, it’s been the company’s ability to work with clients to create branding that resonates, builds name recognition, and drives sales, Modestow explained, adding that this is what branding, the company’s specialty, is all about.

Elaborating, she said BRIGADE focuses on helping clients tell their story, and to do that, she and her team must first understand what that story is and then develop effective ways to communicate it.

“We get to know a client by doing an audit of their existing brand,” she explained. “We always see it as the client being the expert in what they do in their industry, and we bring in the branding piece, so it’s crucial to work with them as a partner.”

That was certainly the case with the new coffee bags the company created for Esselon Café. Coffee had long been a key ingredient in the restaurant’s recipe for success, said Modestow, but a while back, its leaders decided a new look was needed.

“People are more open to working with remote agencies. Before, it was a case where you went to an agency in one of the larger cities. Around 2006, when we started, there was a willingness to work with people who weren’t down the street, and that had a lot to do with our success.”

“We worked with them to determine how to capture the heart of Esselon and capture who and what Esselon is,” she explained, adding that BRIGADE came up with new packaging that drew on the Western Mass. landscape — specifically the Seven Sisters portion of the Holyoke Range — as well as new language: “All roads, bike paths, and quests for the best cup of coffee lead to Esselon Café.”

Kirsten Modestow

Kirsten Modestow

“The whole idea is that they’re on the bike path and everyone comes to Esselon; the place is packed, and you have to park illegally,” she explained. “We decided to embrace all that — we have these bike paths and roads that wrap around the bag, and we told this café story, and it’s been awesome for them; the bag is loved by Whole Foods, and retail sales have tripled because of it.”

For this issue, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at how BRIGADE has moved well beyond that kitchen table and grown its own brand by delivering services that tell a story and generate results.

Seeking an Ad-vantage

Modestow told BusinessWest that the BRIGADE story really starts in Boston, where she worked for the acclaimed marketing agency Hill Holiday Advertising and such clients as Dunkin’ Donuts.

When the dot-com sector was at its pinnacle, however, the place to be was San Francisco, and Modestow went there and had the opportunity to join a firm and work with brands such as Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), the video-game maker.

Her firm eventually closed its doors, however, after losing one of its mainstay clients, and Modestow and her husband were at a crossroads.

“I could afford to live in San Francisco for about four and half minutes after that,” she joked. “I think we sold our house within seven days and left.”

The two then made a pact of sorts. They would relocate to wherever one of them found a job first.

“He beat me by a day; he got a job in Western Massachusetts — he’s originally from Worthington — and we came here,” she explained.

And it wasn’t long after they landed that she got that life-altering phone call.

“Someone called and said, ‘I have a freelance opportunity for you on this startup vodka brand called Svedka,’” she recalled. “Over the past 13 years, we’ve grown with them and helped them along the way; they’ve been really wonderful to us.”

As noted earlier, the company quickly outgrew Modestow’s kitchen table, refrigerator, and garage, and settled into that space on University Drive, above the popular Hangar restaurant. It wasn’t exactly a long stay, though, because the company continued to grow at a rapid rate, doubling in size from five to nine employees in a few years.

It then relocated to the foreign-car shop — a site that required a massive renovation effort — but outgrew that in just over a year, as Modestow recalled, adding that the next home is intriguing on many levels.

A portion of the 8,500-square-foot facility was home to a Registry of Motor Vehicles office, and even though it’s been closed for quite some time, people still walk in the front door looking to renew their driver’s licenses, said David Bosch, the company’s operations manager.

Another portion of the facility has home to Zoe’s Fish House, he went on, adding that, while BRIGADE renovated all the spaces into work areas, including a banquet facility that never became reality, it kept the bar intact.

The company doesn’t have a liquor license, obviously, but it does use the bar for company functions, said Bosch. Meanwhile, it’s an unusual decorative touch, and it give the company a chance to showcase many of the brands it has helped develop in what would be described as a natural setting.

The space is wide open, said Modestow, adding that this the desired environment for a marketing firm where people work together to create solutions for clients.

“We work in branding, and a lot of that is people coming together to solve a problem,” she explained. “So being in a very open space, one that’s conducive to gathering, is important.”

BRIGADE should be in this home for quite some time, because there is not only ample room to grow, but plenty of business coming through the door as the company continues to build strong word-of-mouth referrals.

The new coffee bag that BRIGADE created for Esselon Café has helped spark a surge in retail sales.

The new coffee bag that BRIGADE created for Esselon Café has helped spark a surge in retail sales.

Indeed, as noted earlier, Svedka has been a dream first client and solid foundation for BRIGADE. But the company has been able to build on that foundation, said Modestow, and for several reasons.

One is the large number of contacts she made from her previous career stops, and the experience she gained working for national and global clients, a tremendous asset in this business, as in any other.

“Having the exposure in Boston and San Francisco enabled me to work on some high-caliber clients and hone my skill set that I could then pass on to people here,” she explained. “We started off with an ability to work on those high-caliber clients; we’re really good at it, so we’ve attracted through our work the attention of others.”

Another factor is a growing willingness among corporations to work with agencies not based in New York, Boston, or Los Angeles, or whatever major metropolis the corporation was based in or near.

“People are more open to working with remote agencies,” she noted. “Before, it was a case where you went to an agency in one of the larger cities. Around 2006, when we started, there was a willingness to work with people who weren’t down the street, and that had a lot to do with our success.”

Getting the Message Across

But easily the best reason for the company’s success is the results it has garnered for its clients, said Modestow, adding that more important than the awards the company has gained for its work — and it has won many — are the gains registered by the companies looking for help with their brand.

Which bring us back to Esselon Café.

That new packaging has won a number of awards for BRIGADE, said Modestow, but the bigger story is that dramatic rise in retail sales at Whole Foods and other locations.

It came about through that art and science of storytelling and creating a brand that speaks to who they are.

When asked about the methods for gaining such results, Modestow returned to the subject of effectively partnering with the client to solve a problem or revitalize a brand.

The client knows their industry, their product or service, and their story, she went on. BRIGADE essentially takes that insight and uses it to create a brand that conveys the story in a way that resonates.

Steps include the brand audit she described earlier, and also creation of brand strategy.

“We would work through positioning statements with the client, help them figure out their key messages, how they’re different, how they talk about themselves, what their voice is, and more,” she explained. “And once we have that platform, then we would go into the visual component of all this — bringing it all to life visually through some kind of toolkit, which might be a refresh logo or packaging or a new website. We’re helping them see how this language and this new positioning can visually come to life.”

As the company creates these strategies and brings them to life, it does so not with a hard focus on targeting specific demographic groups — a mistake some companies make when marketing and branding — but building a brand that’s “authentic.”

“I don’t think you build a brand to speak to a specific group of people,” she told BusinessWest. “You build a brand that’s true to who the brand should be, and then it resonates with the right people.

“A mistake you see is when companies think the key to their success is going out and capturing the Millennials,” she went on. “Well, the Millennial doesn’t want to be captured — you have to find them because you have something compelling that made them want to believe in you. It’s about consumer experience and storytelling; people want an authentic experience with a company.”

As an example of how the firm partners with its clients, Modestow referenced the Wyndham Hotel Group and some of its specific brands, including one in particular — Travelodge.

“It was kind of an old brand with old, tired signage,” she explained, noting that, at the time, Wyndham hadn’t put much emphasis on branding, but has since changed that attitude. “We helped refresh the Travelodge brand, we helped them with an ad campaign, and we helped them with a new way to talk about themselves.”

Another example is work with Svedka to launch a new line of spiked seltzers. The company designed the cans in a way that were true to the Svedka brand but also resonated within the growing spiked-seltzer product category, said Don Magri, the company’s chief financial officer.

“They came to us with a good amount of research that they had already done on their consumer and who they were really trying to target,” he explained. “You go through iterations, but you’re really trying to creating a design that is true to the brand going into a new category, but also hitting the demographic they’re trying to reach.”

Looking down the road, those at BRIGADE said they look to continue providing clients with what they call ‘responsive branding,’ so that they are ready for the future and their brands are as well.

In short, they aim to do what the company’s done from the beginning — grow with its clients.

“We want to grow and create new opportunities for our employees and then for the people who don’t work here yet,” said Magri. “Growth for the sake of growth is not something we’re interested in, but growth for the sake of growing our skills and growing our client base and securing our client mix is our plan.”

Bottom Line

In other words, the company is going to continue doing what it’s been doing from the start, back when work was being done on Modestow’s kitchen table and her refrigerator was getting filled with employees’ lunches.

The company has come a long way since then — a quick tour of the facilities at 195 Russell St. make that clear — but the guiding principles remain the same.

And those are to tell the client’s story and create an authentic experience that resonates. When you that, it’s a lot easier to do what BRIGADE has done with and for Svedka and all its other clients — be along for the ride.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Sales and Marketing

Putting the Focus on Innovation

The team at GCAi

The team at GCAi: from left, John Garvey, Quinn Garvey, James Garvey, Mary Shea, and Darcy Fortune.

John Garvey isn’t shy about noting that he never worked for a large ad agency, or a ‘traditional’ ad agency, as he calls them.

In fact, he’s rather proud of that background — as are the rest of the members of the team at the agency he formed more than 30 years ago known as Garvey Communication Associates Inc., who didn’t work for a traditional agency either.

They’re all fond of saying they didn’t follow any model in creating and then shaping the firm known as GCAi, but instead created their own model.

“None of us come from an agency background,” Garvey explained. “So we put this together on our own; we didn’t throw away the book — we just didn’t really know the book was there; so we invented our own book.”

“There’s a lot of misconception out there about how Facebook works, especially with regard to advertising.”

As they talk about this book, the company’s main players — Garvey; his son, James, the social-media marketing analyst; Mary Shea, vice president of Digital Strategy; and Darcy Fortune, digital PR analyst — collectively wear out the word ‘innovation’ as they discuss evolving technology, what the company can do with and for clients with regard to this technology and using it to reach targeted audiences, and, perhaps most importantly, how they do all that.

Indeed, they’ve all become involved with MassChallenge Boston, the group that helps accelerate startups, and they’ve also assisted Valley Venture Mentors (through donations of money and expertise) in its efforts to mentor startups and expand its mission. And such work has fostered a true spirit of innovation within GCAi itself as it partners with clients to help them navigate a changing landscape within marketing and with everything from understanding and maximizing social media to corporate reputation management.

“Innovation is a stick that you have to sharpen continually,” John Garvey explained. “You literally cannot be innovative unless you have your eyes wide open and you’re looking and you’re learning and you’re challenging yourself. Being around startups … that entrepreneurialism, that innovation, is absolutely contagious. So we find ourselves thinking and acting in new and different ways.”

Such an operating mindset is necessary for a marketing firm today, said Shea, because change is constant, it’s coming from every direction, and the pace of change is only accelerating. Also, in this era of conversion, marketing firms are increasingly being judged not on their ability to garner exposure, but on sales generated by a specific campaign or strategy.

Which brings Shea to the subject of data and access to it.

“One of the most profound changes to come to marketing is marketers’ ability to use data,” she said, while summing up how the landscape has been altered by technology and why innovation is important. “It’s a seismic change in terms of our ability to get our work done.”

James Garvey, seen here presenting at a MassChallenge event

James Garvey, seen here presenting at a MassChallenge event, says companies have more access to data than ever before, and they must take full advantage of that opportunity.

Elaborating, she said Google AdWords, Facebook, and other vehicles enable marketers to send specific messages to targeted audiences in ways that simply weren’t possible decades or even a few years ago.

James Garvey agreed.

“It’s a fascinating time to be involved in social-media marketing since Facebook is in the headlines daily,” he told BusinessWest. “There’s a lot of misconception out there about how Facebook works, especially with regard to advertising. We develop messaging for clients, and we use Facebook as a means of delivering the message in a way that people can consume it, but also delivering it directly to the audience we need to reach — meaning very specific groups of people.

“For example, you can reach men or women ages 25 to 35 who live within two miles of downtown Springfield who are interested in home ownership,” he went on while elaborating. “That’s how specific you can get.”

GCAi, which boasts clients across virtually all sectors of the economy, including financial services, healthcare, transportation, and more, is a certified Google Partner (the only firm in the region to gain such status), and its qualified AdWords professionals are independently tested and certified in several different aspects of online advertising each year.

Meanwhile, the company specializes in what it calls the ‘ideation’ approach to working with clients to identify needs and challenges, map out a marketing strategy, and determine the most effective methods of getting a message across.

To explain, Shea and Fortune pointed to the whiteboards on all four walls of the GCAi conference room. Over the course of an ideation session, they will become covered with writing in the form of answers to questions asked and thoughts about what to do, strategically, with that information from a marketing and branding standpoint.

For this issue and its focus on sales and marketing, BusinessWest talked with members of the GCAi team about marketing, technology, and social media — but mostly about innovation, and how it enables the company and its clients to stay on the proverbial cutting edge of progress.

Data Driven

On the day BusinessWest visited GCAi, the whiteboards in the conference room were covered with what amounts to a bullet-pointed chronology of the firm.

Noted milestones included everything from the elder Garvey’s first work in public relations, back in college for the U.S. Youth Games, to the arrival of each staff member (Shea started as an intern in 2004, for example); from the reminder that Garvey needed a loan from his grandmother to stay afloat after the dot-com bubble burst at the start of this century and business dried up, to his self-proclaimed 15 seconds of fame when he captured a dramatic photo of the tornado that tore through downtown Springfield on June 1, 2011, an image that went viral within minutes after it was taken.

“What social-media marketing and Google AdWords has done is essentially democratize the use of data for businesses across the board. So it is a seismic shift. This is profound data; it’s not just likes and clicks.”

Mostly, though, the walls tell the story of a company responding to rapid, constant change in technology, especially within the realm of digital marketing, and using innovation to help clients make sense of it all — not an easy task in any respect — and make the very most of their marketing budgets.

Indeed, the team likes to say that GCAi, unlike many businesses today, has social media figured out, and it has created a niche of sorts as it specializes in helping clients large and small figure social media out and put all that data that is now available to good use.

“There is a lot more data available today, there’s easier access to it, it’s instantaneous, and you can use it quickly and easily to make adjustments to a campaign,” said Shea, adding that, not long ago, companies would have to spend a lot of money to access such information, which essentially limited that access.

“What social-media marketing and Google AdWords has done is essentially democratize the use of data for businesses across the board,” said John Garvey. “So it is a seismic shift. This is profound data; it’s not just likes and clicks.

But having access to data is just part of the equation. Knowing what to do with it and how to present a message to the audience being targeted … that’s the other side. And the team at GCAi has become specialists in such work, handling both aspects of this work — creating content and a message (work that falls more to Fortune and John Garvey), and devising the most efficient, cost-effective means of disseminating it, work assigned to Shea and James Garvey.

And the watchword in all aspects of this work is relevance.

“That’s the church we go to pray at,” said John Garvey, referring to that team. “If the message isn’t relevant, meaning the target audience we spoke of doesn’t react to it in a positive way, find it useful, and find it interesting, then we get penalized as marketers; it’s the modern-day equivalent of hanging up a bad ad that no one gets.”

To keep clients and their messages relevant, the GCAi team focuses on innovation, said Fortune, adding that the company’s involvement with Valley Venture Mentors and MassChallenge has helped it in a number of ways, from getting in touch with what’s happening within specific business sectors to sharpening presentation skills, to mentoring startups on the best ways to reach their audience.

“We sit with them and talk with them for maybe 10 minutes, and you can see the light go off,” said Fortune. “They’re excited to have that tidbit of information from us on how to reach people. And you get to meet people from around the world; it’s very exhilarating.”

John Garvey agreed, and noted, again, that when you hang around entrepreneurs all the time, there is a trickle-down, or rub-off, effect.

“We’re much more attuned to new and different ways of getting results,” he explained. “Our secret sauce is comprised of ingredients like energy, innovation, and ideas, and the cake that we’re trying to make is to create really meaningful and measurable results, and the only way that’s possible is through a continual search of the means and methodologies of these platforms, but also an appetite for data, the ability to digest it, break it up, understand it, and make it relevant to the client.”

James Garvey agreed, and said his technical background — he’s a graduate of BWM of North America’s STEP program and has worked for both BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the Boston and New York City markets — has helped him, and thus the firm, grasp the importance of data and measuring results.

“Having that engineering background, or training, and working with data are very similar,” he explained. “They’re very precise, measurable, and granular.”

Together, those involved with content and those focused on dissemination work together to create an overall strategy, said Shea, adding that, collectively, the team works to find the right channels to get the message across.

“You can’t fit a round peg into a square hole,” she said, adding that each platform, or channel, is different, and it’s critical to devise content that is appropriate for each one and not ease into a one-size-fits-all mentality.

John Garvey agreed. “All those platforms are arrows in our quiver, and Mary and James help us figure out the right means and methodologies to take this to market.”

And finding the right ones is now critical, said James, noting that marketing firms like GCAi are now more accountable, if that’s the proper term, when it comes to sales — or the conversion of leads into sales — than ever before.

“Marketing firms are more responsible further down in the sales funnel than we were even a few years ago,” he explained. “Before, we were measured by our ability to generate top-of-mind awareness; now, our clients hold us responsible for a full and trackable conversion, meaning that we can prove that our campaign led to a particular conversion. That responsibility totally changed.”

The Last Word

There’s been a recent addition to the décor at the GCAi suite of offices in Monarch Place — an old manual Underwood typewriter that the senior Garvey found “somewhere.”

It’s an example of where technology and this industry were a long time ago, said Fortune, and therefore a reminder of how quickly and profoundly things change.

So quickly and profoundly that trying to project a few years, or even a few months, into the future is a largely futile exercise. There’s no better way to explain why an effective marketing firm today must, or should, have an operating philosophy grounded in innovation — in constantly finding new and better ways to do business and help clients succeed.

And there’s no better way to explain why GCAi continues to grow and prosper.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]