The Boothologist on Digital Marketing February 11 2021
I got started in digital marketing back in 2006. It's led to a regular six figure income that has taken me all over the world. I've averaged $400k in digital marketing sales per year for 12 years. These facts will surprise a lot of people because it's not what I'm known for. I'm known for a lot of things: "The Boothogist", the "green booth guy" and even the "cardboard tube booth guy" but digital marketing guru is not one of them. And if you ask people, "Is John-Paull 'tech savvy' or a successful 'digital marketer' I would be very surprised if any of them would say yes. The interesting fact is that the business development, sales, marketing, and international success I've had would NEVER have happened were it not for my skills in digital marketing. So how does a guy with no apparent skills or identity in digital marketing A. achieve this level of success and B. go unnoticed for such skills?
I'll answer the easy one (B.) first. Simple answer is branding, or lack there of. I've never branded myself as a digital marketing guy. Sure, I've mentioned it in passing, but it's never been a core element or goal of my company or personal branding. The reason is that for the past 14 years while running Boothster, the company I founded, I've been laser focused on the Boothster brand. Boothster is a designer and fabricator of exhibits, trade show booths, pop up retail shops and event decor - that is well known for our unique and awesome creativity, and use of green materials. That is our brand. We don't offer digital marketing services, so there really was no reason to tout those skills.
Like a lot of individuals and companies during this era of Covid, I'm taking a deep look at my core skill sets and looking for opportunities to add value in alternative areas - IE making a pivot in what I and my company offers. I've designed interesting new products, modified existing ones, and started considering what value I may have to offer in digital marketing, where clearly I've achieved some success. I'll go into my new products in another blog post.
The first question (A.) regarding how does a guy with little tech savvy or experience achieve success in digital marketing? One answer is that technology is essentially a set of tools that can be learned. And I learned enough to be successful, relatively quickly. But success in digital marketing is about much more than the technology - it's about strategy. It's about marketing savvy. It's about research, and understanding one's target marketplace. It's about understanding potential customers. After 6 months of learning and research back in 2006, I nailed all of that from day 1 of launching my first website. From there, I continued fine tuning the digital marketing strategy, and hired consultants to implement the technical side; and help me scrub and analyze the analytics. It all reached a crescendo pre Covid where I was generating more warm leads than I could keep up with. And my challenge was not in finding and selling projects, but in fulfilling the orders which is a topic for another blog post.
By the way, stay tuned for forthcoming posts on my journey toward achieving a certificate in Digital Marketing. I'm getting back into that pursuit and it's awesome.
