[Podcast] Building a Marketing Agency with Staying Power (With Ryan Kulka)

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Ryan Truax

Longevity is a funny word. It’s loaded with many versions of what it means in business. Is it success? Does it mean your company’s been around for fifty-plus years? Or does it simply mean that you’re benefiting from many years of good decisions?

For marketing agencies, it likely means you fought hard, you’ve carved out your niche, and you’ve won notable clients.

Today, we’re looking at what it takes to build a winning marketing agency. And speaking of winning, our musical spotlight latches on to one of the most successful concept projects of the past fifteen years.

Ryan T

Welcome back to On the Record. There’s been a lot of talk about data, a lot of talk about AI. We bring you Ryan Kulka to the stage to maybe take a little bit of a step away from that for a moment, although I’m sure it’ll find its way to us.

So, I stole your name. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Ryan Kulka

Yeah. No, thanks for having me, guys. I’ve watched the podcast. It’s awesome. I love the format, tying music and marketing together. I mean, that’s my life. So hopefully I can add something to the conversation today.

In terms of myself, I started my own digital and social media marketing agency back in late 2013. So, it’s been a decade plus of just, you know, pounding the pavement, working with different clients.

Coming out of COVID, we really carved this e-commerce niche. So ninety percent of our clients are small and medium-sized e-commerce brands that are just trying to grow and break that ceiling and get to the next level.

We’ve done a lot of adapting and changing over the last ten, twelve years, and it’s just been super rewarding. But I’m just… I’m a small business guy. I own a couple other different businesses too, so I’m like the ultimate bootstrapper.

Ryan T

That’s going to sit well with our audience, so you’re perfect in that regard. Before we hear all about your experience and learn from some of the unique perspectives you provide, we like to introduce our musical influence that’s all fed from this idea of building a marketing agency with staying power.

Clearly, almost twelve years in the game, you’ve done such a thing. Our audience is eager to hear about that and also this radical record that you led us to: Animal Collective.

Michael

Absolutely. Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Ryan T

Merriweather Post Pavilion! I knew I was going to screw it up on camera – we’ll leave the flub in. That’s all right. It’s as radical as this album artwork design. It’s colorful, it’s eclectic, it’s experimental. It’s this synth-wash version of pop music that’s really interesting, but it does have a tie back to brands with staying power and agencies with staying power.

Would you please take us through that a little bit?

Michael

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Animal Collective. This wasn’t their first record, right? They started in 2001. This record was… 2014, 2015 I think?.

Ryan T

2008, I believe actually.

Michael

Was it 2008 or 2009?

Ryan T

It had sold a couple thousand units by 2012, so it had been out for a couple years prior.

Michael

Okay. Okay, so this was coming off like, when they came out, they were very much like an odd folk band, right? You could hear the instrumentation. It was acoustic, but it was kind of like “freak folk,” right?

And so it always stood out, and they definitely drew a crowd and a certain brand for that aesthetic.

When they moved into this album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, it was coming off of Panda Bear — one of the members — his solo work Person Pitch. And then this actually, I feel like, pushed them even further into this very electronic sound, very loop-driven.

And you can hear they still have the melodies and kind of like the back-and-forth vocals that they had from previous albums, but now it’s deeply layered. It’s cleaner, it’s crisper, and it’s more expansive. “Sweet summer night and I’m stripped to my sheets, leaking, my AC squeaks, and a voice from the clock says you’re not going to get tired. My bed is a pool and the walls on fire…”

When I look at, you know, what does it take to build an agency? You’re not the same agency you were in 2013, right? So it’s that adaptability, the ability to meet the market. Things were going more electronic at this time.

That’s what was expected of bands, was to evolve. And they saw the opportunity: we need to evolve in order to continue to grow.

And I felt like that correlation or that tie-in really tied nicely to ‘We always need to be changing. We cannot keep putting out the same record over and over, even using the same instruments over and over.’

There’s still a root to who they are, it’s still their voices, it’s their songwriting …but you can see they’ve taken up that challenge to evolve and meet the market where it was at that time.

Ryan T

I love that about adaptability. Great theme. Ryan, you’ve listened to the record, you’ve had some fun commentary off camera. Bring it to the audience.

Ryan K

Yeah, it was a journey, to say the least, that the record brought me on. You know, initially when I’m listening to it, it’s like the first thing I do when I listen to a record is I try to think, “All right, who does this remind me of?”

And I think that’s a natural first thought when you’re venturing into something new. And right away it was like Modest Mouse meets the Beatles and Pink Floyd at a rave. Imagine being in the room, right?But I really think that when you’re releasing a record or you’re doing something in business or marketing that’s unique and different and could potentially change the landscape of how the entire industry moves, I think it starts by, you have to garner some type of attention or build some type of community first so that you can be an influencer of that change, right?

You can start releasing records like that, and your faithful following and your community are going to at least give it a first listen. Some people are going to love it and some people are going to hate it.

For me, I’m an open mind when it comes to music and business and creative ideas. So, while I didn’t love the record – it’s not like, for me, it’s not something I’d just turn on at my house in my free time – I certainly appreciated the unique qualities and kind of the blend of a lot of different styles, and the game-changing or unique approach to making this album.

And it was obviously well-received by a lot of critics — critically acclaimed.

Ryan T

Yeah. I mean, adaptability, being unique, all part of the ingredients of a good brand that actually sticks around and does it for a while.

They did some radical stuff to create this record as well. They put a PA system inside of the actual kind of open-air space around the mixing table, and they were actually trying to recreate the live experience. They were sampling their stuff through the PA.

They go to the southern part of the country, into Mississippi, into a very secluded, home-like experience that just happens to have a Neve console, which is one of the preeminent ones, just plopped down in the middle.

They, as band members, worked around it. No cell phones, no computers, total privacy. They wanted anonymity as well. So they went somewhere where they wouldn’t be recognized to create something that was wildly cohesive.

And I give this record credit for doing so. No matter their mission or your feelings about it, they achieved what they wanted to, right? It was this really synth-wash stuff as I mentioned off the top, but done so really intelligently.

They used a lot of post-production techniques, automation and panning that make an experience through headphones fascinating, to put it lightly.

But all of which, again, are these ingredients of building something that matters and stays around for a while and people are still talking about.

Here we are fifteen, twenty years later, whatever it is, still talking about the record and bringing it together with a modern marketing topic like building a brand with staying power.

Ryan K

Yes. I think to that point, it’s like their recording technique, I mean, that’s kind of old school, right? When Lynyrd Skynyrd is recording an album, everybody was playing at the same time in the same room. And you’re running tape and you’re getting it down. So I feel like with that method, they were kind of trying to work off the basis of the old while doing something new.

And in my opinion, all innovation – business, marketing, music – you’re building off of something that already exists and making it better or newer or different or unique.

And so that was what was really cool when listening to that record, you take that old-school recording approach and put that spin on it.

Ryan T

Wow, I love that.

Ryan K

Bring me to Electric Daisy Festival right now.

Ryan T

I like this. See, you’re onto something. I knew you were going to be good. And I love what Michael’s saying about adaptability and it’s so critically important for any business that hangs around for more than just a couple of years.

You’ve been doing it for almost twelve years, which is a real feather in your cap. How has a digital marketing agency been able to adapt over these last twelve years? If you could take us through it.

Ryan K

Yeah. I mean, when we started, it was kind of when companies were dipping into social media. You know, almost fifteen years ago, I was working at a large media company, and all of my clients were asking about Facebook and Twitter and, “How do we get attention? We see our competitors starting to do stuff there.”

And so it really started with that. We were like a social media content company, and when I say we, I mean me at my kitchen table with my three clients.

But it’s really, really evolved. And I feel like agencies are really at the forefront of change and technology in the industry.

There are so many tools and so many different technologies that are being launched and released on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis – and the agencies are really on the front lines, right?

We’re getting all the calls from the tech companies and the martech, and all that stuff. And our clients rely on us to be kind of that filter for them, keep them on the cutting edge, roll out tools in their campaigns that are going to ultimately make them successful.

Because what I’ve learned is the clients care about results and about the relationship, right?

They don’t care how you get there. They just want to get there. And so it’s our job as the agency over the last twelve years to really roll with the times and adapt. Now, probably thirty percent of what we do is social content, and the other seventy percent is creating effective e-commerce and digital marketing campaigns to drive sales.

Ryan T

I love that. That’s a fun story. We’re going to talk a lot more about it.

Michael, you’ve employed marketing agencies of all shapes, sizes, and colors. You’ve been close to them. What do you think, for those that you’ve partnered with and have continued to win with – maybe you’re still working with them today – have achieved that others have not?

Michael

Yeah. Well, you hire an agency because you don’t have the capabilities in-house, right? And you stick with the agency because they bring you something unique – hopefully results, but also perspective, right?

Because they’re the consultant in that area. You know, I’m spending ten percent of my time over there trying to just understand, are we headed in the right direction? But an agency, they’re spending full-time in the area that they specialize in across multiple clients.

And I think that’s the advantage. We get the insights from our business, which we can use, but with an agency, you’re seeing, what, ten, fifteen, twenty different companies and their performance across?

What’s working for one, will it work for another? Maybe we should try it.

And I think it’s those insights that are unique. Agencies sit in this kind of unique pocket where we’re relying on them as companies for those insights. The ones that win are the ones that are bringing the winning insights back and ultimately, results.

Ryan T

Now Ryan, I mean, so much of doing work across multiple clients requires things, like repeatable processes and things you can do at scale. How do you guys go about that? Is it a blueprint that you try to apply to most customers? Is everything bespoke and custom-tailored to the unique needs of a client? How do you do it?

Ryan K

It’s a blend. We created a process that remains the same for all of our clients. So I don’t care if you’re a company that’s been in business for twenty years or you just started last year, you are going to go through our process.

We call it the Ignition Boom Process.

Everybody goes through that process, and it has been developed by us over the last ten years to make sure that none of the key important pieces of the puzzle are going to be missed.

So we’re talking target markets, we’re looking at your website, we’re putting together your creative plan, your social media marketing plan, SEO, and then your digital marketing plan. Each of these are kind of phases in our process.

But then from there, the results that come out of those phases – the research that’s done and where should you spend dollars, what channels should you market on – that all becomes completely different and customized.

The key for us, at least in being successful and staying around, is not learning on a client’s dime. For us, we need to come with that knowledge already and make a severely educated guess so that we’re measuring twice and cutting once. Before we’re ever spending media dollars on a campaign, we have a ninety-percent likelihood, or at least idea in our head, that this is going to be a sound strategy. And then guess what? Two weeks later, we’re already adapting things.

So the process is the same, the execution is always different.

Ryan T

Oh, very interesting. Michael, undoubtedly there are some agency owners listening to this right now. When you’re vetting someone like Ryan or coming to you, what are some of the key questions you’re asking of those agencies, perhaps?

Michael

I mean, you’re looking at their experience with our problem, right? So have they worked in SaaS? Have they worked with a similar – it doesn’t have to be exact – but you know, we’re looking at, can you provide quickly an outsized return on this relationship?

Because we’re also considering, do we need to hire someone internally, right? So there are lots of ways to solve the problem, and agencies are one.

If they have a unique perspective on the market, if they’ve worked in a similar area and have seen outsized gain – well, now we’re intrigued, right?

We’re looking for wins, I think first. And then it’s not even just the client list. It’s when you speak with them, are you learning? If in a thirty-minute conversation I can pick up a little tidbit, now I’m intrigued. If I’m hearing a lot of what I’ve already known, well then what’s the reason to spend the budget?

So I think what we’re looking for is that unique insight, and how can you, as an agency owner, prove that you’ve got it quickly?

Ryan T

Yeah. No, it makes a ton of sense. Ryan, we’ve spent a great deal of time talking about data this season, sometimes about democratizing big data and making it accessible for smaller businesses and such.

What do clients care most about? I mean, it’s the almighty dollar, of course, but what are some of the things you’re keeping your team accountable to in these client relationships?

Ryan K

Yep. It’s a great question. That’s another thing that’s constantly evolving. But for us, we’re the type of agency – because we are so e-commerce focused, ninety percent of our clients sit there – return on ad spend. It’s ROAS.

That’s what we really report to. We’re not that agency that’s showing you how many impressions and clicks you’ve gotten. It’s all about the ROAS. Like I said before, the client doesn’t care how you get there as long as you get there.

But on the other side of data, it’s how do you achieve that optimal ROAS, or give it the best shot? You need to use a lot of data to get there, right? So we try to turn our clients’ websites into online conversion tools and not just online business cards.

We can get a lot of data from when somebody purchases a product from a given customer’s or client’s website. So it’s using that data and turning their website into a tool to attract more of those types of people.

Michael

I’m kind of curious about that 2020 era, right? When you said you started in 2013, seven years in, you guys identified e-com as what you wanted to double down on. What were you seeing? Why was that the adaptive decision to be made?

Ryan K

Sometimes the decisions are made for you, and I don’t want to pretend like we did anything smart or that we were geniuses or anything, but it was literally when COVID was happening.

A lot of these companies – advertisers could be brick and mortar or otherwise – they were all prioritizing their online presence and their websites, right? And marketing budgets went from here to almost nothing for, you know, about a year, year plus.

So we were forced to make a decision. And we thought, you know, I think the best decision we can make is to try to help businesses through this tough time.

So we put some social media content out there and said, “Hey, if you’re a business that sells any product to a consumer and you do not have an e-commerce site yet, message me and we’ll build you one for free.”

I think in a year we built over twenty e-commerce sites, varying in sizes. We did it all for free. We just wanted to establish that relationship with potential new clients. And then when marketing budgets turned back on, who got the spend? We did.

But that’s not what we were after. Like, I had PPP money and I was trying to keep my people employed and have them working on something while still helping the business community. And so, coming out of that, we just had a ton of e-commerce clients.

So it was like bred out of necessity.

Ryan T

Sometimes the best ideas come out of it in that way. Out of the twenty, how many converted into customers?

Ryan K

All of them.

Ryan T

No kidding. 

Michael

Wow, that’s awesome.

Ryan K

And four years later, I would say eighty percent of them are still clients.

Ryan T

No kidding.

Ryan K

Yeah, it’s crazy.

Michael

That’s the power of giving back, too.

Ryan K

If anything good came out of the COVID time, it was that we all banded together. The lines between competitors and the competitive nature of business were blurred during that time. And so that was a really big win for us and for the clients that took advantage of it.

Ryan T

Right. It’s fascinating. We’ve been talking about personalization loosely, Ryan, throughout the day, and we will continue throughout all the episodes. You’re running a lot of campaigns. Are you guys able to achieve scale and personalization with a lot of the campaigns you’re doing? And if so, how? And maybe what are the results that followed?

Ryan K

Yeah, it goes back to our process. First step in our process is identify personas and target markets. That drives the creative. So to me, there are three aspects of a campaign:

It’s who are you trying to reach and why should they care about you? Develop messaging around that and creative around that. Then structure the technical aspects of a campaign — choose the right channels and budgets correctly. And then build the right mousetrap, right?

If you can do all three of those things in tandem, there’s your process.

And then you just roll with the times. You figure out new technology. You work with other good companies that are also adapting.

You guys know. Your platform is not the same as it was when it started.

So while we’re on the front lines of finding companies like yours to offer the best tools to our clients, you guys are doing that same thing but on the other side of the coin where you’re constantly making your platform better.

Michael

Yeah.

Ryan K

So if we get in bed with you guys, and you’re always making your stuff better, we win by default.

Ryan T

What if your next campaign didn’t just get more leads, it got better leads?

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So you can personalize your marketing, qualify faster, and close more deals. Start marketing smarter and converting more with Leadpages.

Maybe you could talk just briefly, Michael, about the transformation to better serve individuals like Ryan.

Michael

Yeah, I mean agencies leverage Leadpages a lot, and you can see why, right? You’re working on conversion campaigns. The landing page is the other half of that conversion campaign. So what we’re really leaning into is the data side.

We’ve been a landing page builder historically. We are now looking at how do we actually be a conversion rate optimization tool, right? So, how do we give your agency – even your clients – the insights about who they’re acquiring, who’s visiting their campaigns, who’s converting, what do they look like?

How do you build a persona for a customer not just based on who you want to attract, but who is actually showing up to check out your solution?

And so that’s really where we’re seeing the platform evolve, rom just being the form that collects the lead information to something that actually helps you inform what decisions should be made after collection.

Ryan K

I think that’s the logical next move and certainly in your space. But for us to be able to leverage tools like that, it’s all about: what experience does somebody have when they hit your site?

And why is your experience the same as mine, as yours? Because we’re all three different people. So how can these sites or landing pages adapt and know who’s visiting, and give them the experience they want, which might be different than what I want?

Michael

Yeah, absolutely.

Ryan T

One hundred percent. Before we conclude today’s discussion, I want to get back to brand.

Because I think what you’ve done so, so well, and where many agencies go wrong, is that they try to solve problems for everybody, when inherently there’s no ability to do so. You own who you are. You go to your .com experience, your messaging position is crystal clear. You’re here for e-comm, you’re here to run performance-driven campaigns, and there’s no doubt about what you do.

It took a little bit to adapt to that, but could you tell me why that’s a winning strategy as opposed to maybe a very wide, cast-the-net approach, if you will?

Ryan K

The riches are in the niches. We’ve all heard it. And actually, it’s my goal in the coming years to actually niche down even further.

You know, every business when they start, they want to be all things to all people, right? Because you need to make money, you need to bring in revenue. But you trip and fall along the way, you figure out what works, you figure out who you want to work with, and you start to get a little bit more narrow.

So, we’re raising our hand for e-commerce businesses. But now, I think the next step is, we’re starting to gather data and know: what are the campaigns and the clients that are performing the best?

And I think the next step to niching down is figuring out that industry or product vertical that we’re the most effective at.

I think that’s what every company should be trying to do. Less is more. Go deeper, not wider.

Ryan T

Yeah. And I think to your earlier point, we’re talking about, if I’m talking to an agency, I want specific domain expertise at great depth to prove to me that they’re going to provide me unique value that you don’t get elsewhere.

Michael

Exactly. The riches are in the niches.

Ryan T

I didn’t know that was a thing, but I like that.

Ryan K

Maybe we rename the title of this episode.

Ryan T

I mean, hey, it’s all in flux. I love that. Let’s just go around the horn and get some final thoughts here. I’d like to talk, Ryan, from your perspective, for those that are running agencies today or those who are thinking about starting an agency, what’s one piece of advice that you would give them that you’ve benefited from through twelve years of experience?

Ryan K

Bootstrap it. You know, take a dollar and turn it into ten. Don’t take a million dollars and turn it into ten million, right?

I think a lot of people make that mistake: “I need to invest, I need to get all of this money together, and then I can start my company and hire a bunch of people.”

Like I said, I’m the king of bootstrapping. I did it with this company that’s on my shirt, I did it with my agency. Be smart. Align yourself with the right tech and tools, but start small and grow it organically.

There have been three to five things in the last ten years that could have completely put me out of business if I wasn’t growing in a smart way.

Ryan T

I love that. For someone who hires agencies, and does regularly, what are some things you would leave agency founders with, or maybe aspiring agency owners?

Michael

Yeah. What I love about your story is building twenty sites for free and then having those twenty become clients.

What you did was you built expertise, right? So you were building the sites, you had the insights from them, then you had proof points for the next client that comes around: “Well, we’ve built these twenty sites.” They don’t need to know that you built them for free, right?

But we’ve helped these twenty businesses along the way, we’ve gathered insights for what’s working and what’s not — now we can go apply it to you.

And I think that’s so powerful. We all want to start and land the big contract right off the bat, but you really do need experience and expertise if you want to provide outsized value.

And so I love that about your story. You were seven years in but still taking the risk to go pay people to build free sites, but look at the outcome.

I think it built that authenticity in the market for you, that now, okay, we can trust you. We can trust Boom with our e-comm.

If you don’t have any clients, it’s hard to trust that you’re going to do an outsized job.

Ryan T

So right, we talked about adaptability, being unique, and obviously having trust – things that you’ve benefited from. And any agency owner that’s going to win seemingly needs to have these as their core tenets, if you will. Ryan, you’ve brought us great stories, great perspectives. You gave us a review that was quite robust as well. I didn’t see it coming. I wasn’t sure!

Ryan K

You know, I’m a music guy just like you

Ryan T

I know we’re all music nerds, so it showed up.

Ryan K

I’ll try anything once.

Ryan T

Yeah, I love that. Very good. Michael and I want to thank you for your time and your contributions to today’s episode. Tell the audience where they can find you if they’re curious about what you’re doing.

Ryan K

Yeah, check us out online. You can visit our website, ecomboom.com. We’re on all the social channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.

My name’s Ryan Kulka, feel free to follow me. I love networking, I love meeting entrepreneurs with cool stories, I love talking marketing, music, liquor, whatever it is.

It’s a pretty fun life. Come along for the ride.

Ryan T

I love it. Wonderful. Ryan, thank you again for your time today, and we’ll hopefully do this again soon.

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