Karen Apwah
Founder & President at KA Creative
Website Address: www.ka-creative.com
What services does your company provide?
Creative, Social Media, SEO, Marketing Strategy, Video, Search Engine Marketing / Pay Per Click, Other
About KA Creative:
KA Creative is a Woman-Owned, digital marketing agency expanding the possibilities of business growth with modern and forward-thinking ideas. Established in 2015, we’ve worked with over 50 clients across a spectrum of industries on projects such as website design, social media management, online advertising, graphic design, email marketing, SEO, branding, and marketing strategy.
Who in the industry inspires you and why?
I get so inspired when I see other female entrepreneurs take risks, follow their passions and do great things, whether it’s something big or small. As a mother of two boys (a 2 year old and 4 month old), I also can truly appreciate the insane work ethic of other entrepreneurial moms. Right before the Coronavirus outbreak, I had the opportunity to attend a Women’s Day Summit in NJ and hear many entrepreneurial women tell their stories, their struggles and their success. It’s events like that that really get me inspired. And after the conference ended, I returned to my car where I discretely pumped milk for my 2 month old before my long drive home. A woman walked by, realized what I was doing and simply mouthed the words, “You are a badass”. That made my day.
What makes your company unique?
What sets KA Creative apart from a traditional marketing agency is our dedication to meeting customers needs. As the Founder of this Agency, I’ve made sure that all of my clients have my personal cell phone number and know that they can reach me at any time for any reason. Some may think I’m crazy for doing this, but I know that having a strong relationship with my clients provides them with comfort in knowing that I am available for them. With the uncertain times that we’re facing, trusted business relationships are essential. As an example, I had one client approach me with an urgent project that had a 2 hour turnaround time. He was launching a new business/product and was heading to a manufacturer that afternoon and wanted to get his brand carved out of his new product. We didn’t even have a logo yet. He had a simple sketch and a name idea. Within hours, I turned his sketch into vector art and it was used by the manufacturer to bring his idea to life. A traditional agency would not have been able to act so quickly.
If you were to restart your marketing agency, what are the 2 most important positions you would hire for and why?
I would ideally like to scale my agency and build a team of Account Managers who can take on various projects of their own. For the most part, I have been managing all project work by myself, with some occasional help from temp Account Managers and some freelancers, but it would be great to one day have 5-10 Account Managers who can fully manage their own projects under the company’s general vision and guidance.
How do you define success?
I define success by my clients’ satisfaction and how they react to the work I’ve done for them. Before starting KA Creative, my goal in life was to do something that creates a wow factor. When I was younger, I wasn’t quite sure just what that would be. I found my love for Marketing during various jobs I took on after college, but was never really satisfied working under someone else. I knew that I wanted start something on my own so that I could work on my own terms and be more independent so that when my husband and I would have kids, I could spend more time with them.
Today, I get so much joy out of helping my clients improve their marketing and bring their passions to life, whatever that may be.
What are your three favorite marketing software that you use and why?
– Ripl (For Social Media Content Creation) – I love using this app to develop social media ads for my clients. It’s also very helpful with the management of posts and reporting.
– Ecwid – Ecwid is an e-commerce platform that makes it so easy for online retailers to sell their products across any and every online platform that consumers can buy from, such as Amazon, Etsy, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Google and more. It makes it so that if you need to update a product, you can simply update it once within your Ecwid account rather than going to each platform individually. Additionally, you can leverage their marketing automation tools to send out email communications when someone leaves an item in their cart, or for customer loyalty programs, etc.
– Zoho CRM – This is my favorite CRM platform. It’s easily integrated with WordPress, Mailchimp, Zapier and many other helpful tools to keep all of your business operations efficient and organized.