Welcome to “The Horse’s Mouth” with Tom McManus, a cool, unique talk show where guests belly up to the bar to discuss business, marketing, and life. No gossip, no hearsay, no BS, just the straight-up truth, right from the source.
Tom’s longtime love of bartending has come full circle since his days as a linebacker on the inaugural Jacksonville Jaguars football team—slinging drinks and talking shop with everyone from high-profile sports figures and entertainers to business leaders, journalists, and community leaders. Tom and guests trade insight and anecdotes, explore day-to-day topics and tackle the hard subjects, all with equal measures of energy, honesty, and laughter. Get the skinny on the real people behind the headlines, straight from the horse’s mouth.
This week, Tom spoke with Mike White from BluHorn, Cathy Curtis from The Florida Times-Union, Bryan Croft from Holmes Custom, Rebecca Day from Rebecca Day Music, and Tony Davis from Granite Transformations.
What is your biggest challenge in marketing and advertising?
Mike White
The biggest challenge probably is finding the right medium to get the message out. Every client has a different budget and different expectations. We have to always be studying the new trends and making sure that it works with everything.
How important is marketing in the world of radio?
Cathy Curtis
I still think you need to market yourself as an individual through what you’re doing. You also have to be open to change and growth. You have to ask your clients, how can I help you? What’s your need? What’s your budget? Let’s talk.
How important is marketing in your business?
Bryan Croft
Marketing serves as a way to sell more. I wanted to make more money and improve my position within my company, so I was able to take our product line and sell them, not just in my hometown, but all over the world. My company is keyword-driven, so we implement platforms such as Facebook in order to be the company that pops up when people search for our product.
How challenging is it to market yourself as an individual?
Rebecca Day
For the creative individual, whether it be an artist, writer, or musician, you really need to get your business cap on. Especially in this day and age, where you have so many independent artists who can’t rely on the label to do all their marketing. You have a direct hand in your brand, your story, and your marketing. Time management really becomes a huge thing. Social media is incredibly important, Facebook and Instagram are the two biggest social media outlets for creatives.
How do you use Facebook in your own company?
Tony Davis
We have to be quite a bit savvy when it comes to using platforms like Facebook. The big goal for us is to get our phones to ring, we want people to get in contact with us. We started in 2004, advertising back then was completely different. Now, we have to have a digital presence. We do Facebook, Instagram, we have a presence all over. The big thing for us is how do we make those phones ring. And you know when we used to advertise back in 2004 it’s completely different. And so now we do a lot of global marketing a lot of face to face. We go to shows and events we do. We have a very huge digital presence. We do Facebook, Instagram, we have a presence on over. When you are working on so many platforms, you have to make sure everyone is on the same script.
How important is Face-to-Face?
Tony Davis
Globally, there is a lot going on. Face-to-face, going to trade shows, meeting people, that’s what helps you create a message that resonates. You need to be appealing just as much in person as you are digitally.
How important is digital in the newspaper realm?
Cathy Curtis
As everyone knows, the print media is in a downward trend so it is critical to remain relevant within that over-50 crowd in order to maintain business. Marketing cannot simply be newspaper because of this, in fact, marketing can’t rely on one sole platform. A solid overall marketing plan involves three or four different things.
I mean it was gonna be massive so newspaper as everyone knows it’s less and less and less. Know you’ve done events with us in the past. So what we bring to you in that over 50 crowd is solid. Right. So. So that’s something completely different than high. There’s a newspaper ad because you know that’s what might be a piece of what you need. But overall marketing plan that involves three or four different things. Our own platforms can be piggybacked by other businesses. Our Facebook has over 100,000 followers, we can boost you on our own platform.