[Top Agency Series] Client-Focused Digital Marketing With Clint Thompson of DigiHype Media

Clint Thompson is the Founder and CEO of DigiHype Media. Born from a passion for assisting small- and medium-sized businesses, DigiHype Media specializes in website design, branding, digital paid advertising, and more. With a proven track record in sales management and marketing, Clint has over a decade of experience in digital marketing. His approach focuses on demystifying the digital space for clients and providing value through education and results-driven strategies. His philosophy of “we can, we shall, we will” drives the company forward, offering inclusive digital solutions for businesses of all sizes.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [3:20] Clint Thompson’s journey in starting DigiHype Media and what sets it apart in the digital marketing landscape
• [6:25] The services DigiHype Media offers and how they adapt to changing digital trends
• [9:00] Clint’s motivations for establishing his own marketing agency
• [15:20] The evolution of digital marketing services from simple websites to complex programmatic advertising
• [27:34] The vital role partnerships play in the success of a boutique digital marketing agency
• [34:13] Insights into the flexibility of pricing plans and how they facilitate partner collaboration
• [35:43] Clint shares valuable sales lessons he learned over the past two decades
• [43:02] How educating clients enhances sales conversion more than aggressive selling techniques

In this episode…

Have you ever wondered how a company evolves in the fast-paced world of digital marketing? Would you like to know the secret behind thriving partnerships and how they play a critical role in a business’s success? How can an old-school sales approach blend seamlessly with modern techniques?

Digital marketing professional Clint Thompson delves into his ten years of experience in the digital marketing space. He shares his journey of starting DigiHype Media and the valuable lessons he’s learned, from nurturing SMBs to handling significant clients. With an educational approach to sales and marketing, he emphasizes the importance of demystifying the digital world for clients, guiding them toward effective strategies with transparency and integrity. Clint also discusses his unique tactics for managing partnerships and a virtual sales team.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Clint Thompson, Founder and CEO of DigiHype Media, about expanding digital marketing efforts through relationships and client education. Clint shares his journey of successfully running a boutique digital marketing agency, the importance of developing robust partnerships and training for business growth, and his sales and client onboarding approach that champions education over hard selling.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Clint Thompson on LinkedIn
• DigiHype Media

Special Mention(s):

• Second Bite Podcast
• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• The Blue Vase by Andree Marie Ory
• Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins

Related episode(s):

• “[Sweet Process Series] How to Save Hundreds of Hours a Month Using Top Productivity Tools with Adi Klevit of Business Success Consulting Group” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Agency Series] Most Valuable Advice When Selling Your Agency With Todd Taskey of Potomac Business Capital” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “The biggest piece to the job that I do is to educate my clients on the realities of advertising.”
• “Our mantra has always been, if we can, we shall, we will — it’s now at any time, anywhere, for anyone.”
• “The reality for us is, if we can’t brand as DigiHype Media, we’re not interested in partnering.”
• “The success of our sales strategy comes not from selling, but from educating and informing.”
• “We ensure every salesperson is passionate, prepared, and proficient before they represent our services.”

Action Steps:

1. Invest in a solid web presence to build the foundation of your digital footprint: A professional website sets the stage for business growth and customer engagement in the digital era.
2. Adopt social media as a strategic communication tool for targeting key demographics: Leveraging platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn can enhance brand exposure and connect directly with audiences.
3. Create partnerships with complementary businesses to expand market reach: Collaborations can open new opportunities and add value to offerings without the need for an in-house sales team.
4. Focus on educating clients rather than just selling services to foster long-term relationships: When clients understand the value and potential impact of services, they are more likely to commit and succeed.
5. Stay updated on digital marketing trends and educate your team accordingly: Ongoing learning ensures your services remain relevant and competitive while empowering your staff to excel.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:19 

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of inspiredinsider.com where we talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. I’ve got Clint Thompson of GigiHype Media. And Clint before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes people should check out of the podcast. And since this is part of the top agency series. There’s some interesting ones that check out I actually had Adi Klevit. Adi Klevit, this is an interesting niche clinic. She helps companies do that done-for-you service to help them with their SOPs. So she comes in and helps create the SOPs to streamline onboarding of clients of staff members. And she’s an easy button for that. So we geeked out on our favorite productivity tools and efficiency tools, which is a fun episode. So check that one out.

Also, another one was Todd Taskey, Todd Taskey helps pair agency owners with private equity. So you help sell agencies and he has a Second Bite Podcast because he’s found sometimes agencies make more on a second bite than they do on the first when that private equity sells again. So it’s super interesting conversation, again, on the agency space about valuations business in general. So check that one out. And this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships. And how do we do that? We actually do that by helping you run your podcasts.

We are an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the accountability, the strategy, and the flex acumen. Clint, we call ourselves the magic elves that work in the background and make it look easy for the host so they could just create amazing content, create amazing relationships, and most importantly, run their business. So the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I found no better way over the past decade to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world where they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions, you can go to rise25.com to learn more.

And I’m excited to introduce Clint Thompson. He’s the founder of DigiHype Media. And they help companies with websites design branding, digital paid advertising, programmatic, and much more. And they’ve been around for maybe by the time you’re listening to this over a decade. He’s going to share his depth and breadth of experience. And I’m excited to introduce Clint. So Clint, thanks for joining me.

Clint Thompson 2:54 

Thank you very much, Jeremy. I’m really excited to be here. And this is a thrill. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jeremy Weisz 3:02 

Talk about DigiHype Media a bit and what you do and while he’s talking, you’ll see there is a video version if you’re listening to the audio, and I’m gonna pull up their website we’ll poke around but tell us about DigiHype Media.

Clint Thompson 3:20 

Yeah, for sure. DigiHype Media is near accurate. It’s a 10-year-old company was born out of the need for SMBs to assist SMBs with digital marketing. Digital marketing as we know, it’s changed over the last 10 years. But certainly 10 years ago, the main focus and goal of DigiHype Media was to ensure that we demystify the marketplace. That being said, there was a lot of intrigue about being involved in digital, but a lot of business owners weren’t sure what to do, how to go about it, what aspects of digital were important, what were not.

And of course, budget constraints would affect how their results were. So our initial goal and still continues to be our goal today was to assist businesses and ensuring whatever they have to invest in their businesses invested appropriately. And they find some level of success, to bring them closer to their ultimate goal of having solid ROI.

Jeremy Weisz 4:26 

Clint I know throughout the years, you’ve helped a lot of different types of companies, from associations to food service companies, the e-commerce to luxury homes. Talk about maybe one of the first milestones of a customer when you first started the agency.

Clint Thompson 4:45 

Yeah, I think one of the major milestones that we hit was about four and a half five years ago, we had a client and we’d always considered ourselves a business that’s a small business trying to help small businesses and other businesses. But we had a quite a great brand and quite a great name out in the industry, especially more specifically in the GTA in the Greater Toronto Area and surrounding area. But we had a factoring company approached us to talk to us about delivering their brand name in the GTA, more specifically, bringing them better profitability and better reach and frequency in the GTA, than they had currently been having.

And the reality was, is that we embrace this, this was a real opportunity for us. Factoring companies typically or mid to large companies. This particular one had been around for many, many years branched out all the way across Canada. And we’ve been, since then we’ve been very, very excited working with them. And it’s given us an opportunity to see how easily we can scale as a company, and how easily a lot of the things that we use, a lot of the tools that we use for smaller and midsize businesses can also affect and assist larger businesses to achieve their goals. So that was a big, great moment for us.

Jeremy Weisz 6:17 

What were some of the things you did and just explain for a second, for people aren’t familiar with what a factoring company does?

Clint Thompson 6:25 

Sure, a factoring company essentially assists other businesses that are having challenges collecting under cash receivable. And their job is to they can take on your accounts receivable, and they can assist you with collecting the accounts receivable in a timely manner, and making you, of course, people to, you know, be more profitable, and to be more timely on your bill payments, and your girls and stuff like that.

Jeremy Weisz 6:54 

So, thanks for that. It’s really a valuable service, I’m sure for businesses, what were some of the things you did for them? And I imagine sometimes with client engagements, maybe they come to you with one thing, and then things expand, maybe they’re like, oh, we need something with our website, or we need something of branding. So where did it start with them? And then what happened from there?

Clint Thompson 7:18 

So you hit the nail on the head, Jeremy. So when we first sat down and chatted with them, it was about getting more traction for their brand. In the Greater Toronto Area, that was a bit of a challenge, especially with a national company, typically, national companies, national advertisers will get the branding for the entire brand. But to be very specific, and very geocentric it’s very difficult for them to do. And of course, it can be very costly. So their big goal was to have their name be identified in the Greater Toronto Area and surrounding area in Ontario. And so our first initial meetings were all about, okay, what’s this all about? Same questions you asked, what is factoring? Well, we had no idea we do a lot of different verticals, but certainly that we’d never dealt with.

But again, some of the same basic ground rules work for many, many different types of business verticals, and we’re able to determine what they need. So it started off with a website, it started off with having their own sort of foundation in the Ontario marketplace. We weren’t able to do certain aspects of the advertising. We talked about social media, we talked about optimization, we talked about things like doing AdWords services, to assist and affect them from a content perspective on the big search engines, the big three, Google, Yahoo, and Bing, and we were able to come up with a marketing program that’s been effective for them to help them grow their brand in this marketplace.

Jeremy Weisz 8:54 

At what point do you decide I’m going to start my own agency?

Clint Thompson 9:00 

Well, yeah, I’ve been in the industry for a long time, for about 20 years at that particular point in time. But 10 years ago, I kind of sat down, I was the recipient of the Golden Handshake. Because the company that I was with was a huge company in Canada, huge Canadian company that was changing gears, and they were sort of restructuring and it was timely for me because I felt that as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, my goal has always been I want to make sure that clients I deal with large or small, it’s irrelevant. I want to make sure that they understand what they’re getting involved in. The biggest piece to the job that I do is to educate my clients under the realities of advertising. I don’t want to mystify them. I’m not a magician. It’s not about pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The reality is I want to make sure they understand that you do A, you might get B.

If you do ABCD, you’re gonna get an awful lot more, right? So I want to make sure that clients get that. And I was given that opportunity. When I left my last employer, and I sat down one day with my wife, my lovely wife of 35 years now, I sat with her and I said, listen, I said, I’m going to start a new agency. And she said, what? I say, I’m going to start a new agency. I said, I already got a small spot. Location, I already leased it. Were — are you going to mention this dummy at all? And I kind of laughed, I said, yeah, but you can see it, oh, I have a lease. So the irony was, is that the first client that ever called us, it was just myself. And I got a call that would have been about 5:30 on a on a weekday, like on a Thursday. And this gal called me from a pharmaceutical training company.

And she says, listen, we’ve been dealing with a large, advertising firm for many, many years, we want to change gears, we’re not getting the results we want. We feel more of a boutique, sort of a store would be more beneficial people we can sit down and talk to, we want to be able to know who we’re dealing with. I said, sure, come on in. So the day they came in the evening to him and said they couldn’t be there till about seven o’clock. Now again, I’m the only guy there. I just hired a web developer who hasn’t even started yet. I have nobody in my office. And the controller, very nice lady came in with their VP. Again, very nice lady. They walked in, and I’m so old school, I’m sitting there going, geez, this is going to be a little awkward having two women in my office at eight o’clock at night.

So I called my wife up and I said, listen, I have these two girls coming in it, can you do me a favor, just bring a laptop, come sit in the corner, play Google, I don’t care what you do, chat all night, but I need to have at least another person there. It’s not for anything other than to make them feel comfortable. Right. And she did, so we had this great discussion. We talked about a lot of things. And they came on board as clients, and they were with us for about nine years. Wow. The funny thing was after the meeting, the controller got up. And she said to me, she goes, Clint, honestly, that’s your wife over there, isn’t it? I looked at her and I laughed, she goes, there’s nobody working till nine o’clock at night. Okay, that’s got to be your wife supporting you over there. She goes, You know, I feel good about this.

And they came on board. And they were great live for a long, long, long time, did a lot of great things went from an Ontario-based company to right across Canada had great success, and they continue today. So that’s kind of how it started. And we’re here 10 years later.

Jeremy Weisz 12:56 

What made you decide to start your own as opposed to — you had a storied career for decades, at that point, you could have gone in another company, and been very successful. Why start your own at that point?

Clint Thompson 13:15 

For a couple of reasons. One is, the big challenge in the industry, as I mentioned before, was many of the clients I’d dealt with, as a senior manager, or a senior director with a number of the companies I worked for, the big challenge was having a human being that they can relate to that they can call that they can talk to someone they can email and have a response from within a timely period of time. That was a challenge. It seems very simple. But with larger companies and companies that are publicly supported and so on, they have a lot of servants. Right.

So, the big plus for us was that there are no levels to our organization, there’s one level, we’re here to serve the client, that’s the start and that’s the end of it. How we do will be determined based on the client’s success and whether or not the client stays with us and grows with us. So the reality for us is, the reality for me anyways is that’s how we got involved in this business. And that’s how we decided the route we wanted to go. I could have gone with another Corporation had many, many suitors call me but at the end of the day, I felt that this is something and the timing is right. The clients needed this sort of support, and this sort of one on one hand holding respectfully to assist them with getting to the digital marketplace.

Jeremy Weisz 14:42 

I want to talk about the evolution of services, right you hang up a shingle, you have your office, I thought you’re gonna say you were gonna get people from the local coffee shop and like you have 10 people set up in your office. Your wife, I guess, did the trick for that. What was the evolution of your services? Because in the beginning, like you said, it was you, and you hired a developer. So we’ll talk about the evolution of the staff. But what were you offering from the beginning? How’s that evolved to today?

Clint Thompson 15:20 

So, having a lot of experience dealing with clients and dealing with some of their concerns and their challenges, I knew that first off 10 years ago, the big challenge was just ensuring you have a web presence. And that started with a website. So my discussions, I was the guy, right. I mean, my discussions was with anyone who would hear me, I would talk to them. And a lot of my friends and business colleagues know that once I get involved in talking about marketing of any sort, I’m a very passionate guy when it comes to that, and I can talk about it all day.

So if I happen to walk into a restaurant for a coffee, or walk into a restaurant and evening for dinner, I’m going to talk to the owner, I’m going to end up talking to the owner at some point in time and that discussion. So that’s kind of how the business develops. It was really through people that I met people I talked to. I sort of went about it very differently, Jeremy, because I didn’t want to reach out to friends and family, which is kind of the first thing you learn in sort of sales one-on-one is, you got to reach out to your friends and got to reach out to your family. Well, here’s the reality of my personality. I’m the type of person I guess it’s kind of a Libra thing. But I’m the type of person that needs to prove the value before I move forward to entice anyone that I know about what I have to offer.

So it was all about proving the value prop for the business that we had. So starting from zero employees, to one developer, to going out and talking to people to building a service structure, which gave us the different types of products that we had from just web development, simple Web Developer blog, page, five page 10, page, custom, whatever it might be. And we build everything and beginning to learn about technology as we were doing it, because believe it or not, 10 years ago, web technology was changing dramatically, right? I mean, WordPress was not WordPress of today, Shopify was barely around, I mean, all these things were brand new. So we were playing with things that we knew nothing about, okay. But the reality is, we try to house learn from my dad, try to keep things as simple as possible for your own sanity.

And, of course, for the reality that if you can fix it and build it, service it, then your clients are going to be happy. So that’s what it’s always been about. And at the beginning is something, kind of my mantra has always been, and I always tell my staff, we can we show them, we will. I’m a very determined individual. But with that determination comes a lot of responsibility. Because, again, coming back to friends and family, I want to ensure that if anyone ever refers and many have referred people to our business, so we take care of them like family, and that’s how we deal with every single customer.

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