Werkshop merger news hits Nashville, then nation
The Nashville Business Journal provided a warm and welcome announcement of our merger with a full-length article in their Jan. 20 edition. Staff writer Dan Hieb gave readers a clear, concise understanding of what’s new with us; click here to read the NBJ’s take. The Nashville Post followed suit, with an article by J.R. Lind the same day; click here to read the Post version. Those two stories were picked up nationwide, by both industry websites and news giants, including MSN.
Building Werkshop (or “How We Learned to Practice What We Preach”)
Giving advice is easy… taking one’s own advice, however, is a little tougher.
Recently, I’ve taken a dose of my own medicine: For the first time in several years, I had to re-evaluate the marketing strategy for my own company. This was painful. The reason for the dose of self-prescribed marketing strategy was huge – Fresh Dirt was merging with a complementary company. The news was BIG — and we had to keep it a secret.
Wait… Let me backtrack.
Many people have asked Werkshop CEO Tim Earnhart and I how we met. The answer is that we didn’t, at least initially. Tim first met Jenn Sheets (Werkshop’s VP/Creative Director, who at the time was one of my Fresh Dirt team members) at an AAF Nashville meeting, and they struck up a conversation. When Jenn found that Tim owned a creative agency in nearby Bowling Green, Ky. — a boutique agency that could help our boutique strategy firm — she demanded that I sit still long enough to call Tim and introduce myself. Well, I did, and found that not only did we need the help of Earnhart + Friends’ creative geniuses, they were in need of a dose of strategy. It was a perfect match.
So after a few months of working in tandem (sharing clients, employees and processes with one another), Tim and I decided to tear down the walls — or, in other words, to get hitched. This not-so-simple decision was the beginning of the journey to a new name, a new brand, and opening the marketing toolbox to work on our own big project.
Since very few people outside the agencies knew what was going on, that made the process especially difficult. What did I learn? I learned to appreciate how personal marketing strategy can be to a business owner. Here are some thoughts from the journey toward the new brand.
When a marketing agency brands itself, it starts by looking inwardly. In all honesty, we subconsciously thought we were better than the strategic process that we tout so loudly, and attempted to immediately rename ourselves. (Bad marketers!) After many weeks and a half-dozen bad ideas, we settled on a name that we thought made sense. Tim and I then rolled out the name and brand design to our staff — without asking for their thoughts or getting their input — and soon realized we had made a big mistake. We were settling! The brand we’d come up with was internally focused, and that’s not what our company is about. But, like many of our new clients, the two of us basically worked in a vacuum; and, as always, the vacuum yielded poor results.
Thankfully, we realized our mistake soon enough to fix it, and took it as an opportunity to start over. This time, we brought in an external facilitator — a former Fresh Dirt client and one of the smartest marketing-process people I know — to walk us through our own strategic exercises. It was during that session that I realized how it felt to be my own client. I had many “aha!” moments that afternoon, and that “getting out of our own way” event allowed the E+F/FDM marriage to take a much stronger form.
We thought about our core business, about where we really provide value. We thought about what people say about us, to us, and how they engage. And we recommitted to putting the client first, opening up our vocabulary to explain the distinct set of services we can provide.
Our “use your tools wisely” mantra took hold. New yet natural language of “blueprints” and “building” and “foundations” bloomed. And the marketing toolbox that I ramble about so often found a home.
The tools, and the builders, now have a Werkshop — and every single one of us can see that we’re in a much stronger position because of it.
We say “Toolbox.” You say “What?” Let us explain.
At Werkshop, we talk about the Marketing Toolbox. To us, it’s as familiar as the alphabet, and what we pull out of it is different from client to client.
Many companies and small businesspeople come to us with tool malfunction. Agencies, experts or ad sales executives, offering a grab-bag of marketing tactics, led the client to choose a marketing tool without knowing what they were getting into. Now, they need guidance to fix the problem they inadvertently caused.
For example: Over lunch recently, a businessman told me about his experience with a traditional marketing tool, direct mail. He then proclaimed that it “no longer works.” You see, he and his partners had designed a postcard touting their business’s strengths, purchased a mailing list pulled the trigger — and were perplexed when they received not a single response. Clearly, the mailing was ineffective. But what I attempted to explain is that the mailing really couldn’t be effective — in fact, no marketing tactic is effective when undertaken without proper planning. Without a blueprint, the tool can’t be held responsible for its results!
The hammer is only as good as the person holding the nail. Without careful holding, the hammer will only beat the heck out of the object underneath of it! So I asked my lunch companion some questions, attempting to figure out why the mailing didn’t work. Was it the message? The art? When did it arrive in mailboxes? Did the mailing list meet targeted criteria? What did the project cost? And, most importantly, was the company’s expectations of the direct mail campaign legitimate?
He couldn’t really answer most of the questions — which is precisely the point! The lack of planning caught up with the company, and thus a potential opportunity was just wasted paper (and wasted money).
Each tool in the marketing toolbox has its place. Public relations, web communication, interactive media, mass advertising — the list is lengthy, but not every campaign requires every tool. Every tool, however, requires a focused, fine-tuned strategy in order to work the way it was intended.
Nashville Marketing Strategy Firm, Kentucky Creative Firm Merge to Form Comprehensive Marketing Agency
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Jan. 18, 2010) — Earnhart + Friends Advertising (Bowling Green, Ky.) is pleased to announce that it has merged with Fresh Dirt Marketing (Nashville, Tenn.) to form WERKSHOP MARKETING.
Werkshop Marketing boasts four distinct disciplines — brand development, marketing planning, creative execution and marketing education — under one roof, with a comprehensive offering of services within each.
Each company brings a solid portfolio to the equation. Fresh Dirt Marketing (FDM) has designed and executed robust, detailed marketing plans for clients including Lyric Financial, the Peterson Foundation for Parkinson’s and Tennessee Titans placekicker Rob Bironas (and his Rob Bironas Fund); Earnhart + Friends (E+F) has conceived and executed TV, radio, print and web campaigns for the likes of Minit Mart convenience stores, Auburn University Athletics and Harned Bachert & McGehee PSC.
“Bringing these two firms together just made perfect sense,” says Principal/CEO Tim Earnhart. “We saw that our clients would be better served with strategic direction on the front end, while FDM saw an opportunity to give their clients top-notch creative. As Werkshop, we’re now positioned to provide our clients with foundational marketing strategy, then develop that into pitch-perfect creative, all within the same team and under the same roof.”
A major component of Werkshop Marketing is a commitment to educating start-up, small and midsize businesses on how to plan and execute their marketing in a strategic way. This will be accomplished through a variety of educational efforts, including monthly “Digs” — free, off-the-cuff discussion events on hot topics in marketing. Past Digs have featured speakers from all corners of the marketing world, and have generated a tremendous level of enthusiasm from those in the industry, as well as professionals looking for ways to give a spark to their start-ups and small businesses.
“Good marketers are also effective teachers,” says Holly Grenvicz, Werkshop Principal and Chief Strategist. “We are passionate about sharing our knowledge of the marketing toolbox with our clients so that they will have the ability to make effective marketing decisions. The Digs have become a platform for clients, business owners and professional marketers to come together and talk about what is going on, and the positive response we’re getting is motivation to keep the content coming.”
Werkshop Marketing is headquartered at 2915 Berry Hill Drive, Nashville TN 37204, with a secondary location at 422 East Main Street, Bowling Green, KY 42101.
About the Principals
Principal/CEO Tim Earnhart boasts more than 16 years of experience in marketing and advertising. He spent years with Wendy’s Restaurants before founding E+F in 2005. Tim will have primary management oversight of the agency, focusing his efforts on client development. Tim, his wife, Jennifer, and their two children live in Bowling Green.
Principal/Chief Strategist Holly Rooks Grenvicz began her marketing career with First Tennessee Bank in Chattanooga, TN. During her decade within the bank’s marketing arm, she worked on the First Tennessee Middle Tennessee expansion team, and won the bank’s highest employee award for developing a sales campaign that yielded more than 10,000 new accounts in its first year. She left the bank in 2007 to begin Fresh Dirt Marketing. Holly has become a featured speaker for area organizations about marketing topics and will head the Werkshop’s education arm. Holly, her husband, Joe, and their daughter live in Nashville.
