Creativity on Demand and How We’ve Delivered

Should we really call ourselves a full-service marketing agency?

Marketing.

Oh, what an unoriginal, word.

Some people confuse it with advertising, others interchangeably use it with sales, and a few use it to describe their efforts of throwing money at a wall (ahem, looking at you, paid media) with no clear message (nor strategy) on what they’re selling (and then they ask themselves: “BUT WHY AM I NOT GETTING ANY CALLS???) and waiting for some of it to bounce back.

Some colleagues say the ONLY way to do the “right kind of marketing” is by humanizing a brand. Other colleagues rather just not label their “marketing ways” at all.

Here’s the thing: I (part owner of BMG) cringe every time we have to describe our company. But, undeniably, everything that we do (and things we’re capable of) fits us under the category of a full-service marketing (and advertising!) agency, with a sprinkle of business development (oh yes! our favorite part!).

What do we do, you might ask?

• Brand Development (all the shenanigans: naming, logos, brand identity, psychology, message, positioning, building… you name it!)
• Marketing Strategy (I’m the one mostly in charge of this and, I have to say, it makes my brain sweat!)
• Brand Strategy
• Advertising (Fun campaigns to promote your business? Count us in! We can get your commercial done and running in no time!)
• Public Relations (Do you want to go on a media tour and be famous for a minute? Yep, we can do that too!)
• Media Buying (We also throw in the creatives and campaign concept in this service)
• Budget Management
• Photography
• Graphic Design
• Social Media Strategy and Management
• Digital Marketing (*cough* email campaigns, SEO, SEM, SMM…)
• Sales and Customer Service Trainings (it’s part of brand building, look it up!)
• and… Business Development!

So, what exactly do we mean by business development you say?

Okay, you might be thinking:
(1) Why and how do we do so many things, if we’re just supposed to be a plain ol’ “marketing agency”?
(2) Why are we interested in doing so many things in the first place?
(3) How is business development involved in ANY of this?

Well, it’s simple: it all comes down to our (us, the founders–Frank and I) values.

Let’s start from the beginning.

My life changed when I got fired from a dead-end job. I used to work as assistant manager in a local store (with a whole lots of drama) and, one day, I received an email (Friday, 4PM) which stated I was getting laid off.

After the initial shock, I started searching for new jobs to replace that (expected) income. No luck in anything good (I felt like I had the right to be picky… As Plank says: “I went to college!!!”) in the middle of a pandemic.

However, I (unexpectedly) started to get commissions (from family and friends) to work on the graphic design, copy, and campaign strategy for some print ads. It then turned into working in the editorial and production process for a nation-wide magazine. It then evolved into tapping into soft skills I hadn’t touched in years: photography, copywriting, marketing research.

Next thing I know, I find myself being told by my boyfriend, Frank, that “we should make a business out of this… with your people skills and my aid on the creative side of things, I think we could have a chance”. So me and my unemployed buttocks hopped into my laptop, went to the State filing website, and created BINET MEDIA GROUP LLC on the 12 of October (2021).

What had I done? Now I’m stuck with the $250 commitment of a limited liability company.

A couple of days later, I had the opportunity to spend an extra $250 on a Sales and Marketing Association (Puerto Rico Chapter) convention. It was the convention of the marketing and advertising industry in Puerto Rico. So I (obviously) had to go.

I made absolutely no leads. Zero. Zilch. I sat alone for the whole 8 hours just taking it all in. We were in a -$10k start in my company and I couldn’t even meet one person that I could turn into a prospect.

But, I took home something more valuable: the teachings I could absorb that day are (still) part of my company’s values.

One particular speaker stuck with me. Ken Muench, former CMO of Yum! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut), was promoting his new book: R.E.D. Marketing and spoke about the importance of being relevant, easy, and (most importantly) distinctive.

Then, naturally, I had to ask him (at the q&a session at the end) how do we become more creative? HOW could we possibly be more distinctive through creativity? His answer: “I wouldn’t know, I’m the least creative person I know. I suck at it! But, one thing that has always helped us is bringing people to the team who didn’t study marketing–we rather hire people with backgrounds in other industries and teach them along the way.”

I took this answer to heart, and paired it up with a famous concept in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter: entrepreneurs have to do a little bit of everything (and it’s virtually impossible to narrow down your skills to one specific task), so they have to surround themselves with people who specialize in the essential areas of a business in order to consult them in any given moment.

And that’s exactly what we’ve been able to do in BMG: build strategic partnerships with companies or consultants that specialize in certain areas so we can collaborate in any given project. (That’s why we’ve been able to develop a wide portfolio with a range of different skill sets!)

Now, back to that business development question.

How is it that a full-service marketing agency gets involved in business development?

Remember how in our list we stated sales and customer services training in a different bullet point? Well, because business development is an essential step for any business to succeed in sales and marketing.

We’re not going to waste our times and efforts bringing business to a company with a clusterfuck of an organizational structure.

“We’re in the business of making business”, so if you’re going to spend a pretty penny on our services and media purchases, we’re going to make sure you’re bound to get an ROI.

Unfortunately, most of the companies we’ve worked with need this service. They need to implement strategic processes, conduct extensive market researches, build partnerships for opportunities… but their owners are stuck up in running the business that they forget how to get actual business. That’s where we come in.

Thanks to our implementation of business development knowledge in our own company, we’re able to provide these small business owners with an all-in-one platform to actually make their business grow: we connect them with other clients of ours (yes, we do their networking), we provide consulting on sales processes, marketing optimization, and advertising techniques, we help them get funding, sponsorships, and exposure opportunities, among other many other things we’ve been willing to do for our beloved clients.

How can we actually call ourselves a full-service marketing agency when we do so much more?

We’ve been baffled with all the great opportunities we’ve had throughout our very short operational period. Even though I filed BMG LLC back in October 2021, we didn’t get our first big, juicy gigs until late 2022. Since then, the only way has been upwards. We’ve had the opportunity to grow exponentially fast (and we’ve been able to do things we protected in the next 3-4 years in less than six months of full operations) and we’re more than grateful for every one of the teams that have trusted us, have believed in our values, and continue to trust the purpose of BMG—making entrepreneurship a little easier for business owners out there through the education of useful business development, sales, and marketing strategies.