Two female founders create a PR solution for startups and small businesses in Houston and beyond

all you need

Two seasoned public relations experts are providing resources for startups and small businesses. Photo courtesy of All You Need Method

Public relations can feel elusive and overwhelming to small business owners. Carla Nikitaidis and Kathryn Worsham Humphries, two seasoned communications consultants, are used to hearing clients ask if they need PR — and more often than not, "what does PR even mean?"

The two women are lifting integrated marketing's curtain to help early-stage businesses and entrepreneurs understand and implement their own communication plans. Houston-based Humphries and California-based Nikitaidis launched All You Need Method, an online course and consulting business designed for small business owners, to help provide agency-level strategy without the expensive price tag.

All You Need Method compiles Nikitaidis and Humphries years of communications experience into an accessible course, The PR Starter Kit.

"We packaged it together in a way where if you're the founder of a small business, you can take our course and get started down the right path of telling your story, being strategic, setting goals, and growing your brand," explains Humphries.

The $249 course is a small sum compared to the often costly prices of hiring on a PR agency, which Humphries explains have monthly retainers ranging from $3,000 to $20,000. The price point is much more manageable for a small company, she explains.

The partners first crossed paths in New York City, sharing a mutual love for PR. Nikitaidis worked for a string of large agencies, representing popular brands like Target, CVS, and Shiseido. Humphries, a University of Texas graduate, landed in Manhattan to fulfill internships at Ralph Lauren, Teen Vogue, and Lonny magazine.

When Nikitaidis left her agency role to start CMN PR, a firm focused on early-stage businesses, and brought Humphries on as her first employee. "She was so smart and strategic — such a partner from day one," says Nikitaidis.

After five years of CMN PR, the two joined a client's in-house team and, eventually, departed to their own adventures. Humphries joined the global social media team for Gap Inc. and eventually returned to Houston to start her consultancy, KWH Creative. Nikitaidis became director of communications at Nextdoor, in the early days of the app, and vice president at The OutCast Agency in San Francisco before relaunching her company as CMN PR & Consulting in 2020.

Nikitaidis and Humphries met in New York years ago and have worked together in the past. Photo courtesy of All You Need Method

When the coronavirus started, the two women realized that small businesses were struggling more than ever. They set out to create tools for the early-stage entrepreneur and even business owners reassessing their plans in the wake of 2020's hardships.

"There are so many businesses that are pre-PR agency or even pre-consulting services that just need a little bit of help. They don't need a $5,000 or $10,000 monthly retainer — what they need is some strategic guidance," says Nikitaidis.

All You Need Method seeks to democratize access to media for solopreneurs on a budget.

"We're not anti-PR agency," Nikitaidis stressed. "We just think that the system and how it's kind of set up right now is broken."

Traditionally, publicists have been the conduit between brands and the media. Through press releases and pitches, communications professionals build relationships with reporters to help the brands they represent get media coverage. The Public Relations Journal even sought to investigate the role of PR gatekeepers in a 2011 study.

"If you think about how agency life has evolved, you used to have to go through an agency to have access to media. Now that the conversation is completely broken down — you don't need a third-party to have that conversation," continues Nikitaidis.

Before reaching out to the media or unveiling a product, Humphries believes you should have "core foundational pillars in place." The PR Starter Kit course guides our seven-step formula the two founders have used with their clients to help them stand out in a crowded media landscape. The course provides customized templates, a competitive analysis, content creation tips, and clarity on how to use integrated marketing to reach your business goals.

The PR Starter Kit includes approximately one hour of video training and worksheets that could take an estimated five hours to complete. The videos are broken up into segments so "you can go at your own pace" overtime, suggests Nikitaidis.

For a personalized approach, All You Need Method also offers one-hour strategy sessions via Zoom for $250. The consultation process answers PR and marketing questions pertaining to the brand's business, addresses individual pain points, and focuses on bonus goals.

"We're always trying to map back or help small business owners approach PR and marketing as something that's going to move their business goals forward," Nikitaidis added.

Building customer relationships and servicing your clients may sound like "Business 101," but Humphries finds that 2020 has shifted the needs of brand audiences and their lifestyles.

"I feel like a lot of small business owners have a vague idea of who their target audience is, but they haven't actually sat down and drilled down on all the details," explains Humphries.

Especially in light of the coronavirus pandemic, consumer behavior has changed. She recommends understanding what they could most use from you right now based on your areas of expertise and your product or service.

The coronavirus isn't the only nationwide hardship that's forcing brands to reevaluate their content and values. Last May, the Black Lives Matter movement held protests across the country in the wake of George Floyd's murder. Conversations on racial justice and police brutality took place on the ground, in news outlets, and across social media platforms. While the movement was amplified on social platforms, some brands fumbled responses and social media statements that critics felt were inauthentic.

"There was just this total lack of awareness in terms of the different industries, specifically fashion and beauty. I hope that it was a big wake up call," says Nikitaidis, who emphasized All You Need Method's commitment to inclusivity. The company recently interviewed thought leader and marketer, Sonia Thompson, for tips on building an inclusive brand.

Inclusivity, and the messaging surrounding it, was a problem that existed long-before last summer and has continued on. From the Dallas-based mahjong brand that sparked a debate on cultural appropriation to the racial missteps of fashion brands, embracing inclusivity with half-hearted gestures has led brands to come under fire.

"I think a big part of being an inclusive brand and having it be authentic is relationship building and making sure that you're building relationships with a diverse audience and customers that don't look just like you," explains Humphries. She challenges people to make "a conscious effort to expand your circle and to make other people feel welcome."

From a global pandemic, political divisiveness, racial justice revolutions, the growing climate crisis, and an insurrection at the nation's Capitol, there's, well, a lot of events to consider when creating social media content.

To Nikitaidis, authenticity and consistency go a long way.

"Reevaluate your core values, and then make sure that you show up with intention in every single solitary thing that you post, that you put out there, and that it's consistent," she says. "If there is a cause that you really care about, and that really is a natural fit with your core values, then you become a thought leader in that space and it's not contrived."

While 2020 might have been a shock to the system for some, it also ushered in new platforms that the two believe could shape marketing's future.

Nikitaidis is excited about what Clubhouse, an audio-chat social networking app, could mean for the future of social platforms. She describes the app as a vibrant dinner party with your 10 coolest, most interesting contacts... except everyone can listen in.

The invitation-only app, which launched last April, features a variety of virtual rooms with conversations on topics like music, social media marketing, business, politics, dating, and more. The Verge likens it to "Medium for podcasts," while reporting on Elon Musk's debut on the chat platform.

"I think the podcast market is awesome but I think that's becoming a little oversaturated. I'm interested and excited to see where these other digital platforms are popping up and how people will be socializing or communicating or connecting in new ways," says Nikitaidis.

She also predicts a resurgence in the power of LinkedIn, the favored platform for business networking. After pitching an op-ed to The Cut and Huffington Post Women, her consulting client posted her piece to LinkedIn and amassed one million views in a two weeks span.

"There's such a huge opportunity and LinkedIn, especially for small business owners, where you're looking at who you know, and who wants to help, and you want to get out in front of your network first," says Nikitaidis.

Similarly, Humphries predicts the future of integrated marketing lies in storytelling.

"I think that brands will continue focusing on telling their own story and communicating with their audience directly through all of the channels that are relevant to them," she explained.

Regardless of what the future holds, communications can't be ignored in the present. " It's not a nice-to-have anymore — it's a must-have," explains Nikitaidis.

"Getting smart about PR, marketing, influencer marketing, influencer partnerships is one of the best business tools," says Nikitaidis. "It's just truly one of the best things you can do to grow your business as a small business owner."

The PR Starter Kit
What does your company plan on bringing into the new year — and how do you plan to communicate your efforts? Photo courtesy of All You Need Method

5 PR and marketing tips for Houston startups and small businesses in 2021

guest column

The past year has been a rollercoaster for small businesses. When the pandemic hit, every single person was affected. We've all had to pivot in some way either personally, professionally, or both.

As public relations and marketing professionals who specialize in working with small businesses, we've spent the last 10 months in the trenches with our clients, advising and helping business owners and entrepreneurs navigate these uncertain times. While small business revenue is down since January 2020, it's not all doom and gloom out there – we've seen many other businesses experience unexpected success and growth, and according to economists, we are entering the greatest entrepreneurial economy of our time.

And as we start this new year, there is no better time to invest in business growth and planning. Below are five tips to help you get started.

1. Get smart on your PR

Whether you know a little or a lot about public relations, marketing, and social media, take some time to get caught up on the current landscape. It is constantly changing, and having a better understanding of how traditional media, social media, paid marketing, owned content and all other components can benefit your business will inform decisions about where to allocate your time and resources.

First, assess what stage of business you are in as well as your business goals to determine what PR and marketing tools could be most beneficial to your growth at this time. Not all small businesses are prepared, financially or otherwise, to invest in PR, and there are fundamental steps you can do on your own to get your business positioned to succeed.

With online education booming, there are many free resources and tools at your disposal. We created All You Need Method to simplify PR and marketing for small business owners. You can download our Free PR Roadmap on our website to assess what level of PR support is right for your business. We also created The PR Starter Kit online course to give small business owners the fundamental tools they need to use PR, marketing, and social media to support business growth and build a lasting brand – and it only takes a few hours to complete.

2. Revisit your target audience

The world has changed significantly over the past year and so have the wants, needs, habits, and interests of consumers. As a small business, it's imperative to understand your target audience's current problems in order to relate to them, build trust, and deliver a product or service that is meeting their needs.

Before investing time and financial resources creating and executing a 2021 business plan, take a step back and consider your ideal customer. Outline how the past year has created opportunities or challenges in their life, problems they are facing, new shopping habits, lifestyle shifts, communication preferences, concerns, etc. If you have more than one ideal customer, work through this exercise for each.

With this new perspective, you will be equipped to make business decisions through the lens of how you can better serve your customers, rather than how to increase revenue.

3. Stand for something

Brands that are succeeding today are the brands that are authentic, vulnerable, and that stand for something. According to a global study by Zeno Group in July 2020, consumers are 4 to 6 times more likely to purchase and champion purpose-driven companies.

Having a purpose doesn't require a brand to have a philanthropy component or an outspoken political stance – it's about identifying your specific values and making them apparent through your messaging and leadership within your industry. Values could include committing to sustainable production methods, outstanding customer service, commitment to diversity, or supporting a specific cause. What is most important is that your values are authentic and that you can stand behind them long-term.

As the founder/owner of a small business, you have an opportunity to put a face and values behind the brand so that your company is about more than selling something.

4. Clarify your message

After revisiting your target audience and carefully considering your brand values, incorporate those findings into your messaging. Conduct an audit of your website, social media channels, and all external facing materials, and update your messaging to ensure that if your ideal customer had a 30 second encounter with your brand, they would walk away with your most important messaging points. Important points to consider as you craft new messaging include:

  • How your product or service solves a problem for or benefits your target audience
  • Brand values
  • Points of differentiation

5. Be authentic and communicative

Before the days of social media, a brand had to rely on third parties, including editorials and ads in magazines and newspapers, to spread the word about their brand. Social media and all "owned channels," including a brand's website, blog, and newsletter, have leveled the playing field and allow small business owners to have control over their communication with customers. Through your owned channels, a brand can decide what to post and when, which is incredibly valuable.

While securing press and advertising opportunities is valuable to growth and brand awareness, it's largely outside of one's control. Focus your time and financial resources on communicating with your audience by creating content for your owned channels. Creating content and posting consistently can seem overwhelming to a solopreneur or small team, but there are ways to make it manageable:

  • Pick only a few owned channels to focus on, prioritizing platforms you are most familiar with using and where your audience is most active
  • Quality and consistency are more important than quantity. If you're only posting once a week due to bandwidth, commit to that frequency and increase frequency as you are able
  • To inspire and inform content creation, think about how you can serve your customers through your areas of expertise and what is relevant to both your brand and audience (events, holidays, partnerships, new product launches, etc.)
  • Create a content calendar so that you can plan out posts a month in advance to avoid last minute scrambling to decide what to post

Once you've worked through these five tips, make a plan to support your business goals - and start thinking in two phases.

  • Phase 1: Pandemic Home Stretch - Although there is hope with a COVID-19 vaccine, we know we will likely be dealing with the effects indefinitely. Use this time of uncertainty to get your business in the best shape possible.
  • Phase 2: Post Pandemic - How do you want your business or brand to show up when the world opens back up? It feels far off, but it is closer than you think and there is a huge opportunity for those who are willing to put in the work now.

Remember, these challenging times will pass. There is massive opportunity for the businesses and brands who are willing to reflect, pivot, and plan for a brighter future.

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Kathryn Worsham Humphries and Carla M. Nikitaidis are the co-creators of Houston-based All You Need Method, a PR and marketing resource for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

"We're here for the founders and the little guys," Alfredo Arvide says about his new venture that's redefining marketing for small businesses and startups. Photo courtesy of MAP360

This Houston startup is increasing access to marketing for other startups and small businesses

A new Houston organization is working to redefine the way startups set up their marketing strategy — focusing on specific projects tailored to the client's goals at a significantly cheaper price than a normal marketing agency.

MAP360, also known as The Marketing Acceleration Program, is collaborating one-on-one with clients to learn their particular needs and goals for individual projects. Unlike traditional marketing agencies, they do not work on retainer, instead they focus on small contracts to increase efficiency and affordability for startups and small businesses.

"There is a great opportunity in Houston with the accelerating innovation ecosystem," says Alfredo Arvide, CEO and co-founder. "When my co-founder and I were brainstorming ideas, we saw the need for a marketing program tailored specifically for startups or small businesses."

Arvide's new marketing acceleration program has always been one of his goals as a budding entrepreneur, previously founding Pushr an app that manages multiple social profiles across all platforms. However, it was his layoff from Accenture last month, a result of the ongoing impact of coronavirus on the economy, that spurred him into action with his business partner, Jacqueline Levine, who has taken on the role of chief marketing officer.

The two have combined decades of experience in the marketing world — most recently Arvide was the prototyping center director within the Houston Accenture Innovation Hub.

"Usually in a startup, the entrepreneur wears a lot of different hats," says Arvide. "They have the responsibility to market the business and manage financials, this is a lot of pressure. We wanted to provide a different sphere of the marketing spectrum at an affordable price."

MAP360 touts a 50 percent or fewer costs of an agency with the same agency-quality talent. The services they offer range from branding, storytelling, design, to consulting. They also offer tiers or packages aimed for startups, funded or growing businesses, and established businesses. Each package has a different time frame and helps the client's marketing goals with the most efficiency.

For example, a startup has a need for pitch materials and setting up basic brand guidelines, unlike a growing client who perhaps needs a marketing distribution plan or social media engagement plan more urgently.

"We are able to focus on affordability and the needs of our clients because of our strategic nature," says Arvide. "We are going to provide our clients with campaigns that are very specific to their audience while providing them a plan and metrics for success."

MAP360 strategy of upfront costs and marketing plans cut to size added another benefit for clients' bang for their buck with their proprietary approach to data. The psychographic data allows businesses to measure and meet their target metrics using a profile of their customer's interests and values.

"We use a partner firm that uses demographic and psychographic data," says Arvide. "Then we can analyze the firm's target audience at the highest probability. We are not casting a huge net, rather fishing for the very specific fish willing to bite."

A startup itself, MAP360 has its own plans and metrics for its own success, aiming to add 10 to 15 new clients before the end of the year and expect that figure to double in the next year to 20 to 30 clients. They also plan to use local marketing professionals and freelancers to expand their pool of specialists.

"We're here for the founders and the little guys," says Arvide. "We want to help them be better and partner with local talent to make Houston first in the innovation sphere."

Why use social media for business? These two PR experts make their case. Getty Images

Houston PR team shares how social media can affect your small business

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As a small business owner, I know firsthand how important it is to stay on top of the latest marketing trends. We no longer live in a world where traditional public relations alone will achieve your business objectives. With new and evolving digital platforms creating so many ways to communicate with your target audience, businesses must diversify their public relations and media strategies to be successful.

We cannot work in silos; instead, we need to have a comprehensive approach, including tactics such as media relations, community partnerships, unique events, influencer collaborations, digital and traditional advertising, email marketing and social media.

While some of these marketing channels can be costly, social media for small business owners is an absolute must and an inexpensive way of keeping your brand top of mind.

How businesses use social media for marketing can vary depending on the industry. The first step is determining which social media platforms make the most sense for your business. Where are your competitors? Are they on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn? If so, does it also make sense for you to have a presence on each of these, as well?

Once you know where you should be, decide who you want to reach and what your message should look like in order to accomplish this. Messaging can certainly vary on each platform, as can your target audience.

Recruiting, B2B content and company updates are best suited for LinkedIn, while beautiful visuals and brand stories are reserved for Instagram and Facebook. Twitter can serve as a great platform for timely updates and conversations with followers. To create effective social media marketing for small businesses, solidify your brand voice and target audience before creating content.

As you begin creating organic content to push out to your target audience, take advantage of the advertising tools within each platform. Facebook's Ad Manager provides businesses with an intuitive approach to advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook's Audience Network. By adding marketing dollars to your social media strategy, small businesses cast a wider net with individual posts and reach a larger audience by creating campaigns with specific objectives such as driving website visitors. With advertising spend on social media, you will be equipped with even more data and analytics than your organic posts generate in order to understand who is engaging with your content.

It's always beneficial to keep these options in mind, while understanding the value social media brings to your overall marketing strategy. Social media is a great tool for upper funnel objectives, such as raising brand awareness and interest, rather than lower funnel, conversion objectives. You want to rely on social media to increase your customer base, connect with current customers and influence them down the purchasing path.

The beauty and power of social media for small business owners is that it's affordable and efficient. It can serve as a snapshot of your brand when potential customers visit your page.

There's no better way to build relationships with your current and prospective customers than through social media marketing. It offers a quick turnaround time, granular targeting options and real-time consumer feedback and communication.

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Karen Henry is the founding partner of The PR Boutique, a Houston-based public relations firm. Kirby Levey is the company's senior accounts and digital executive.
It's important to rethink your startup's messaging during the time of the coronavirus. Getty Images

Houston expert shares 5 tips for brand messaging during a pandemic

guest column

Brand messaging in a world cowed by a worldwide pandemic poses a set of challenges none of us has ever faced.

The aftermath of Hurricane Harvey provides few guideposts to professional communicators as that tragedy unfolded over several terrible days in August 2017 mostly affecting Southeast Texas. While Harvey was unprecedented in the sheer volume of its onslaught, the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in its global scale and seeming endlessness.

In times of crisis, our natural impulse is to lend a helping hand. With the highly contagious coronavirus spreading and social distancing guidelines in place, lending a literal helping hand is dangerous. In the days and weeks following Hurricane Harvey, Houston's civic leaders, its citizens, and its business community rallied to meet the challenge with positivity, hard work, and good humor. The circumstances today are fundamentally different, and the path forward is uncertain and uncharted.

Attempts to develop a messaging strategy in the face of COVID-19 can be paralyzing.

How do we maintain meaningful connections with our customers and communities when we're being forced apart? How do we keep our businesses vital and active when economic and public health interests are in direct conflict? How do we create normalcy and positivity in the middle of so much suffering? How do we keep our sense of humor and humanity when we need it most?

We're in this for the long haul. Here are a few tips to guide your messaging strategies so your content can do some good.

Fine tune your tone

Tone is everything in a crisis. People are frightened for their personal and economic wellbeing. Messaging under these circumstances is risky, but with a thoughtful approach, you can make a positive impact. Unless you work for a news, civic, or healthcare organization, it's unlikely anyone is looking to you to guide them through the pandemic. If that's your messaging, it'll be jarring and confusing.

Focus on providing distraction, comfort, support, and some sense of normalcy. That doesn't mean your messaging should ignore the realities of the situation, which runs the risk of appearing tone-deaf, opportunistic, or ignorant. We're all affected. Keep that top of mind, acknowledge what's happening in the world, and your messaging tone shouldn't cause you too many problems.

Feed the beast

You may have seen that clip of Welsh seniors playing a life-size version of Hungry, Hungry Hippos on NBC's Today Show. If you haven't, the smile is worth the minute and thirteen seconds of your life. Now, think of social media as the game board, your content as the marbles, and everyone else is a hungry, hungry hippo, except the hippos are hungry day and night and the game will never end.

People are lonely and bored, and instead of counting the dimples in their ceiling plaster, they're on the Internet sharing Tiger King memes. They're looking for connection and a sense of shared community. You have the opportunity to brighten their day. You alone cannot generate enough engaging content to keep the hippos full for long, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Isolation is unhealthy.

Help people keep their marbles by giving them something fun, inspiring or educational to share and experience with others while staying on brand.

Deliver the goods

Thanks to social media, home delivery has taken on new meaning. Bring your brand directly into peoples' homes and create an interactive experience that disrupts the monotony of the "stay at home" order. Miss fajitas? Of course you do. Original Ninfa's on Navigation recently launched a series of YouTube videos called "Ninfa's with your Niños," and they're delightful. The content is on brand, encourages activity, and implicitly acknowledges folks are trapped at home with their kids (note: these were clearly produced before social distancing started). Watching Chef Alex Padilla demonstrate how to make queso flameado in your own kitchen will be the best single minute of your month. That's how to home deliver a brand.

Know your role

If your organization is in a position to help your community, do it in a way that makes sense for your brand, creates a meaningful impact for those suffering, and is simple to communicate. Flattening the curve is a team effort. Big or small, national or local, organizations can do their part to help the effort. If it's a logical extension of what you do normally, it will not look opportunistic because it's not opportunistic. It's a reasonable and human thing to do in the face of tragedy.

For example, local fashion designer Chloe Dao is making washable face masks for healthcare workers and their families. The Ford Motor Company is converting a plant in Michigan to build ventilators. And Houston Astros ace Justin Verlander is donating his paychecks to COVID-19 relief organizations because he's rich and having a filthy curveball isn't helpful right now. Take what you already do and use it to help people.

Your specific contribution is needed. Figure out what that is and encourage everyone else to get on board.

Don't stick out your neck (or anyone else's)

This should go without saying: safety is the starting point for every single messaging decision you make. Whether implicit or explicit, all of your messaging, all of your community investment, and all of your community initiatives must put the safety of your employees, your customers, and your neighbors first.

No one will question why the video message you created in selfie mode is a little rough and wobbly. No reasonable person will question you for wearing a mask or gloves or waving at them from a distance. Being involved carries an unusual amount of personal risk. All of your activities and content creation should factor in the hard realities of a viral pandemic.

Project safety in your words and your actions. Slickly produced content can take a back seat for now. Be safe out there.

In the face of this crisis, every effort to create connection helps. Be careful with your words, thoughtful with your generosity, and positive with your message. And if all else fails, share that video of old people playing Hungry, Hungry Hippos.

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Jeremy C. Little is the head of account services for CKP, a Houston-based marketing and public relations group.

When it comes to setting up a marketing budget for your startup, considering every angle is important. Getty Images

Houston expert shares her advice on how much startups should spend on marketing

Is the price right?

Industry research suggests spending 5 percent to 12 percent of total revenue on an annual marketing budget. At Integrate Agency, we believe marketing spend should be determined from key data points, versus current size. We shepherd our clients through a five-step process to calculate how much they should spend on marketing to maximize their ROI.

1. Know your goals

You can't manage what you can't measure. Before you start spending, you must first set SMART goals. Challenging, but realistic, short-term goals may include:

  • Sales/revenue growth
  • Customer count
  • Consumer ratings improvement

Integrate updated Delmar Systems' website with the goal of increasing traffic that would generate leads. By having a clear goal at the forefront, Integrate created a conversion-focused website and calculated an ROI for the company (including 631.9 percent increase in new visitors and 23.9 percent increase in qualified leads).

Your goals should set a strong baseline of expectations and establish clear guidelines for the budgeting strategies to reach those goals.

2. Know your data

You can only track your goals, and tweak your spend accordingly, if you have the specific data to tell you what's working and what isn't. Some of our favorite tools include:

  • Google Analytics for visitors, bounce rate, and time on site
  • Site Checker for SEO performance
  • Conductor for content efficacy
  • Sprout Social for social media metrics

One of our clients wanted to increase its qualified leads, but before we added more dollars to the equation, a full audit of the company's digital efforts uncovered significant spend inefficiencies. The data uncovered a new strategy that led to a full revamp of its PPC campaign. This helped them save $8,000 per month and led to a 63.9 percent year-over-year decrease in cost-per-click cost and 42.3 percent year-over-year increase in click through rate.

3. Know your audience

If you have a strong concept of your customer base, you'll know where, when, and how you can best connect with them.

To this end, we are hyper-aware of our clients' seasonality and when their audience is most likely to buy (and for B2B clients, when budget review season is) so we can target their marketing budget accordingly.

Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Splashtown operates on a seasonal basis, by its very nature. Each summer, Integrate focuses on a concentrated marketing approach and last year garnered over 540 million traditional media impressions in just four months.

This activity has ensured they're top-of-mind when it matters most, versus spending dollars when their customers are not considering this purchase.

4. Know your competition

Regardless of market share, it's important to keep up with what competitors are doing. We recommend beginning your competitor research with:

  • SEM Rush for SEO keyword research
  • Majestic SEO for linking statistics
  • Ahrefs for backlink strategy
  • Moz for rank tracking

When Escalante's sought to outmaneuver its competition with digital tactics, Integrate's competitive data revealed that none of its competitors in a specific neighborhood were being overly aggressive online.

By focusing on geo-targeting and ad scheduling to ensure ads displayed to the preferred audience at the right time, the restaurant has been able to capitalize on specific traffic without a large budget.

5. Know your capabilities

A question will often come up about in-house vs. outsourced marketing. In-house gives you maximum control. But, to be most effective with your spend (and often attune to the latest, best-in-class, industry techniques), you must fully commit to your marketing efforts, which an agency, or outside partner, can provide.

As one client — Arthritis Relief Centers — grew, their staff no longer had the time to devote to marketing. By making the decision to work with Integrate, the company had more time to devote to patient care. This led to an over 100 percent increase in clicks to digital ads and a 56 percent decrease in cost-per-click because the client trusted the agency's digital marketing expertise.

The biggest upside to outsourcing your marketing: letting your team focus on servicing customers and improving your products.

As we stated earlier, the experts tell you that your marketing spend should normally live between 5 and 12 percent of your gross revenue, but we believe your marketing budget, and the integrated mix of how that budget is implemented, should be tied to growth needs and goals.

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Allie Danziger is the founder and president of Houston-based Integrate Agency, which focuses on digital marketing and public relations.
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New ERCOT dashboards let Houstonians check energy supply in real-time

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With winter temperatures and last year's freeze still top of mind for many Texans, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, has rolled out new dashboards to help you keep tabs on the energy supply in real-time.

Local may not have heard of ERCOT until the winter storm in February 2021 that would go on to take the lives of 246 people after the freeze overwhelmed the power grid and left millions freezing in the dark.

Since that storm, anxiety has been high. But these dashboards may help Texans get a gauge on what we're dealing with at any given moment.

The ERCOT site features find nine different dashboards on the Grid and Market Conditions page. Each dashboard has a timestamp of when it was last updated and if you select "Full View," you'll get a detailed explanation of what the graphs mean.

If things are normal, the grid will be green. But if it's black, that means we're in an energy emergency level 3, so expect controlled outages. Energy conservation would also be critical.

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Continue reading and watch the full video on our news partner ABC13.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

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Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know — the first of this new year — I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from startup development to energy transition — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Joey Sanchez, senior director of ecosystems at the Ion Houston

Joey Sanchez joins the Houston Innovator Podcast to discuss his new role at The Ion Houston. Photo via LinkedIn

Joey Sanchez, who previously served as director of corporate engagement at Houston Exponential, has been in his new role as senior director of ecosystem at The Ion for about three months now.

"I'm focusing specifically on the communities of entrepreneurs, startups, investors — and trying to bridge connections among them," Sanchez says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "This is the biggest challenge in Houston and we want to flip that with density. Density is really the key to solving connections."

Sanchez joined the Houston Innovators Podcast and shares about what gets him so excited about Houston innovation on the show. Click here to listen and read more.

Nisha Desai, founder and CEO of Intention

Four climatetech-focused individuals have been named to Greentown Lab's board. Photo via LinkedIn

Greentown Labs named new board members, including two community board members to act as liaisons between startups and Greentown Labs. Greentown Houston's appointed representation is Nisha Desai, founder and CEO of Intention, and community member.

Desai's current startup, Intention, is climate impact platform for retail investors, and she has previously worked at six energy-related startups including Ridge Energy Storage, Tessera Solar, and ActualSun, where she was co-founder and CEO. She's also worked in a leadership role at NRG Energy and spent several years as a management consultant with the energy practice of Booz Allen Hamilton — now Strategy&, a PWC company.

"I'm honored to join the board of Greentown Labs as a representative of the startup community," she says in the release. "This is a pivotal time for climate and energy transition. I look forward to working with the rest of the board to expand the collective impact of the Greentown Labs ecosystem." Click here to read more.

Moji Karimi, co-founder and CEO of Cemvita Factory

Moji Karimi joins InnovationMap to discuss how Cemvita Factory has deployed its recent investment funding and what's next for the company and Houston as a whole when it comes to biomanufacturing. Photo courtesy of Cemvita

Moji Karimi and his sister Tara had the idea for a company that could transform carbon emissions and mitigate new damage to the environment. Only, it seems, they were a bit ahead of their time.

Houston-based Cemvita Factory, founded in 2017, uses synthetic biology and take carbon emissions and transform them into industrial chemicals. However, it's only been since recently that the conversation on climate change mitigation has focused on carbon utilization.

"I think people are realizing more about the importance of really focusing on carbon capture and utilization because fossil fuels are gonna be here, whether we like it or not, for a long time, so the best thing we could do is to find ways to decarbonize them," Moji Karimi, co-founder and CEO, tells InnovationMap. "There's been this focus around carbon capture and storage, and I think the next awakening is going to be utilization." Click here to read more.

3 businesses join Houston initiative for carbon capture and storage

seeing green

Three big businesses — Air Liquide, BASF, and Shell — have added their firepower to the effort to promote large-scale carbon capture and storage for the Houston area’s industrial ecosystem.

These companies join 11 others that in 2021 threw their support behind the initiative. Participants are evaluating how to use safe carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at Houston-area facilities that provide energy, power generation, and advanced manufacturing for plastics, motor fuels, and packaging.

Other companies backing the CCS project are Calpine, Chevron, Dow, ExxonMobil, INEOS, Linde, LyondellBasell, Marathon Petroleum, NRG Energy, Phillips 66, and Valero.

Business and government leaders in the Houston area hope the region can become a hub for CCS activity.

“Large-scale carbon capture and storage in the Houston region will be a cornerstone for the world’s energy transition, and these companies’ efforts are crucial toward advancing CCS development to achieve broad scale commercial impact,” Charles McConnell, director of University of Houston’s Center for Carbon Management in Energy, says in a news release.

McConnell and others say CCS could help Houston and the rest of the U.S. net-zero goals while generating new jobs and protecting current jobs.

CCS involves capturing carbon dioxide from industrial activities that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere and then injecting it into deep underground geologic formations for secure and permanent storage. Carbon dioxide from industrial users in the Houston area could be stored in nearby onshore and offshore storage sites.

An analysis of U.S Department of Energy estimates shows the storage capacity along the Gulf Coast is large enough to store about 500 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to more than 130 years’ worth of industrial and power generation emissions in the United States, based on 2018 data.

“Carbon capture and storage is not a single technology, but rather a series of technologies and scientific breakthroughs that work in concert to achieve a profound outcome, one that will play a significant role in the future of energy and our planet,” says Gretchen Watkins, U.S. president of Shell. “In that spirit, it’s fitting this consortium combines CCS blueprints and ambitions to crystalize Houston’s reputation as the energy capital of the world while contributing to local and U.S. plans to help achieve net-zero emissions.”

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