Listen to this articleZenChange is a full-service marketing firm focused on small businesses and startups in various industries. When its founder left the corporate consulting world to start her own firm, she took with her the strategy and operations secrets of Fortune 500 companies. Below is our recent interview with Diane Moura, CEO of ZenChange:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to ZenChange?
A: ZenChange has applied these key strategies to SMBs, helping them to scale and become successful. Our entire mindset is focused on the idea that in order for our company to succeed, our clients’ companies must succeed.
We work one-on-one with owners and executives to create a unique strategy based on proven concepts in their field. We don’t sign up clients on a “cookie-cutter” basis because we ourselves would not appreciate signing up for any “cookie-cutter” services. We’re a boutique agency. We care. This is our core value and what has kept us growing since our inception in 2012.
Q: Can you give us insights into your services?
A: Strategy workshops, business & marketing plans, web design, social media, SEO, paid ads, writing, branding, graphic design, you name it. We’re a full-service agency—a one-stop-shop. For many of our clients, we become their outsourced marketing department. For others, we simply start with a workshop, website project or monthly social media. There are many agencies that specialize in specific areas of marketing, but we have put together a team of vetted individuals in all facets of the industry. Our social media experts are influencers, our writers have “bestseller” attached to their work, and our strategists have taken startups and brought them into fruition on numerous occasions. We like to think of ourselves as an in-house marketing solution for companies that would otherwise not have the budget for one.
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Q: There are a lot of small business marketing companies out there, but what makes yours unique? How is your approach different?
A: We care. It may sound a bit cliché, but it’s true. ZenChange is made up of 14 individuals in various roles. We know what it’s like to be a small business because we are one. Our team members interact with each other all the time and we carry that communication method over to our clients. We’re not corporate, meaning we don’t simply check off the boxes as we go—we consult with our clients via open and friendly communication. With us, you not only have marketing expertise at your disposal, but you have a mentor and a friend…well, 14 friends.
Q: How important is social media for organic search rank?
A: The beauty of social media is that it’s free—thank you, Tom, from MySpace! Although it’s free, many small business owners find they simply don’t have the time to take advantage of free visibility. This is understandable—we’ve worked with many small business owners and certainly feel the pain of 3- and 4-hour nights of sleep—but having a social media presence is crucial for your business. In a world where people spend so much of their day on their social networks, this visibility can seriously help your brand. In fact, it is critical and brand is the thing your business should be focused on today because when voice search takes over if potential clients don’t know your name, and those Fortune 500 companies start redirecting all of their billboard and TV ad investment to digital, it will be too late. Social pay-per-click and Adwords are still an important part of your strategy, but they are focused on tactical sales. Marketing is about the long term play for growth and for that, you need to be producing a lot of content. In addition to the SEO benefit of social, when paired with blogs and emails, it is the most strategic thing you can do for your business right now.
Q: Which small business marketing strategies drive the most growth?
A: Content. But you’ll need to be patient. Pay for visibility while you’re waiting, but don’t sacrifice content. You need to be writing, producing videos, a podcast, social posts etc. For now, it will simply reinforce your brand message when people search for you, but in time it will be how they’ll find you.
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Q: What we can look forward to seeing from ZenChange next?
A: We’re always growing, studying, staying on top of industry trends and morphing our formulas around those trends. Right now, we’re adding new clients on a weekly basis and are getting really excited for what the future will bring for these companies. We have recently launched a podcast service and some pretty creative entry-level plans to help our clients with producing content. Our $600/month web + SEO plan is really taking off and in addition to WordPress, we’re now helping clients with Shopify. We’re doing more social media video shoots lately as well as working with more and more startups and companies looking to do a strategy reset through one of our on-site workshops. We have even added a virtual component to our workshops including tools to support virtual brainstorming. Our mission at Zenchange is to give SMBs the tools needed to scale and our toolbox is always evolving!
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