Thomas Brown has a background in software engineering and digital marketing. In other words, he’s no stranger to the tech world. When the pandemic hit his videography business hard, he knew that technology would play a key role in helping them not only stay afloat, but come back stronger than ever.
Brown is the co-founder and CEO of BuzzMasters, a digital media team specializing in commercial and creative content production. The business is inherently digital-focused. “We are a little bit more ‘techy’ probably than your average startup. We’ve had that benefit on our side most of the way,” says Brown, who recognizes the value of technology and digital marketing channels.
When the COVID pandemic began to spread, BuzzMasters was hit hard. Brown and his team struggled to navigate ever-changing guidelines on film production and a backlog of work they couldn’t fulfill due to restrictions. “The pandemic almost killed us, honestly,” says Brown who estimates that they were about 28 days out from bankruptcy at one point. That’s when BuzzMasters turned to The Business Centre Nipissing Parry Sound for help and discovered Digital Main Street’s Digital Transformation Grant (DTG) program, which provides small businesses with a digital assessment, online training, and a $2,500 grant to implement their Digital Transformation Plan.
Despite already having an extensive background in digital marketing, Brown dove head first into the Digital Main Street training modules and made a plan to leverage smart processes and efficient technology in order to not only survive the pandemic, but also to set his business up for long-term success.
The first strategy Brown tested with his DTG funds was LinkedIn lead generation. Although the strategy was ineffective, Brown emerged from the test with an important insight: a successful sales strategy requires a personal touch. “I do not recommend LinkedIn lead gen unless it’s a very authentic, personalized outreach,” he says.
So Brown, who had previously been handling social media on his own, used his DTG funds to hire a social media manager in order to focus on improving their sales strategy. “Alleviating that burden […] enabled me to focus on bigger and more important problems within the organization,” he says. Brown used the remainder of his grant funds to hire two business coaches. The coaches helped him establish key sales processes and create important marketing collateral, like pitch decks and email marketing sequences, to help the business improve its communication with prospective customers.
The results speak for themselves. BuzzMasters’ conversion rate jumped from four to 25% after Brown completed a four-week one-on-one coaching program. This means BuzzMasters’ can now spend less time, money, and resources pitching prospects and more time creating video content for their customers. This is a very good thing since BuzzMasters is booking projects out about a year in advance with clients already lined up for December 2023. “At one point, I was thinking I had to have 20 conversations to close the deal. And now I’m walking into every fourth conversation thinking I’m closing the deal,” says Brown.
Brown put his newly honed sales skills and processes into practice during the pandemic by pitching small businesses to contribute to a self-produced mini-series project called Northern Resiliency. The project featured a series of short documentaries that highlighted the importance of community in the face of hardship and uncertainty. “We got a couple dozen different stakeholders at the table, figured out what stories we’re going to be telling, and then put our production plan together and started executing on it,” says Brown. He shared that the funds generated from the Northern Resiliency project were key to helping the business stay afloat during the pandemic.
Despite their massive success and renewed momentum post-pandemic, Brown is continuing to optimize and perfect BuzzMasters’ operations and sales processes. Prior to the DTG program, BuzzMasters wasn’t consistently collecting feedback from customers. Now, they ask for customer feedback via surveys and post-mortem meetings with clients when their projects are completed. “Focusing on the quality of our product has created all the opportunities we ever needed. We’ve gotten busy enough that we’re beyond capacity at the moment […] and our phone is still ringing,” says Brown.
