On Thursday, June 22, the new marketing agency, Media Garcia, will be hosting an open house for businesses and members of the community to learn more about this developing company that is now in Duluth. The company was founded by Louis Garcia in Saint Paul in 2011. Garcia had originally worked for Target as an IT person, but found a niche outside of the company to help businesses of all sizes with online marketing strategies. In the last few months, the company has expanded to Duluth and hopes to offer their services to Northland businesses. We had a chance to talk with CEO, Louis Garcia, and Twin Ports representative, Steven Stern, about what they do and the open house they will be holding.

Reader: Please explain what Media Garcia is?
LG: I’m Louis Garcia and I’m the CEO of Media Garcia. We’re a media and marketing agency that partners with brands that are looking to grow and transform their businesses to new heights through digital media, and strategies that are often websites, email, social media, and coupling that with analytics and automation.

Reader: Ok, when you say brands, this can be anything, right?
LG: Yeah, it could be any business, or even nonprofits. It’s really intended for anyone who wants to engage people online and nurture them through the marketing and sales process. Whether is be making sales or a nonprofit bringing in volunteers and those who might donate to the cause, it really is applicable to any business to engage with people and get the word out on what they’re talking about.

Reader: So let’s say I’m just a small business like a store or a restaurant, what would be a marketing strategy that you’d implement?
LG: Great question. We just brought on a client that is planning their grand opening of a soul food restaurant in South Minneapolis. Some real fundamental things that we’ve brought in is that their branding be consistent that crosses all of their channels. Whether it be their website, their social media, their flyers, their menu, first and foremost, make sure their branding is attractive and consistent across all of those platforms. And secondly, with a new business, we’ll put up a “coming soon” website, so people can subscribe to an email once the restaurant opens. I guess some of the strategies for a small restaurant would be, make sure you get a website with a menu on it. Have pictures for all of the food and something that displays the culture and vibe, like pictures of the restaurant and recreate that experience online that people will get that feel. Also, set up social media platforms, make sure you have things like Instagram where you can showcase the food, that’s a really good place for that. Once that’s all set up, invite your friends, family and supporters. Make sure that people know that you’re out there and that you want them to follow what you’re doing.

Reader: Tell me about this event that you have coming up in Duluth.
SS: We’ll be holding an open house at Regus on July 22nd from 4 to 6:30 pm. We’ll have beer from Carmody, cocktails from Vikre. There will also be food from Pizza Luce’.

Reader: Who would you encourage to come to this event?
SS: We’ve found that the best people to work with are those who have already invested in websites, social media, and digital marketing, and they’re not happy with the results that they’ve got. Whether that be, “I’ve built this website and it looks great, but I get no traffic, and it hasn’t helped the business.” We do a lot of specifically dialing in people’s marketing and find out what’s not working and what really is. It’s usually “here’s my outdated website that was never properly promoted.”

Reader: I see a lot of websites with what I do, and I have to say there’s a lot of neglect and errors that go all the way up to some Chamber of Commerce websites.
SS: I was just looking at a large local nonprofit’s website today and at the bottom it said, “create your own free website on Weebly.” Is that the image you want to go forward with your large local nonprofit organization?

Reader: Well, you know, people do what they have to do and trust me, I’ve been there.
SS: Absolutely, but they’ve invested something into it by even paying someone to set it up. But, is it getting the result they want? Spending less money poorly doesn’t always make the result happen.

Whether you’re a business that’s just starting out, a long running business that still could use some more traffic, or an individual helping a nonprofit, stop by on Thursday, June 22 to chat with Media Garcia to see if they could offer something in this ever expanding platform of online presence and marketing. The open house will be happening at Media Garcia’s new space at Regus Office Space located at 230 West Superior Street, Suite 400 in Duluth, at the Wells Fargo Building. For more information visit their website at mediagarcia.com.