IAM1449 – Social Media Expert Helps Start-Ups Lead thru Online Intelligence Gathering

Adriana L. Cowdin is a 4-time entrepreneur and “retired” Corporate America C-level marketing executive who led social media marketing for a $40B retailer overseeing 150 brands and was the CDMO for a $1B home security company. In 2016, Cowdin founded Dekaf Digital, a social media marketing agency that takes the pain and uncertainty out of social media for high-growth start-ups across the globe. She has been featured in media outlets worldwide including ABC, NY Times, Inc. 500, Hoovers, and Reuters to name a few.

• CEO Story: Adriana has been in social media – digital marketing for 22 years. And so in 2016, she founded Dekaf Digital, having felt that she is the builder type, enjoying building things as opposed to maintenance. With her expertise, she was able to grow her company, lead the team, and serve clients how they wanted.
• Business Service: Social media services, strategy, campaign ideation, organic and paid ads, google ads, and email marketing.
• Secret Sauce: Intelligence gathering across all online platforms. Looking for opportunities that have not been advantaged of by other competitors. Like influencers and customer persona. From that data, create a strategy and campaign.
• CEO Hack: Exercise. Take a 30-60min zone for the right mindset. App mention: Asana (project management) Slack (task tool) & Harvest (time tracker)
• CEO Nugget: Invest in your team, give rewards, and bond with the team. Invest in setting up your team for success.
• CEO Defined: Being a leader that sets the tone for the organization. Being there, inspiring them, rewarding them. Appreciate that you care for them.

Website: dekafdigital.com

Facebook: DekafDigital

Twitter: dekafdigital

Instagram: dekafdigital

LinkedIn: dekaf-digital

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Transcription

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00:22 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:50 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Adriana Cowden of Decaf Digital. Adriana, super excited to have you on the show.

01:00 – Adriana Cowdin

So excited to be here. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

01:03 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Adriana so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's working on. Adriana is a four-time entrepreneur and retired corporate American C-level marketing executive who led social media marketing for a 40 billion retailer overseeing 150 brands and it was the CDMO for a $1 billion home security company. And in 2016 she founded Decaf Digital, a social media marketing agency that takes the pain and uncertainty out of social media for high-growth startups across the globe. She's been featured in media outlets worldwide including ABC, New York Times Inc. 500 Hoovers, and Reuters to name just a few. Adriana, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:47 – Adriana Cowdin

I'm very excited to be here today, so thank you for this opportunity again.

01:51 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. I appreciate you for all the awesome things that you're doing and what I want to do to kick everything off was to rewind the clock a little bit here A little bit more on how you got started when I call your CEO story.

02:01 – Adriana Cowdin

Yeah, so as you mentioned, I have been in social media but digital marketing actually for 22 years now, so quite some time. And relocated to take the Chief Digital Marketing Officer role I had in Indianapolis in 2015 and by the time 2016 came I kind of had a good foothold here and really thought, you know, I would like to do this over and over. I enjoy building things, I'm a builder as opposed to maintenance. I launched Decaf Digital and we've been going gangbusters since we've had 300 percent growth year over year, it's really brought forth my ability to lead a team, but also to still be in the weeds a little bit and do the actual work that clients want.

02:56 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, and that's so important to kind of, you know, be able to kind of, you know, do both of those aspects, as you said. But I love that you said that, you know, you identified that you were a builder. And I think so many times being able to be successful as you all have been able to be, you know, as a team, is sometimes just knowing yourself and knowing what kind of lights you up and can kind of get you going.

03:14 – Adriana Cowdin

Oh, that's so, that's so true. So, for example, one of the first things I did was hire a bookkeeper and an accountant. Numbers are not my thing. So I think it's just as important to identify those areas where you maybe have some lack or some, you know, a lack of skillset deficiency and really bring in the right resources to support those areas so that you can focus on your strengths.

03:42 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, so many times they say just because you can do all the things doesn't mean that you should do all the things. And I know that you probably help out so many organizations and leaders with being able to kind of do that, you know, with their social media and their marketing. So could you take us through a little bit more on what that looks like and how you're? Are you making an impact on the clients you work with?

04:01- Adriana Cowdin

Yeah. So we provide social media services, strategy, campaign ideation, and organic and paid ads. We also do paid Google Ads and then some CRM strategy and email marketing. And I think what the difference is for us is that we spend the first four to six weeks with a new client doing an intelligence gathering across all online platforms. So we'll compare their footprint with up to four competitors, typically two to four competitors, and just look at what are the opportunities that are in the market that are not being taken advantage of, that maybe we can extrapolate some success for our clients in who are the influencers in that area, who are their customer Personas and what things do they like.

We get so detailed in our analysis. We go down to like, their customers like to pay with a credit card, their customers like to dine out versus eating in, or they like NASCAR, or they like Equestrian. So we really build a robust customer Persona and then match that across the opportunity for the industry. We use that data as a foundation to extrapolate the insights and really build a Strategy and set of campaigns that will deliver revenue and profit. And a lot of times site visits to their site for our clients.

So it's a little bit different than how other organizations do it. I'm not saying I think it's better, but I just kind of focus it on being different and our way to really allow our clients to get the most out of their marketing budget.

05:47 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And kind of the quote that was popping into my head was measure twice, cut once. Yeah, so many times that you can cut and cut and cut. And they're like, okay, maybe I should measure. But I love that intelligence gathering, as you mentioned because I think one of the great benefits of digital marketing, as you mentioned, social media, is being able to kind of look at that data. You know, there's so much out there, but if it's only, it only goes as far as you being able to actually, you know, gather that intelligence, to be able to kind of translate that intelligence into the strategies you have.

06:18 – Adriana Cowdin

Yeah, absolutely. And our clients respond really well to it. You know, I think at the beginning they're like, why is this taking so long? But then once they see the 45-page report we put together and present them with the campaign ideas, they really seem to appreciate all of the hard work and the differentiation that Decaf Digital brings.

06:40 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I imagine that's part of the secret sauce that you have that you feel either set you or the organization apart is being able to kind of. I imagine when you get that report, that 45-page report, you probably really feel as if you have a partner, for lack of a better term, and everything that you're doing that you know the business maybe even sometimes better than those people that are running while they're doing all those things. It's great to have those that are fresh, and innovative with the experience that you have. Set advice so that you can make the best of your marketing strategies.

07:12 – Adriana Cowdin

Yeah, absolutely. Just as an example, we have a baby monitor company that is new to the market and was really targeting millennial moms who are targeted for just about everything. And in our research, we found that actually when it comes to technology for a baby, it's the dads doing all the researching and buying. And so we were able to go back to them and say, listen, everyone's marketing to these millennial moms. But what we have found is that it's the dads that pick the technology. And so we're going to take that insight and apply it to our campaign strategy and our CRM. Strategy and really lean into tech-savvy dads, which was a huge light bulb moment for the client. They were really blown away by that. Had we not done all that data, we would have been spending countless amounts of hours and indefinite amounts of money trying to break through the chatter around baby services and baby goods to the millennial moms.

08:19 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have. What is something that makes you more effective and efficient?

08:31 – Adriana Cowdin

I would list a couple. I think personally what makes me the most effective and efficient is exercise. So I exercise every day, and just taking that 30 to 60 minutes to zone in on my day and on myself and on my body really gets me in the right mindset and the right headspace to tackle whatever comes up in a day. And any CEO can tell you you just don't know what a day is bringing. And so exercise for sure. But when it comes to business, I am a huge fan of technology. So our team rarely emails. I have 13 people on the team. We rarely email. We live in Asana and Slack for everything. And it just keeps.

Asana is a project management tool that just keeps the whole thread there so you don't have to go shuffling through emails or looking for documents or anything like that. You can assign people, tag people, and add due dates. It's just very easy to organize everything in that way. So each one of our clients has a client board in Asana that we run, and then also our internal board and then Slack and Harvest. So slack for instant things that we need any time of day, any day of the week. And then Harvest is a time-tracking tool. And Harvest allows me to go in every week and kind of reconcile.

Okay, we're spending X hours on account management on this client, when in reality we only have budgeted in the SOW for Y hours. So let's see if that trend continues on a monthly basis. And maybe we need to adjust and sow or on the flip side say we're spending not enough time doing creative for one client based on their budget. And so we can lean in and do some more fun things because we have more time in our sow. However, it allows me to really reconcile each client against each one of the team members and their roles.

10:33 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love each of those hacks. And so I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell a younger business owner.

10:49 – Adriana Cowdin

I think throughout my whole career, and then definitely in owning Decaf Digital, my number one piece of advice is to invest in your team. And so there are a ton of different ways you can do that, right? So like on Slack, we have a kudos channel where everyone can give each other kudos. We have an open policy where anyone can hop onto any website, Amazon, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, whatever you think of Chick-fil-A and give a $10 gift card to someone else on the team doesn't need my approval, doesn't need any reason other than they've done a good job. And then twice a year, I bring the whole team into a different city. We did Chicago this year.

We're doing Indianapolis next month. To really just spend time together and have that bonding of a team. And so particularly when everyone is remote, I mean, we have team members all the way from Tokyo to Washington and everywhere dotted in between. And so it's really important to have that face-to-face, personal time. And as much as it's like, well, I'm running a business, money is tight, it definitely pays off. People become more loyal, therefore, they're happier. They're happier, so they deal with your customers better, and your customers stay happy. It really is a cyclical pattern. So I would say really invest in your team and invest in setting up your team for success in whatever way that looks for your business.

12:23 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping that different, quote, unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Adriana, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:35 – Adriana Cowdin

I think for me, it means being a leader that sets the tone for the organization and being there for your team. So inspiring the team, motivating them, managing them, of course, rewarding them, recognizing them, and really being somebody that they know who you have their back, and then also strategically understanding where you want your business to go. So, like I said, we're growing exponentially. To be frank, that is not a pace that we can keep up at. And so we have developed a plan through 2029 to look at how we grow methodically and strategically without overwhelming the team members with an influx of new clients, you know, every quarter.

And so I think being a CEO is really the essence of being a leader in all aspects and that includes personal life. You know, like let people into your personal life and they will let you into theirs. So even going back to that, motivating your team, like we send birthday gifts and anniversary gifts and holiday gifts, you know, really appreciating your team and leading them in a way that is professional but also with a personal touch that, to your point, shows that they care that you care about them.

13:58 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Adriana, truly appreciate that definition and of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get over. You find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

14:15 – Adriana Cowdin

Yeah, I'll leave you with a little marketing nugget, if you will. And that's why social commerce is exploding exponentially year after year. I think Covid accelerated that and it has not stopped. And so if you're trying to do social media on your own, give us a call. We can help out or find someone to help you. And don't get discouraged. Social media is definitely a pay-to-play area now or a kind of channel, if you will. And so if you're running an organic social campaign or process and you're not getting a lot of traffic, don't get discouraged.

That's kind of normal for social media anymore. And lastly, if content is king, then video and animation are queen. You've got to do something more creatively to capture the audience that literally is looking at your post for fractions of a second. To get in touch, you can reach me through the decaf digital site www.dekafdigital.com or adrianacafdigital.com.

15:24 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much again, Adriana. We will have the links and information in the show notes. And I love that last kind of marketing nugget that you kind of left us with and just understanding, I heard marketing looked at as pretty much like a language and once you start to understand the language and speak the language, then you can start to accelerate and excel a lot more. So I love the social media tip and also the video and animation piece as well too because once you start to understand those nuances and that language, so to speak, then it really sets you up for success. So obviously thank you so much for doing that and of course, sharing that with us today. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day. Thanks, you too.

16:00 – Adriana Cowdin

Thank you again for having me.

16:02 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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