Even National Campaigns are Local | Mike Mortoccia

David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Michael Martoccia, Vice President of APG Digital and High Road Digital Agency at Adams Publishing Group LLC. Michael is responsible for revenue growth, digital audience development and solutions, partnerships across 125 plus brands and markets in 15 states. He's also responsible for the High Road Digital Agency, APG’s internal full service agency team. He has a proven track record of building successful digital sales and advertising teams revenue growth and audience development across dozens of media group markets of all sizes. He has been fortunate to have a very diverse career across digital solutions, corporate sales, advertising, marketing, agency teams, event marketing, audience development and training. Michael, thank you for joining us on Simpli.fi TV. Michael Martoccia: Hey, thank you for the time, David. I appreciate it. David McBee: So in your introduction, you have a long title, but you're kind of with two different companies. So I know you started your digital career from a legacy media group and kind of have transitioned into this role at the full service agency. So tell me what that is like. Michael Martoccia: Sure. So gosh, over 15 years ago, being in the legacy side of the publishing business, it was... At that time, 15 plus years ago, the need was to evolve and start offering some things that were no longer legacy, more revolutionary, innovative solutions for business owners. And so the folks that we competed with the most for those dollars from local business owners, we competed with agencies. And so we went and grew our own digital team internally at the legacy side of the business. So over the years that's evolved. We've had to add people, skillsets, right along the social media side, programmatic, OTT, CTV. Gosh, even some things now that we don't own. We don't own sometimes out of home space, we don't own at times that streaming device, platform. So we've had a higher specialists that have had that experience in their past as well. And that's helped us grow the portfolio we have in all of our markets. David McBee: So what would you say to someone who's thinking, "Okay, it's time for us to go full service, we need our own agency." What does that look like for them? Michael Martoccia: The easiest thing to say is, "Gosh, I want to go out and create this team." But the tougher piece of that is to determine who's on that team and that'll help you determine the ROI behind it. So in terms of being fully equipped, think about having a team in place. Perhaps some of those folks are currently with you, they're in your markets, they're in your company. But don't be afraid to go outside the box and think about people to go recruit that have nothing to do with what you currently do now day-to-day. So find some folks outside of the company that you can bring to the fold. They bring a different mindset. It's almost like a clean slate that they bring to the table as well. So I would say definitely think about if you don't have an agency internally within your media company or within your business, the time has well gotten past us, right? The time has now to think about creating that team. And then how to scale it. And so for us, we've had this team in place for two or three years. At first we said, "Let them concentrate on anything not associated with our legacy brands." And so we have a big piece of our business that has nothing to do with our markets. But then about six to 12 months into it, we started saying, "Okay, we've got all these folks that have relationships built in 15 states. Thousands of business owners that we touch or break bread with on a regular basis. Let's leverage those relationships and start telling them about what we can do for them as a full service digital agency." And we know that over the years, David agencies have come and gone. A lot of people, even at a bigger publishing company I was with that had some bigger hub markets. We had an internal agency, but it sort of fell by the wayside after a few years because we couldn't grow it internally. We relied on too much business outside of the legacy business. So we've done is equipped our people in all of our markets, once they quickly join our company to get them aboard. A digital onboarding program, I will tell you. And so that onboarding program includes getting connected at the hip with our agency team. Because our agency team can pretty much on a dime pull the trigger for any size of business in any of our markets now, in any of the states. David McBee: So what's some of the larger businesses that the agency team is able to work with? Michael Martoccia: We've got a national Kubota campaign that's entering its third year. That's well above six figures on the spend with us. And they're using us not just for some of the traditional digital side of things like some programmatic video, some OTT, CTV. But we're also doing some things with them along the lines of their email marketing. We're handling that for them. We're doing some things across the side of social media marketing. Some things that you think they might have somebody in-house to do, but they've got five or six implement dealerships in three or four states, and we handle that campaign for them. All the way up to a rural, or it's more of a naval airtime museum out west in Wyoming. And we came across them a few weeks ago. They had $50,000 in statewide grant money and wanted to do something with it. And we said, "Well, we have a full service digital, not just team, but also approach. We can do eight things that fall into the lines of what the state says to do with your money." And so we get a $50,000 campaign for a very small rural part of the country. And then about two or three weeks later, we find out that they got another $30,000 from the state. "Let us help you with that as well." So as you can see, the campaigns run from rural markets across the country all the way to national brands like a Kubota that's trusting us with their dollars and their time. David McBee: You know, I hear a lot of folks say that there's really no such thing as a national brand, because everything at its core is local. Would you agree with that? Michael Martoccia: Yeah. I think these days when you think about somebody local, there used to be those decisions were held or tied up someplace else at a corporate level. Whereas now a lot of these businesses that maybe have multiple locations, those local decisions and the dollars are there to be had. What you have to do is make sure you have the conversation. So we teach a lot of our folks in all of our markets as a part of our digital onboarding program, to have dialogue, to have conversation. Not to be out assuming when you're selling something, right? So that's where I think at times you can win those dollars as well. And we've done that in a lot of markets as well, especially as the big box grocers or the big box department stores have gone away from certain types of legacy media, including some of ours. And they've looked for other ways. And we have to get in front of those people and say, "You know what?" We raise our hand and say, "We can handle that for you too." And it may be an aha moment for them. They didn't realize we did video. And sometimes we'll win that video bid, because it's something we can do locally and we can customize it to that location. David McBee: Well, I think that we totally achieved our goals today. You have this unique viewpoint from coming from legacy to being an agency leader, and you definitely spoke to that very effectively today. I really appreciate that. Michael Martoccia: Sure. Well, I certainly appreciate the time and I would tell anybody out there if they have an interest in creating an agency, just think about that, don't fully equip it with everybody from your legacy side of the business. Think outside the box and bring people in from the outside. David McBee: All right. Now before I let you go, is there a book or any piece of literature that has inspired you and helped you become a better leader? Michael Martoccia: Sure. Years ago, a lot of us probably remember Zig Ziegler and there was a lot of the Zig Ziegler training academies and publications and things, right? I go back to the days where Zig Ziegler talked about how to stand out. You've got to step out. And so if you step out and you make a difference and you're persistent, not being overly persistent, but enough that you are in somebody's head, you'll make a difference. And I think that's what we try to teach our folks. I've tried to do that as well. I'm very open to and very eager and interested in getting out to our markets. And that's why I enjoy being on the road so much in our markets and being in front of people. You be in front of people, you start a conversation. If you do that, you're going to win the campaign. David McBee: Excellent. Well, thank you very much, Michael for being on Simpli.fi TV with me today. Michael Martoccia: Thank you, David. I appreciate it. David McBee: And thank you guys for joining in. I'm David McBee. Be awesome and we'll see you next time.