Raven Guru The “Just Right” Marketing Agency

Not too big, not too small. All the experience, none of the fat.

David Byrd is one of the more experienced marketers in the tech space… He’s worked at a large telco, a startup SIP trunking company, an RLEC, an MSP and more. He knows his stuff and is now out on his own with a unique offering for the tech and telecom space. Of course we had to interview him. We’re looking forward to learning even more at ITEXPO where he will be speaking Feb. 8-10, 2017 in Fort Lauderdale, Fl.

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We hope to see you there as well.

How did you come up with this idea?

Raven Guru marketing is the result of years of watching how marketing agencies are set up and function. The big ones are expensive and slow. The small ones are faster but usually don’t have the resources to support an integrated marketing campaign. The business community needs a marketing company that offers the skills and breadth of expertise of the large agencies while maintaining the personalization, speed and lower cost of a boutique agency. Raven Guru is that marketing company. I have brought together the best marketing talent that I have worked with and can call upon them as needed depending upon the project. Raven Guru Marketing includes some of the best and most experience skilled people in graphic design, branding, digital marketing, inbound marketing, public relations, website design and website development. And, of course, given my years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, mid-markets and startups a prominent Fractional Chief Marketing Officer. Only Raven Guru Marketing can provide the expertise of a full-service agency while providing a boutique agency experience.

Why does the industry need this new service? How can your organization help with the broad marketing needs of a company?

The industry doesn’t need just another marketing agency. It needs an agency that can provide services that meet short-term requirements and, also, plan and execute long-term marketing campaigns to meet business and sales objectives.  A client can engage the Raven Guru Marketing Fractional CMO service for as little as a day to review strategic business plans or coach executive teams and managers on new marketing methods and technologies.  Or the engagement can be for a longer period to support a CMO vacancy or startup that requires product, marketing or sales strategy, organization plans or budget development but isn’t ready to make a commitment to a permanent position. Our other services, Marketing Communications and Branding, Digital Marketing and Inbound Marketing address the many changes that these disciplines are experiencing. Integrating Marketing Communications and Branding is required to rise above the clutter of messages filling traditional and digital media. Management and execution across all the various digital marketing elements of Search Engine Marketing, Social Media and Networking, and digital advertising develops greater market interest and understanding of the company and potential for new business. Acquiring qualified leads and new business is critical to the success of every business. With well-designed inbound marketing campaigns a business can use the Internet to find and interest of buyers who are searching for their products and lead them through the buying process to ultimately select them as the vendor. Inbound Marketing is supported by various sophisticated automation platforms and have become critical to successfully finding and closing business. We can help business to better understand the marketing automation platforms and develop the resources required to fully exploit the capabilities of Inbound Marketing. Raven Guru Marketing can build lead nurturing campaigns and content to grow and accelerate closing new business. Raven Guru Marketing provides access to these different areas of expertise at one agency with a boutique agency experience and price.

What do telecom companies need to do to differentiate themselves today? How about tech companies? Beyond these two areas, can you also help companies in other spaces?

Interestingly, although I have 20 plus years of experience with telephone companies and telecom service providers, I am not expecting them to leverage Raven Guru Marketing. Service providers are undergoing a period of aggregation and becoming large. Our services are focused on SMBs that have 500 or fewer employees. Smaller service providers tend to function in limited geographical areas and are struggling r to survive changes in the Telecommunications landscape and new competitors. They continue to focus on transport when they need to add content and services to increase the value of their offerings. Marketing the price of their products, size of their Network, reliability and quality of calls is table stakes. Differentiation is established with Unified Communications offerings, entertainment and demanded content. Our industry focus is almost everybody else. We can provide the greatest value to telecom equipment and software OEMs, high tech companies and SMBs across most industries. Raven Guru Marketing has experience in B2B and B2C marketing services and sales leadership.  

What was your biggest marketing success in your career?

There are three marketing success that I can reflect upon that required the most imagination and thought. Each was something that hadn’t been done before and was in a unique market. The first was to successfully position a proprietary operating system as a valuable contributor and participant in open systems. Not a minor task. I engaged the Open Systems standards bodies, created new presentations and took on the title of Open Systems Evangelist. It was a very successful launch and the product some 20 years later continues to be sold by a Fortune 500 technology company. Second was the launch of Planet Hollywood Online. We did a lot of new things with the brand and site in the 1990s. We did live streaming of red carpet events, set up a social network for subscribers to participate in interviews with the stars, held on line drawings and sold branded merchandise. All innovative for the time.  Finally, and more recently, was the launch of SIP Trunking. Few people knew what it was or what it could do and even fewer cared. We came out with new marketing the ideas constantly and even created an icon superhero called IP Man.  It was a lot of fun. However, the successes of the members of the Raven Guru Marketing team are fantastic stories as well with exciting launches in retail, high-tech, financial markets luxury automobiles, wireless and more. We are very broad in our breath and scope of work and able to support a variety of variety of industries and businesses.

What type of company do you think can benefit most from working with you?

Raven Guru Marketing has been created to provide services to small to medium-sized businesses regardless of Industry or sales paradigm, B2B or B2C. Who do we expect to seek out our services? That varies as well. Companies that need to freshen their marketing campaigns. They have a strategy but are having difficulty meeting marketing or sales objectives. Outside thinking and new eyes on the project can put it over the top. With the resources at Raven Guru marketing, we can look at projects in a new light and position them to better engage the market. Companies that do not have marketing resources or the gravitas to build and execute winning marketing strategies can look to Raven Guru Marketing. Startups and small businesses where bringing on an experienced marketing executive may take too long or be too expensive can utilize us on a temporary basis. We will assist the management team to build and execute and measure our performance. Finally, creating a strong and contemporary brand that gets visibility, and generates business is difficult.  Raven Guru can help any business that wants to kick its communications and digital marketing into gear. With our innovative approach to inbound marketing, we can deliver new leads and drive to closure new sales.

So, what type of company benefits the most by working with Raven Guru? Anyone who wants to engage a contemporary and more relevant kind of marketing agency –– an agency that is flexible in its approach, can select from a broad set of experienced resources and is dedicated to delivering Marketing Excellence 

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