Farris Marketing Launches Social Media Tool
BOARDMAN, Ohio – The calendar year of 2022 was a “comeback” year for many clients of Farris Marketing. Revenues and resources also rebounded.
The Boardman-based marketing agency developed branding and digital strategies that helped several clients, especially those in health care, addiction treatment and public services, to expand and reach deeper into markets in and around northeastern Ohio.
Farris added more extensive tools and resources to make digital marketing services more readily available to clients.
“Clients see the advantage of digital marketing in addition to or in place of traditional media for a number of reasons,” says Makenna Ozenghar, vice president. “Cost is easy to control and the added reach and targeting capabilities are attractive to those with niche products and services.”
Farris Marketing has collected its fair share of advertising and marketing awards in Ohio. This year, however, Farris won a national award from American Public Transportation Association (APTA) on behalf of client Western Reserve Transit Authority.
APTA’s membership consists of more than 320 public transit agencies, including New York MTA, the nation’s largest transit system, as well as transportation-related businesses and organizations. The first place award in APTA’s annual competition was in the category of communications educational initiative and special event. The campaign that hauled in the win was the WRTA Holiday Lights campaign.
“The Holiday Lights campaign was created to bring awareness of local nonprofits and what they do for the community,” says CEO George Farris. “More than 30 local nonprofit organizations have been spotlighted since the program began. WRTA donates space on bus advertising, its social media posts and even TV spots to promote these unsung heroes in our Valley.”
Farris Marketing created, developed and managed the campaign, now in its third year. But Farris says it is WRTA’s leadership that deserves the credit. “WRTA’s executive director, Dean Harris, and his team do so much for the Valley, including providing 7,000 rides a day to people going to and from work – free – no fare or cost. But they didn’t hesitate to use their meager marketing budget to support the nonprofits that help Valley residents.”
One of the biggest developments in Farris Marketing in 2022 was the launch of a beta test version of BOPsocial.com. BOP was developed in response to extensive research and tracking of social media practices of smaller businesses and nonprofits.
“One Forbes article caught our eye,” says Ozenghar. “They had conducted research asking small business owners which aspects of their business they would outsource if they could. The No.1 task most would outsource were social media tasks.”
Business owners and managers would sign up on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn but then post once or twice a year. More than 70% of business owners don’t post often enough by their own standards – if at all.
“Business owners know they could generate more business if they posted relevant content more often and engaged the marketplace, but they simply don’t have time,” says Farris. “And how can they compete with businesses that have posts created by ad agencies and marketing professionals?”
Farris Marketing made it the agency’s mission to find a way to make the social media marketing process for small businesses and nonprofits easier, faster, affordable and effective. “We wanted to automate the process to whatever extent we could,” says Ozenghar. “But still generate a good response for them.”
The website is active and accepting customers. Those that fall into a new category have been offered free service to serve as beta testing subjects.
So far, the site has attracted customers as diverse as shipping and packing services, law firms, coffee shops and even funeral homes.
Businesses in new categories are automatically offered free membership for a year if they agree to give feedback on the site’s operational features,
Ozenghar says.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
