Balancing Creativity and Technology in Digital Marketing for Maximum Impact

Hi, everyone. Welcome to your show, your E-Coffee with Experts. This is your host, Ranmay here. And today we have Seth Goldstein, who’s the founder of Goldstein Media. Hey, Seth, how’s it going?

How’s it going, Ranmay? Great. Thanks for having me on.

Great. Seth, before we move any forward, let’s get the human behind the mic. Why didn’t you talk us through your journey? How did you land up in the digital marketing space? And what about your agency as well? And we kick it off from there.

Awesome. So I’m actually a former, I’d say, recovering journalist. I was a journalist for six plus years out of college for newspapers. Remember those? The papers? I wrote for newspapers for six years, burned down massively. On the side during that time, I was doing websites for people, for myself, building out plenty of technology. I left the journalism world. I still breached it in sales for a little bit. I didn’t like the sales aspect. I like the sales aspect. It’s not what I was selling. I decided, Let me go into web design. I started my company in 2008, the best time during a financial crisis, but started business on a credit card and ran with it. It’s been 16 years plus. We’ve gone in from web design to SEO to paid search, paid social, email marketing. We’ve become a full agency in 16, 17 years. It’s been a wild ride.

Lovely. Quite a journey, I must say.

It’s been a heck of a journey.

And then you did mention about starting your business around the financial crisis of 2007, 2008. Not really the best time.

It’s not the best time to get a job either. It’s not the best time to get a job either. So what are you going to do? Are you going to sit on your butt and not do anything? Or are you going to start something and get rock and rolling with it.

What are your strategies that you use to build a strong and motivated team at Goldstein Media, at your agency?

Just give them autonomy. Honestly, trust that they’re going to do the job right. Give them guidance when they need it and let them run with it. I’m pretty much the project manager on the projects. I have my designers that help me build out my vision to the client, and I have the developers that can help me build out the technical side of things. It’s a But it’s fun to be creative.

Absolutely, it is. That is the best part about our industry. You all can think through new things coming up all the time. So you got to be on your tools at all times, right?

Oh, I’m on my toes constantly. I’m actually sitting down for the first time today. So Granted, I have a standing desk. It’s a bad joke, but I have a standing desk. So I’m sitting now, but literally, I’m constantly… I’m always running around between meetings and this and that. And it’s like the technology changes every… Especially with AI, it changes every five minutes, it seems. Yeah.

And you touched upon AI, which is a very important point to discuss on. At your agency, what are the best use of AI, or let’s say, what are the tools that you are using to ensure that the AI automation is in place?

The idea behind AI, this is my viewpoint, is that it’s a good aid. It’s not going to replace everyone. It’s going to help make things go faster, help audit code better. It’s going to help you come up with, get past that white page phenomenon, that phobia of the white page. It gives you some ideas to start writing about, and then you can expound upon it. I’m a very big proponent of saying, Don’t just Take the AI and put it online. No one benefits from putting that crap online. It’s like a third group. You got to put it in your own voice, remove it around a little bit and whatnot. But ultimately, AI is a great starting point, in my opinion.

Absolutely. And it is not the final deliverable product, at least as of yet. Humanization of it is absolutely important.

It’s when it’s telling you to put glue on your pizza or jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s not ready for prime time.

Yeah, and you have worked with numerous startups, right? Yes. From a digital marketing perspective, what are some of the mistakes that see them make early on? And how do you feel that they can be avoided?

I think a big part of with early stage startups, and I made this mistake, too, is get too excited, move too fast. I was just talking with one of my startups I’m advising right now, and I was saying, Guys, you guys got to take a deep breath. It might not happen. Funding might not happen tomorrow. It might happen tomorrow. It might not happen in the next few weeks. It might happen in a few months. But in that meantime, improve the product, improve your team, improve the idea. And just take a beat every once in a while. It’s like, chill. I remember when I started Goldstein Media, I was like, Let me do this, let me do that, let me do this, let me do that. And when you do everything, you’re a Jack of all trades, master of none.

Absolutely. And then talking about startups, they struggle with long term sustainability. What do you feel are some of the key factors that contribute to a startup’s long term success? Everyone gets initial investment and they see it flying in those initial days. But then again, it comes down. I hope it does not, but yeah, it does in most of the cases.

It comes down to the team. Honestly, as I say, it comes down to the team getting it along. It comes down to, yes, there’s extremity as factors. Don’t get me wrong. If there’s no funding, there’s no business, there’s no startup anymore. But I’ve seen startups go bust. When they have all the money in the world, they’re soaring for this stratosphere, but the team doesn’t get along and the culture is not right. It just fizzles. It doesn’t fizzle, it implodes.

Absolutely. And talk us through your newsletter, Marketing Jinto, which dives deep into the marketing landscape. Give us more about it.

I don’t sleep, apparently. I have that. I have my entrepreneurs enigma, which is in my podcast about entrepreneurship and whatnot. Jinto is a gathering of people in a master mind thing. So my idea behind that was the first Junto or Junto, as we say in Philadelphia, was put on by Benjamin Franklin. It was called the Leather Apriclub back in the 1700s. And so I was nice. I mean, outside Philadelphia, so it was a nice tip of the hat to good old Ben Franklin. And it’s a newsletter about my views on the marketing landscape. And then I usually have my monolog at the top where I’m expounding upon something that I think is interesting. Hopefully, it’s interesting to people who reading it. Then I find a bunch of great links and stuff, and I share out a good podcast that I was on or a good podcast I like. So you’ll be in there. You will be in there. So that’ll be fun to get you some extra press in there. And I think we have 1100 subscribers right now, so people actually tend to like it. That’s exciting.

You’re doing it all right. You’re an advisor podcaster. Which role you feel is the most challenging and which one do you love the most? An honest one.

I find It’s all challenging in different ways. That’s a very political way of saying it, but I feel like it’s not really answering your question either. But I feel like they’re difficult in their own ways. I feel like the podcast I’ve got down to a system, I enjoy it. I have it so that it’s scheduled I do a lot of episodes up front and I schedule them out so that they’re out. I’m good through September now. And then mid-August, I start panicking and get more people on the show and get them out to another few months out because I only release it weekly. Newsletters a little bit more, no, I I have to get this out for next week. It’s not as. I don’t write stuff and then put stuff out three weeks later on the newsletter. That’s a little bit more work. But I find that the biggest one, the most stressful is the business. It’s the web design, it’s the digital marketing, it’s the SEO. So you can show your clients that you’re happy, that you’re finding new clients, and just going with the flow of that and not losing your sight on the brands.

Are you still code?

I dabble. Dabble here and there. When I have to, I’m better at fixing things than I am from writing from scratch. I used to be able to write from scratch.

That is like a gradual journey. I can relate to it completely. All right. And give us your favorite client story, Seth.

One of them was actually this local startup in our area. We’re not working with them right now anymore. Because they outgrew us. But they were a bunch of Navy Seals who opened up a gun detection company to present mass shootings, which is unfortunately one of our MOs in America, our mass shooting epidemic. And these guys wanted to Start up a company that only identifies guns, not face recognition, just gun recognition. If they’re walking on existing camera system, so it’s literally a software over the air service. It’s It’s a human in the middle, it’s a really cool system. I built a website. I did their SEO for two or three years, and then I helped them get the Series A funding, which was fun. It was exciting. Then now they’re on their Series B, they’re a big unicorn in Philadelphia space. I’m proud of those guys. And that’s one of my favorite stories to tell. I said, Look, I helped them back when they were just seed-funded. Lovely.

Quite a story.

Yeah. Zero eyes. It’s called Zero Eyes.

Lovely. Let’s see through it. If there is one piece of advice you’d want to give to inspiring young entrepreneurs who are listening to us today that what should they be doing? What should they not be doing when they start selling out?

Just do it. It’s Nike saying, just do it. But honestly, it really is. When you’re young, especially when you’re young, there’s no reason not to just try something. It works the same as you move home with mom and dad for a little while and you build something, and if it doesn’t work, you get a job. Sometimes it’s easier to get them done, but ultimately, just get started on it. And there will be naysayers. There’ll be people saying, You should just go get a job. Don’t do this. This is not the way to do it. But also, remember this, it is not an overnight success. It’s an overnight success 10 years in the making. I been doing this for 16 years, and there’s still strengths. Horns are always a few years out. They’re not overnight. They walked into a bar and they got funding. It didn’t happen. It’s always a few years, at least a few years till their success.

Absolutely. I experience all these logos in the background that you have.

Yes. One is public assembly. It’s trying to perform politics in America, which is a big task, to say the least. Give the average person a view, a say in how the politics is run. Mine is an AI, SEO play. They’re building out their system. And Swift is actually a really cool one. They’re all cool. Don’t get me wrong. They’re all cool. They’re all cool in their own right. But Swift is actually a podcast and music royalty networking and data analytics company to help people track the royalties. Apparently, there’s a lot of people leaving the royalties on the table not knowing where their money is. So that’s a really good exciting thing that they’re doing.

All right, Sahad. This has been a brilliant conversation. But before we let you go, a quick rapid fire.

What’s that?

A quick rapid fire.

Please go for it. I’m ready.

Your last Google Search.

That was Google search. I think it was, how old is that actor? I figured, oh, who is that actor on? Do you guys get The Bear? It’s a cooking show, The Bear. Is that Jamie Lee Curtis on the screen or is that another actress? That was my last Google Search. So I figured who the actress was. It was Jamie Lee Curtis because she’s old now. I can tell her mannerisms made me seem, Oh, that’s Jimmy Lee Curtis, but she had long hair. I’m like, I’ve never seen Jimmy Lee Curtis with long hair. That’s Jimmy Lee Curtis on The Bear.

Okay. What did you do with your first paycheck, that first paycheck of your life?

Oh, of my life? Jeez. Buy candy? My first paycheck was when I was a teenager. My first adult paycheck, I think I paid my mortgage with it. Nothing exciting, really. But like, first actual paycheck was probably candy or coffee or something. More realistic, more modern day first paycheck. When I started Goldstein Media, I immediately went to paying for the house. So it was good.

Lovely. Okay. Where do we find you on Friday evenings, after office or after work?

After work, it’s usually hanging out with family. Fridays is usually the time when we all hang out and watch TV. The kids on the computer. So the wife and I will watch TV. I’ll try to stop working at a reasonable hour, which is tough when you’re an entrepreneur, you’re always working. But watch TV and relax. Family time is important.

Absolutely it is. And one thing, before we wrap this up, one thing that you might want to change going back and looking at what you did in your earlier life.

I would like to have done more into this startup scene earlier. Back in 2008. In 2008, it was not a good time to start anything. But I wish right after the bubble burst in Silicon Valley. In the early 2000s, I graduated University of Delaware in ’04. I wish I went in and started a company event. I honestly wish I went to business school. I didn’t go to business school. I’m learning this by the seat of my pants. That’s always fun.

I was in the college at seven, eight, and we were really scared in terms of we wanted to do college for 10 odd years then, so that this got an over by the time we got out. Love it. Great. I said, thank you so much once again for taking our time to do this with us. For audiences, if they want to reach out to you, how do they do that?

Just look for me everywhere. Seth Goldstein or Seth M Goldstein. I’m Seth M Goldstein on LinkedIn. Please connect with me over there and I’m always accessible.

He is famous. He is famous. You get him everywhere. All right. Lovely, Seth. Thank you so much once again.

Thanks for having me, Ranmay.