SEOblog Interview: Tampa SEO Expert Tony Brown from Strategic Media Inc

We’re excited to have interviewed Tampa SEO expert Tony Brown from Strategic Media Inc. for the next installment of our Featured SEO Expert Series!

Strategic Media Inc. is one of SEOblog’s Top SEO companies in Tampa.

Tony Brown is the marketing manager at Strategic Media Inc., and has been in the computer industry for over six years and in the digital marketing industry for three. Strategic Media Inc. specializes in a number of services, including Google Ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, local SEO, content writing, SEO-compliant websites, reputation management, indoor advertising and software development. Strategic Media Inc. has been in business for over 26 years, before the big Google boom, and have had their finger on the pulse of the digital marketing community since the beginning.

What would you say are the biggest challenges when it comes to digital marketing campaigns?

“Honestly, challenges are all relative to the person and their skill set and, really, what they believe what they can do. So, my answer to that is the biggest challenge is usually myself and fear that I won’t make the right decision. When you really look at it, creating campaigns is simple, because you are basing the campaign on analytics which have been comprised of years of data. People are creatures of habit, and the analytics show it. If you want to know what a person is going to do, then look at the past. Trends tend to always repeat themselves. The platforms that we are creating campaigns on have done all the heavy lifting for us. So, my expert advice is to educate yourself on an analytics platform (i.e., Google Analytics, Google Search Console or something in the same niche) and learn how to read it and strategize from that.”

How does your SEO agency stand out in a crowded market like Tampa?

“I am not one to say anyone does their job wrong at all – we are one of many amazing digital marketing specialists in the greater Tampa Bay area. But what makes us different is that we do not go directly after a transaction. We are believers of the spiritual law of success. ‘Reaping and sowing,’ i.e., if you want to receive, you will need to give. We also believe in creating a trusting and lasting relationship first before we start trying to sell our services. If you do not trust your marketer, how will you trust that they have your best interest at heart with your money? I want to meet with you, learn about your company, what your strengths are, your most profitable services and your values so I can portray that to your audience. 

“Also, we have been around since before the beginning of the Google Boom, so we have seen trends come and go. (Remember, creatures of habit…) Also, we have been around long enough to see what works and what doesn’t, and even though marketing is always changing, there are those non-shakable foundational rules that will always be around and will always keep you successful.”

Can you share a success story from a local SEO campaign centered around your area?

“We build SEO-compliant websites, and one day a local shutter manufacturer needed a website built. They were small and looking to grow their digital visibility and presence, so that’s what we did. After creating their site and continuing with their SEO campaign, their traction took hold and they started having a huge influx of calls. They had so many calls that another one of our clients got a phone call from the manufacturer and asked if they could help them install the shutters – with all the calls they were receiving, they were unable to both manufacture and install. Today those two companies have grown over 200 percent in 2.5 years and over 35 percent of their calls come just from Google.”

What is the best advice you ever received in business as an entrepreneur?

“The best advice I have received is to write a list of tasks! I know – sounds funny, right? But time management is the key to not spending your most valuable and most expensive product: your time. You will never get it back, and no matter how successful you become, you will never be able to buy it back. Task lists give you the ability to manage large projects and take them one step at a time. You can learn easier and, believe it or not, people are not really meant to multitask. We feel we can, but to truly master something, you must focus on that one thing, learn all you can from it and only then move on to the next thing.”

What do you think is the most important quality that makes an SEO agency truly great? 

“What makes an agency genuinely great is the ability to listen and be personable. We need to remember that without listening, we will never know what our clients genuinely want. People tend to forget that, even though the agency has been doing this a while, the client ultimately makes the final decision. We can give them our experience and what we have seen work but if they do not trust that what you’re saying is true than they wont trust that you have their best interest at heart. That’s why I said building a trusting relationship is so crucial to our company. It is our primary value here at Strategic Media Inc.”

What is your reaction when you hear that “SEO is dying”?

“There’s a lot of conspiracy in this world, and whatever you believe is your opinion, but let me point out that Google does not give us the ‘secret sauce’ because they want to give everyone a fair shot at the top. Google knows what they are doing, and if they and other search engines got rid of SEO, there would be no reason to even try. Remember when I said that people are creatures of habit? Well, another thing that people are is competitive: We enjoy it, we grow from it and others benefit from it. We have been in business for over 26 years and we have not seen one iota of proof to suggest that SEO would be going away.”

What do you think is the most important contributor to keeping clients happy?

“The biggest contributor, in my experience and in any relationship, is communication and trust. If you just receive money from your client and do not communicate that they are increasing or decreasing their site traffic or if more or fewer people are seeing their ads, that does not make the person very happy at all. Communication gets rid of the ‘assumption factor’ and shows the client that they are important and that you are working diligently to help them grow their business. Relationships are the currency of the world.”

Interested in being considered as an SEOblog “Featured SEO Expert”? Reach out to our team at [email protected]! We’d love to hear from you and give you a high-traffic platform to share your SEO agency’s story and insights.