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As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the 2x Webby Award Honoree Be A Marketer podcast!
On today's episode, you'll hear how a former nonprofit executive turned a small project into a national platform helping Black owned businesses grow, market smarter, and reach more customers. This is the Be A Marketer Podcast.
Dave Charest:My name is Dave Sherest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, and I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business, even if marketing's not your thing. No jargon, no hype, just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer. And at Constant Contact, we're here to help.
Dave Charest:Well, hello, friend. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. That means, of course, the one ready to keep me honest as always. Please welcome back Kelsi Carter. Hi, Kelsi Carter.
Kelsi Carter:Hi, Dave. How are you?
Dave Charest:I'm good. I'm doing really good, actually. It's a Friday as we're recording this. Actually gonna be heading into the Boston office today to spend some time there, and then the wife and I have a little little show to go see tonight, so I'm very excited about that.
Kelsi Carter:I know. I'm jealous.
Dave Charest:Good times. Good times. You know? So we've got an interesting conversation here today, and I think what's cool about it is when business owners really think beyond just their immediate scope. Right?
Dave Charest:And so what I mean is by that is they kind of it actually reminds me a little bit about was with Jacqui Liberto, right, who we had on the podcast before, how she kind of she was in real estate, but she didn't just sell or buy homes. She actually built a whole ecosystem around her business in terms of like everything that a customer would potentially need or a client would need in that real estate journey. Right? And I think there's something in this episode too that's a little bit about that thriving ecosystem. Right?
Dave Charest:Where you've got businesses, you've got partners, you've got customers, you've got tools that really support and sustain long term success. And what I like about this is it's not just for his business, but it's for the other businesses that he's trying to reach. And our guest story today really, I think, shows how marketing isn't just tactics, you know, it's about creating this connected system that really empower people.
Dave Charest:Kelsi, tell us a little
Dave Charest:bit about who we're talking to today.
Kelsi Carter:Today's guest is David Derick. He's the founder and CEO of buyblack.org based in Oakland, California. It's a mission driven platform that helps consumers find and support black owned businesses across the country. What started as a passion project during the early days of the pandemic is now growing into an ecosystem with over 50,000 listings and counting.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I love this. So David's story is really a great example of how, you know, starting with a clear mission and taking the consistent action can really lead to real momentum for your business. So he's combining digital tools, community partnerships, and really just smart content to help black owned small businesses grow and get discovered. In our conversation today, you're gonna hear about how David Grew by blackdotorg, as you mentioned, from 10,000 to 50,000 listings and his plan to keep scaling that, how he uses education, email, automation to bring value to his member businesses, and why showing up in your community online and in real life builds trust in many ways ways you can't always measure.
Dave Charest:Kelsi, let's go to David as he shares the moment that this idea became more than just a platform, it became a movement.
David Derryck:I read an article from a woman at Columbia University, and she said in a quote, people always talk about what would they have done during the time of slavery or during the civil rights era, and the answer is whatever you're doing right now. And so when I was sitting there, I was literally reading this on the same screens I'm talking to you at, you know, working from home, And I thought, what am I doing? What is it that I'm actually doing? So at the time, I had been working with a nonprofit financial technology organization, doing good work, enjoying it, making a difference in people's lives, but started really thinking about what else could I be doing. So what I took from that was kind of the launch of a passion project.
David Derryck:So, really, over the next couple of years, 2020 to about 2022, started looking trying to apply my business kind of acumen, if you will, to sort of what is happening with wealth inequality, what's happening with businesses, how are people finding businesses. And so I started googling and thinking about, hey. Look. There are no real directories out here at the moment. So you Google black owned business, and you get a ton of lists, you know, 10 companies to
Dave Charest:support like, posts and stuff. Right?
David Derryck:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. All of those. And so then I started thinking about, well, what if we really thought about can we consolidate them into one place so that people are able to just go to one site and actually find these businesses and support them?
David Derryck:So that was sort of the genesis of it. It was a passion project over the past couple of years. And then in 2022, jumped into it full time and said, okay. Let's make this what you do.
Dave Charest:Wow. Okay. So if our research is correct, right, 2022, that's when you kinda jumped into this. You had about, what, 10,000 listings at that point, if I'm correct. You left your job to do this full time, and there I guess depending on where you look, right, there's about 2,000,000 black owned businesses in The US.
Dave Charest:Well, there's a couple interesting things here. I guess, like, one, it's only around, like, two to 3% of all businesses. Right? So I feel like that's actually a pretty small number. Right?
Dave Charest:So hopefully, we can get that to grow. But I guess, I mean, is the goal for you to get all of these businesses listed?
David Derryck:So, you know, I think at the beginning, was like, 2,000,000. That's the holy grail. You know what I did? Right. Thought about it like Google thinking of we're gonna, you know, digitize the world.
David Derryck:Yeah. And I said, we're gonna find 2,000,000. Then actually after doing some research, kind of get into the real numbers. So the 2,000,000 is really everyone from a sole proprietor to a large business. So when you kind of cut down into some of the numbers, there are roughly a 140,000 black owned businesses with five or more employees.
David Derryck:So we started thinking a little bit more about, okay, what and who will we get to? So I think for us, our holy grail shrank a little bit. Okay. And I I'd say we're probably thinking about, can we get somewhere in the neighborhood of around 250,000 businesses? So that would include sort of all of the ones who have employees, and then I think an additional 100,000 who are small those small proprietors.
David Derryck:You know, the mix of our directory right now is predominantly small businesses, obviously, many who have employees. But mostly, it's small businesses, mom and pops that range everywhere from, you know, plumbers, tradespeople to online retailers, and everything in between.
Dave Charest:So I think there's probably a couple of lessons in there. Like, one, I mean, that idea of narrowing the focus maybe a little bit, right, to get to alright. We're gonna hit focus on this area. I think probably, in many ways, made some things easier for you, which I wanna get to in a moment. But I guess the question is, where are you today?
Dave Charest:How are we looking now?
David Derryck:Sure. So fast forward today, we have a little over 50,000 listings on the platform. We will probably continue to grow that. We should hit about 75,000 by the end of this year. And so I would say the bulk of the businesses are, as I said, small businesses, restaurants.
David Derryck:We have a lot of restaurants, lot of shopping, you know, and shopping meaning all kind of retailers under that large umbrella, and then everything in between, trades people, as I mentioned before.
Dave Charest:Yeah. So how how do you get to 50 k? Like, what are you doing to get people to and I don't know what the process is. Right? Are they registering for the site?
Dave Charest:Like, do you have to vet people? Like, how does that all work?
David Derryck:Yeah. So we do a couple of different things. So one of the things we did was, you know, as a small business ourselves, we looked at sort of a you know, I mentioned Google and kind of how do they do things. We also looked at Yelp and kind of thinking about them as really like a playbook kind of approach. So we've done a couple of things.
David Derryck:One is using technology. We certainly pull data from public sources and start aggregating all of those components. The second thing we've actually been pretty successful at is having individuals who come to our platform who are referring businesses as well. So as we've actually been able to one of the ways in which we've been able to grow is to have people say, hey. Do you know about these businesses here?
David Derryck:Do you know about these businesses here? So we'll actually get people sending us lists themselves. You know? Like, here are the five or 10 companies in my neighborhood. I've looked on your site, and I didn't see them.
David Derryck:You should be pulling these folks in. So it's a combination of using technology, using people, using publicly available data sources, and increasingly trying to create partnerships with other organizations who have that data to bring them into the platform.
Dave Charest:Got it. Well, you know, speaking of partnerships, what can you tell me about your connection with Constant Contact these days?
David Derryck:Great. So with Constant Contact, we first established a relationship earlier this year, so met at kind of a conference looking at small businesses. And one of the things that sort of tied the two of us together was the fact that we've got lots of small businesses, many of whom who are trying to figure out how do I market, how do I actually get out into the world. Sort of our mission just as an organization is to drive traffic and revenue to black owned businesses. And so we're always looking for ways in which how can we help them drive traffic and drive revenue.
David Derryck:So with Constant Contact, I think one of the things we realized was certainly on the email front, how do we continue to, you know, consistently communicate with people? How can we make it more dynamic? How can we use it to establish relationships, you know, better relationships with our member community? And so working with Constant Contact now, I think one of the things we're starting to explore, because we're still relatively new in our partnership, but we're starting to explore really ways in which we can drive things like webinars, registrations, engaging opportunities, and try to figure out, a, how do we use it internally? And then secondly, how do we actually make it available to our membership base as well?
David Derryck:We're also looking for ways to, you know, incorporate AI into their marketing streams, do better with the email and other pieces.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I love that. It goes beyond just the directory. Right? I think in terms of your mission and what you're talking about here, I love that there's that education component to it because I think as we know, right, right, there's so many businesses that do get started into your point, mom and pops, and all of these things that they have an expertise.
Dave Charest:They have something that they do. But when that marketing bit comes in, right, particularly how fast everything is changing these days, like, that becomes a a limiter in many cases. Right? Because you've gotta keep up with that. So I love that you're actually approaching it from that perspective where it's not just like, yeah, get on this platform, but it's like, let's get on this platform, but also, let's give you more skills so you can actually move your business forward too, which I really appreciate.
Dave Charest:Yeah. You know, aside from just the listings that we're talking about here, you know, there's a couple of other things that I know that are important to you. Can you talk to me about the role of certification in empowering black owned businesses? Like, what does that mean, and why is that important?
David Derryck:Sure. So certification is something that's been around for a while. Obviously, we're in a kind of a, I don't know, a discussion, if you will, like, sort of a political discussion. Is DEI important? Mhmm.
David Derryck:But really really, if we look back historically, what certification is is that it certifies that a business is minority owned. But these certifications range from a it could be minority owned, LGBTQ plus, women owned, veteran owned, small disadvantaged businesses. So there's lots of designations that the US government has already established, and so certification is one way in which black owned businesses are able to say, hey. I'm a black owned business. And the benefit of that is essentially that many of the Fortune 1,000 companies as well as states and local governments are looking for ways to identify and find diverse companies.
David Derryck:And so for us, when we first started, somebody asked us maybe we were a week or two old. They were like, oh, so are you a certified business? You know? And I was like, we're not certified yet. So so one of the things we found was we did a little research and saw that there's literally billions of dollars being spent from corporates and local state governments for businesses.
David Derryck:But when you turn around and you say how many of the businesses are actually certified, the number is actually really low. You know, for black owned businesses, I would say it's certainly less than 25% are actually certified. And so part of this part of what we think about is, a, you should be able to get some sort of certification because it makes you available for other types of contracts that already exist. But then more importantly, when we first started, we started looking and thinking about, are there ways in which we could actually you know, if somebody knew you were certified, would that increase your sales? Would that increase revenue?
David Derryck:Does that affect people's social impact, sort of the way in which they think about their conscious spending? And the answer is increasingly seeming to be yes. And so we're really trying to think about how can you get certification, obviously, from a business standpoint that just works for corporate dollars. But, really, when we think about it on a consumer front, most consumers don't really know if a business they don't know who owns a business. Right.
Dave Charest:You know, you
David Derryck:walk into a store, you don't know if it's woman owned, LGBTQ friendly. I mean, there's all kinds of different pieces. And so we're thinking about certification to really be a way in which you can tackle both the corporate community, but also really to start tackling and making yourself known to the consumer market, which is really, I think, where most of these business are going to be selling to.
Dave Charest:So for my clarification, where does this certification come from? Is this like a government thing, or is this something that you're putting in place? Like, how does that all work?
David Derryck:Oh, sure. So the government has SBA has a pretty clear set of guidelines. Got it. And then there are third party certifiers. So there are a few companies out there who do certifications for all companies in The United States, you can apply to them.
David Derryck:And so we work with one third party certifier at the moment, and hopefully, we'll start working with others as well.
Dave Charest:So are you trying to make that connection? Like, let's say somebody is you know, joins your site as part of the program. I use program loosely. I I don't know if that's what you actually call it. But part of the platform, are you then trying to make those connections to people to make sure that they can at least know how that is something that's available to them?
David Derryck:Yes. So that's exactly it. Got it. Actually, so this is, I think, a good tie in in terms of some of the things we're working with Constant Contact to do. So part of it was thinking about you know, one of the things that we said was, you know, we were using a smaller email client and having a little bit of difficulty, so we were thinking about what are the ways in which we can create automations and such.
David Derryck:So so this was actually a really good scenario. And when we had people join our platform, the first thing we did was we actually just, you know, sort of sent out some mail blasts, if you will. Like, okay. You joined. Hey.
David Derryck:We have this. Are you certified? If yes, click on this button and Got it. Yeah. That process.
David Derryck:And so now what we're trying to do though is actually make it a lot more integrated. So when people come into our platform, we're building out sort of the automation so that somebody gets, you know, sort of there's the welcome series of things that yeah. But then the next part is also really thinking about what are the services we can provide. So that dovetails into, are you certified? You know, it's sort of a a quick yes, no.
David Derryck:And, you know, if they think of that tree, yes, great. Who's your certification with? You know, can we get that certification? Because we can do something with that. No.
David Derryck:Then there's sort of a drip campaign that follows afterwards to say, you know, here's the reasons why it should be certified. Here's some examples of certification. Here are the opportunities that could present itself to it as well. And so we're trying to really think consciously about what are the tools and what are the services that we can bring to these small businesses that aren't just sort of another product that you need, but really products that are going to add value to your business as it is.
Dave Charest:So, well, talking of, like, things that start to add value and start thinking about just in terms of, like, growing a business, yours included, but just even the businesses that you have come onto the platform. You know, if you start thinking about digital advertising, it's an area that can also be confusing for small business owners. Right? So tell me about this concept of digital advertising co ops. Like, what does that mean, and what does that look like?
David Derryck:Yeah. So part of what we've been trying to do is and, again, this is year three of our company, so we're definitely still in the iterating phases of things. But one of the things when we started thinking about how do you drive traffic and revenue. Right? Like, marketing is the key.
David Derryck:So, you know, how do we drive traffic to our site? How do we attract more eyeballs? You know? And so one of the things we first did was we said, okay. Like everyone else, oh, you gotta do some advertising.
David Derryck:You know? You've got Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. You've got all the different platforms and ways in which you can do some digital advertising. And so, of course, we jumped in. We did some keyword campaigns, and we realized, alright.
David Derryck:A, we need a lot more money to actually make this sustainable. You know? So just thinking, I think, from a small business standpoint, we've had some talks with folks and said, you know, so what do you really need to start an ad campaign? You know, the first number we heard was, like, $30,000 to kinda get the algorithm to recognize you and start thinking about what you're going to do, And then you've gotta have thousands to, you know, actually run the campaign. Little back of the envelope math, you talked to a few of our members.
David Derryck:We're like, how much money do you actually spend on advertising in any given year? And the number is, you know, maybe $5,000. Yeah. So Yeah. Just kinda think about that.
David Derryck:Not if those move the
Dave Charest:needle numbers that we're talking about here. Right?
David Derryck:Exactly. Exactly. And so we said, alright. And so we started thinking about it, and and we too were like, there's no way we can actually advertise ourselves into existence. And so one of the things we did what we're working on is we said, okay.
David Derryck:Well, we own our own website. We use an open source ad server, and so we're able to run ads on our site. So we started off kind of a very organically thinking about, if you come to the site, we should tell you about the different products that we have, you know, or different services that you might have. So, yes, you could find something like minority certification. You might find these different pieces.
David Derryck:And then we slowly said, alright. Well, given that we control the costs and they're pretty minimal, let's open this up actually to some members. So we started off with people who effectively are premium members, and we said, alright. We can offer you free advertising. What we want you to do is to actually give us your graphics, your images, and we're gonna run these ads.
David Derryck:And the premise behind this was really the fact that, you know, at first, they were like, what? Is this the catch? You know? Like, you're gonna start charging me in thirty days. Yeah.
David Derryck:What's the deal? What we really wanted people to understand was that when you're marketing, brand awareness is probably, to us, the key thing. You know? It's that you've got to actually have some consistency in the marketplace in order for people to start thinking about you, you know, six months from now, nine months from now when they're actually thinking about making that purchase. So when we first started with this concept, we figured we're gonna give you one year free banner advertising on our site.
David Derryck:And so, you know, right now, we've got roughly we've got about 50 advertisers on the site, and that's continuing to grow more rapidly as we've just gotten more sophisticated. And so part of this is now people some companies will run national ads if they have that capability, you know, so retailers. And then many of the companies, though, are local companies. So they're just running let's call them city based ads, we could go back to ZIP code, but, you know, it's geographically targeted. And what we're starting to now think a little bit about is as this brand awareness continues, it's actually strengthened our community aspect.
David Derryck:So you can imagine that first, the advertisers were excited because somebody's gonna run their ads. But what it's turned into then is that slowly those people are actually starting to reach out to others, you know, to their network to say, hey. You should be joining this platform. They do real things. They're standing behind their mission of, like, driving traffic and revenue.
David Derryck:And so I'd say probably what we're happiest with is that the statistics that we get are basically similar in terms of click through rates that you would have if you were running ads on Google or other places. So they're not sort of, you know, off the charts where folks are getting 510% click through rates, but but they're in that same one to two, sometimes 3% kind of range. And what it's been very helpful, I think, with is actually getting these companies to realize, alright. Now I've got brand awareness happening, you know, and it's something that they're changing their ads every kind of 90 because they'll say, okay. I should refresh it.
David Derryck:And so I think what we're seeing is that it's a good opportunity for us to build community while keeping through to our mission. And I think over time, our goal is to then think about how do we expand that. So you were mentioning before a little bit about the certification certification component. And so now what we're experimenting with over the next couple of months is we're going to add kind of a certification badge to some of these ads and to see does having a certified sort of Buy Black certified badge on your ad, does that actually drive click through rates? Does that drive additional traffic to those sites?
Dave Charest:Got it. Got it. I think what's interesting too is, I mean, you also are somewhat offering, again, an educational way, but through doing versus just conceptually talking about, like, you're giving people a chance to really get kinda get their feet wet with some of this stuff. Right? To see, oh, okay.
Dave Charest:Like, what does work? What doesn't work? And Mhmm. And almost opens the door for getting to that place where you start to feel more comfortable to make an investment, and not just be wasting dollars, right, but actually be investing them in a way that is gonna give some type of return, which is ultimately what we want with advertising. Right?
Dave Charest:So I love that. So well, speaking of, right, getting a return and those types of things, when you think of, you know, buy black.org itself, how are you measuring impact just in terms of what you're doing for the businesses listed yourself and even just the community at large? Right? Like, how are you looking at all of that?
David Derryck:Yeah. So we've got a few key metrics that we follow. So one is the size of the directory, just in the sense of we've realized the larger the directory grows, essentially, the more traffic it starts to attract. And, you know, that sort of can we create that virtuous cycle of the directory grows more traffic on the site, more traffic to these businesses? The second thing we start looking at is for businesses.
David Derryck:We also have a marketplace where people are able to buy things. So we look at sales through that marketplace. So are people seeing actual increases in their revenue? And then I think the third thing that we are starting to really explore is to seeing what's the what I'd call sort of, like, the sticky factor. Are we starting to see people come back to the site more often?
David Derryck:I think probably the areas where we we're kind of focusing a lot these days is we recognize people are coming to the site with an intention. You know? So people are coming very specifically. I'm looking for, you know, fill in the blank. I'm looking for a restaurant.
David Derryck:I'm looking for a plumber. I'm looking for a mover, etcetera. And so I think the thing we're starting to see is, are people, a, able to find that and get a good response out of that? And then second, are they coming back to do it again? You know?
David Derryck:So we pay a lot of attention to thinking about, you know, we wanna see both our unique users grow, but we also wanna see time spent on the site increase as well as repeat users coming back. So it's sort of that balance, you know, as you look through Google Analytics, and you're just trying to trying to, you know, alright. How many are unique users? We want that to go crazy, but at the same time, you just need everyone who was there once.
Dave Charest:You want some repeat visitors. Right? Three times. Yeah.
David Derryck:Four times.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Right. Well, you so you mentioned premium members earlier, and I'm curious, I mean, is that how Buy Black itself makes money? Is it through, like, premium it's a membership model? Is that what we're looking at here?
Dave Charest:Or
David Derryck:Yeah. So we have a membership model where we do have some premium. We have a premium and a free version. Okay. So we generate revenue from our premium members.
David Derryck:When they get, you know, prioritized in search, They get a little bit more service in terms of the advertising and a few other kind of bells and whistles on that side of things. The other place we do earn some revenue is from our marketplace. You know, we get a small commission based on sales through that as well. And then I think the third area is while we are giving ads away free for folks in this beginning stage, we are looking and thinking about how can we put together really what I'd call a pay for performance type of model. Got it.
David Derryck:So in that case, we're really trying to think a little bit about, you know, if you can imagine, three tiers, you're gonna be shown making these numbers up, know, sort of once every you know, you get 25% of the rotational capacity versus the premium folks may get sort of the other 75%. So they'll get seen more often than shown in that piece. But, again, trying to think a little bit how we align ourselves with our customers is that we're not looking to really be pay per click or CPM driven. What we're really trying to explore is can we do something perhaps where there's, I'd say, it's more akin to, like, an affiliate type of program. So if somebody someone sees your ad your product, they click on the ad, they purchase that product, we'd rather take some sort of an affiliate fee, you know, some percentage, whatever that percentage might be, and have that actually be the reason so that you're winning as the advertiser because somebody actually purchased something, and we're winning as well because we're the ones who put that ad ad out front.
David Derryck:So that's sort of the other piece of what we're trying to drive our revenue model towards on the advertising side.
Dave Charest:So we mentioned, you know, being able to kinda go with the background, right, look at the dashboard of Google Analytics, and see what's going on from a website perspective. But there are also things I think that are important to your mission and what you're trying to do and just I mean, in the world. Right? Like, when you think about like, there are things that actually you can't measure on the dashboard. Talk to me a little bit about your participation in the African American Day Parade.
David Derryck:Oh, yeah. So that was recent. That was just two weeks ago. So there's African American Day parade. This was the fifty fifth annual one, and it runs in Harlem up Seventh Avenue, which is just sort of like the central corridor of Harlem.
David Derryck:And for us, we were looking earlier in the year, and this is part of that sort of community development story, is that we have an advertiser who runs outdoor events in Harlem, participates in lots of different festivals, and does a film festival. And we were trying to figure out we were like, oh, this is great. You know, what are some ways we as a brand could actually get out in front of not only businesses, which is who we usually are talking with. Consumers are using our site. I don't think they think about us as as more than, hey.
David Derryck:It's a great site for me to find these things. So they may have heard of us this way. And so we were trying to find a way in which we could also sort of announce ourselves to the community as well. So kind of one of those serendipitous things we were looking on the website thinking, oh, this would be great if we could you know, they have a float. This would be great if we could be you know, how do we get into a parade?
David Derryck:And it was one of those moments where you looked through and we saw it, and we were like, hey. We can actually afford to sponsor a float. So we pulled the trigger and just said, let's do it. And this kind of timing wise, this was probably in July that the parade was just in September. And so we were a little bit nervous of, you know, are we gonna get all the things we need to get done?
David Derryck:But fast forward to the event, and it's honestly one of the highlights of my 2024 because two things I think happened. One, businesses who we work within Harlem were actually able to participate and joined us on the float. So that was sort of a a nice way for us to reach out to folks and actually tell them about an event and get them on board. And then secondly, when we got into the actual parade, it's sort of surreal because you're on this moving float, but it's slow enough and it's in a community in which we were able to jump off the float, hand out stickers, hand out T shirts. So we were able to kind of we were able to give away, essentially, merchandise, buy black merchandise.
David Derryck:But at the same time, you had people really seeing the brand, cheering for you, Many in Harlem saying, I buy black. This is great. And so you just sort of got the vibe of, alright. This is fun as a business. You know, we get a lot more feedback regularly from our businesses saying, you know, kind of the thing things that are going well and sometimes things that are not going so well.
David Derryck:But I think this was overwhelmingly one of those moments where I thought, like, that question of why did I start Buy Black and thinking about because we really wanna try and change and address the fact of can you drive that traffic and revenue to people? And this was, I think, really for us, the first consumer side where we just saw people saying yes and anxiously or excitedly rather thinking about the brand and talking about it. What was even better is a couple days later walking around in Harlem and seeing our T shirt actually being worn by people, you know, that we had thrown out. So to me, it was one of those moments where, you know, from a marketing standpoint, everyone's question to me immediately was like, so how much more traffic did it drive? You know?
David Derryck:Yeah. And I was like, well was like, well, the good thing is we had QR codes. So there was some things you could see. So there was spike in, like, you know, mobile downloads because people were scanning it, and it's got some geotagging. And we saw some spike versus other times.
David Derryck:But I think more importantly, this is one of those moments where it was less about the analytics, more about the goodwill that I think that it actually drove from people seeing it and saying, I either do this or I know this to be this is something that's happened before and just sort of feeling, you know, just one of those things. Yeah. The intangible feeling you get when there's just sort of excitement in a crowd and people cheering for you. It was just fantastic. Why do you think
Dave Charest:that experience impacted you the way that it did?
David Derryck:I think what it was most important to me was that people shouted out without any kind of prompting. You know? And I think the fact that some people would say, you know, I buy black or this, you know, like, yes. This is great. Sort of just it was a reaffirmation, I think, in terms of, like, move the business forward.
David Derryck:You know? So I think as many entrepreneurs, you have those lulls and moments of, why am I doing this? The you know? Yeah. Yeah.
David Derryck:Could go and do something else. And I think the fact that people were out there and it resonated without needing to say, hey. What do you think about this? Just simply the spontaneous sort of emotive responses of people is perhaps to me the most powerful. You know, just and then I think on a personal note, it was great.
David Derryck:I have a I have two kids who are there as well, and so they you know, I think it was also one of those moments where they were like, they see me at the home office. See me, you going to the coworking spaces and building this, but it took on a tangible kind of situation for them, and they could feel it. You know? And they both left saying, like, wow. Alright.
David Derryck:We know what you do because there's always a joke. What do you actually do all day?
Dave Charest:Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's actually an interesting thing. Right? When you start to think about particularly today, when we do have these screens, I mean, amazing things that happen.
Dave Charest:Right? Amazing you and I can have this conversation right now. Right? But also, sometimes it takes the particularly when you start thinking about where we're going with AI and all these things. Right?
Dave Charest:Like, you start to really take that human piece out of the equation sometimes, and you forget that, oh, wait. David's at the other end of this conversation. Right? You're on the other side of this computer, and there is something unique and special about experiencing the impact in a face to face situation that your business and the work that you're trying to do or the things that you're trying to accomplish are having. Right?
David Derryck:Agreed. It was one of those moments, like I said, to handing out stickers, shaking people's hands, and, you know, people saying stop a moment. Let me take a picture. Let me hold up the stickers. Just as as I said it, I think it's one of those things where we forget, yeah, talking to the customer is, like, number one, you know, just all the time.
David Derryck:And so for me, it was summed up because we have a friend who was was like, I'm gonna ride on the float, who's extremely critical of most things. And at the end, said Oh, one of those friends. Yeah. He said, you know what? That was great.
David Derryck:You should do it again. Awesome. Awesome. And I was like, I was like, alright. Well, that's it for us.
Dave Charest:That's a win.
David Derryck:We will be doing it in 2025, and we're excited because, you know, this was a first year to get our feet wet and kind of just be in it. But I think next year, we'll be able to do it in a much much more inclusive way and bring a lot more of our community into the parade, which I think will be fantastic.
Dave Charest:Yeah. You know, I think what's also interesting is that you can take those experiences too and at least those conversations. And those things actually help inform, like, what you do, right, from a marketing perspective. Because I think there's something to understand too. Like, a lot of times, as humans, right, we don't necessarily act rationally, and there are emotional components to the things that we do and the decisions that we make.
Dave Charest:And you don't always see that part of it, right, in the black and white in terms of, like, a screen, right, or what the numbers say. And so I think that's interesting that that that kinda brings that into the fold that helps inform the things that you can do creatively, messaging wise, and and all of that stuff into the work that you're doing digitally or whatever the case may be. Right? Question for you, actually. Where are you based?
Dave Charest:Are you based in New York?
David Derryck:No. We're based in Oakland, California.
Dave Charest:Okay. Alright. Great. Yeah. Got it.
Dave Charest:Alright. Well, so I wanna kick us over into, like, more marketing stuff. So as you get into this, I mean, where would you gauge yourself just in terms of level of experience with marketing?
David Derryck:So I would say this. I feel like I'm a good gorilla marketer. Okay. I would say, you know, I think still trying to get a real understanding of the science of marketing. So I would say I've got some advisers who are really good marketers and so thinking a lot of times about what we need to understand more around how to do some of the research, how to do some better testing in terms of messaging.
David Derryck:And I would say I'm a student of marketing, you know, really still at this stage, but recognizing how important it is in just in terms of growing the business.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I mean, I think that's a good place to be. Right? Like, know enough to kind of move forward, but be a student of it. Because I think that ultimately, at the end of the day, that's what marketing is.
Dave Charest:Like, you have to be a student because everything particularly how everything changes all the time and you you learn and move on to something to build on. Right? Who's involved with the marketing now? Like, do
David Derryck:you have a team?
Dave Charest:Is it just you? Like, what does that marketing component look like for your organization?
David Derryck:Yeah. So marketing is really it is well, we're a small team, so we're actually a team of five at the moment Okay. In terms of building up this business. But our marketing is sort of what I'd say. We've got a brand manager who does all of our graphics, brand design, brand kit, making sure we stay true.
David Derryck:You know? In the beginning days, I'd say we could use whatever colors we wanna use because it'll look better. You know? It's when she came on board, she actually was like, no. You cannot.
David Derryck:Slow down. Slow down, pal. Slow down. Listen, David. This the brand guide.
David Derryck:When people say, hey. Do you have a brand guide? You send them this. These are the colors they can use. These are the side these are the fonts, the sizes, all that.
David Derryck:So I think that was sort of my first recognition of, like, oh, okay. But, you know, we there's some formal processes that we actually need to adhere to. Then I have somebody who's more of an adviser who had done brand management and marketing for larger companies and has now does that individually. And then we have a third person who really works specifically on the email campaigns and building those pieces out. So we're a loose group, but pretty nimble.
David Derryck:I think the big challenge for us is really, I think one of the big challenges and opportunities is thinking about how can we use how do we use AI to actually help in some of these marketing aspects. You know? So I think we've become a little bit more little more nimble with things like when we're thinking about email subject lines, email preview sentences, kind of getting those pieces together and getting those things out. And then also where we do things with our blog posts or other types of articles and such using AI to actually generate the images and finding probably the balance, I think, with AI for us is getting really close to what we want, but not needing it to be perfect. Right.
David Derryck:You know, just recognizing also that, you know, somebody told me once, they were like, people aren't looking at that image as closely as you are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
David Derryck:You know, they're like, it's gotta look good, but it doesn't look perfect. Right.
Dave Charest:Right. But, I mean, that's a big stumbling block for a lot of people. Right? Somebody's explained it to me, and I think it's a good way to think of it. Right?
Dave Charest:Think progress over perfection. Right? You gotta get it to a certain point where it meets some standards that you have, but Yeah. Don't be, like, nitpicky enough to, like, not get the benefit from hitting post on the thing. Right?
Dave Charest:Right. Instead of just waiting around. Right? You mentioned some interesting things because I was gonna ask you, yeah, what do you find challenging and how do you start to overcome those challenges? And I think you even talked about I mean, maybe we can schedule some time at some other point to come back when you start implementing some things with, like, automation and stuff like that because I think you're thinking about that in the right way, like, just in terms of how you're gonna use Constant Contact to help with some of that stuff.
David Derryck:Right.
Dave Charest:I wanna talk about some of the things that you found to be effective when it comes to marketing. And I know some of the things that we kinda touched based on a little bit was, like, engagement based editorial calendars. So what does that mean, and how do you implement that in what you're doing with your marketing?
David Derryck:A few things that we've realized for our marketing, we think a little bit about, and this comes back to the engagement for both members as well as consumers. And so what we've started to do is really there's two things. But one is we're constantly putting out articles, you know, on a daily basis just to keep the content moving. And we've actually started using this, and this is something we're we'll be using Constant Contact for is starting to put in just sort of a kind of a cadence of, you know, there's a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and we're working on kind of linking an RSS feed or our site to Constant Contact so that every three days a week, all of our members are getting essentially a digest of black business news. And so that has been really powerful for us in terms of getting that going because it effectively keeps people up to date on news that they're just generally not seeing.
David Derryck:And so to me, the highlight on that is that our unsubscribes is still less than 10. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was that was, like, the key thing.
David Derryck:I was like, oh, no. How many people are gonna unsubscribe once you start getting these emails? But then I think more interestingly, we started thinking a little bit about our consumers. And so in that case, we were thinking, how do we continue to drive this revenue piece? And so we've set out sort of an editorial calendar where we look at every week.
David Derryck:We set a you know, we call it by Black Friday. So there's always like there's the Black Friday that comes around Thanksgiving, and we said, you know, every Friday should be by Black Friday. And so what we do is each week, we take a different type of theme. Today is a Friday. So today, went out with toys and games, and we identify black owned businesses that are either in our network or outside our network.
David Derryck:And we sort of we send people a 10 items with a little about them, with a little blurb that they get each week. So each week, we're seeing good take up because people are seeing different pieces. So the editorial side ranges from we do a few different things. We do some that are just product based, so it might be clothing, might be toys, games, you know, coffee. You know, you kinda you name it.
David Derryck:You can do sort of those product selections. And then the other thing we will start adding in as we get into sort of q four will be a little bit more thematic, so it might be something around 10 brands that you might wanna take a look at. You know, it could be around travel and have some stories that are baked into it. I think as we go and we take a look at what consumers and folks are looking at, we're trying to push the envelope a little bit more to kind of get a a little bit more editorial viewpoint into it, sort of our 2¢, if you will, of, like, hey, the the reason why versus just sort of 10 products Right. Click it by.
David Derryck:Right.
Dave Charest:Well, I think that's important. Right? Sometimes we can to the side of not having a point of view in many instances, but oftentimes that's the human connection part of it. Right? Because we wanna have somebody that whether we like it or we don't, right, that is invoking that emotion.
Dave Charest:So I think that's a good way to look at it.
David Derryck:Yeah. And that too has been something that we've started and will continue to do. And, what we'll find is it's a two way street. You know? I think the consumers enjoy it because, frankly, it's brands.
David Derryck:And, again, you know, it's that thought of, like, we're always fighting our behaviors, you know, and so there's just sort of that component of and Amazon rightly or wrongly has made us all believe everything should come tomorrow. Yeah. You know? And I should be able to return it anytime I want to really easily. Yeah.
David Derryck:And so it's been this really interesting balance because, you know, for a lot of these small companies, some of them sell on Amazon, many of them just sell through their own website, but trying to get them to recognize that the consumer is still the consumer. You know? You can say I wanna support a black owned business, and I want it to also fulfill all of my Right. All the things that I want anyhow Yeah. Of any business.
David Derryck:And so I think it's a good place where we're finding the businesses are excited to be highlighted in it, you know, and we're getting actual feedback from them. And then we're also getting good feedback from the consumers, and we're evolving over time. You know, we slowly we actually just did a couple of pieces, which were just Amazon based sellers. You know? So these are black owned companies on Amazon, and that's where they sell their products from.
David Derryck:And that's just feedback because we had somebody who was saying, what about these products? You know, what about these products? And we were trying to figure out how could we get them in. What we're finding about the editorial piece is that it's a two way street. People read it, and then they comment.
David Derryck:Like, they will email you back and say, I want more fill in the blank, and we've gotta respond to that. But I think it helps to create that connection and the connective tissue with our folks.
Dave Charest:Well, and in so many ways, a great thing to have. Right? Because I think it's so easy for people to I mean, it's one thing when people are just complaining. Right? But there's another when people actually is something gets a rise out of them enough to want to comment.
Dave Charest:Right? And to give feedback, and they care enough about it to provide that to you. That in my book is like a huge win, particularly in and again, it's so easy for people just ignore things. Right? That, like, if you have that, like, it's a huge boon, right, to move forward with.
Dave Charest:And I think, you know, in many ways, it starts to help highlight who your community is. Right? Particularly if you have, like, repeat voices or you can start to see the same things kind of happen. And again, those might be smaller scale moments, but again, those interactions are things that you can build on to reach a broader base of people. Right?
Dave Charest:Talk to me about what you're thinking from a gamification area in terms of, like, building community and doing those types of things.
David Derryck:Yeah. So that is, I think, where for us, it's where the real world people's activities meets, you know, I think, marketing and meets the product all at once. We're doing a few different things I think that are pretty interesting. The goal for us is trying to figure out how do we actually get more of that feedback and more of those touch points from both our businesses and our consumers. So what we're about to launch is we have an app right now which has some pretty basic components in it.
David Derryck:You could find city guides. You can find products. You can kind of do sort of the normal app activity. And then the first thing we've actually done is that we do have a little treasure hunt that's existing in Oakland at the moment.
Dave Charest:Okay.
David Derryck:This is sort of like version one. You know, I think we as an organization, again, we're still in these beginning stages, I think we're taking full advantage of the fact that we don't have anything hardened, if you will. So we're sort of willing to try things and see what happens, you know, and and kinda get feedback and grow from there. So on the treasure hunt side, what happens is somebody's able to actually open up the app, and we've laid out, you know, a variety of different places you can go. And when they go to these places, they can take a picture, give a rating, and ultimately frequent that place.
David Derryck:You know? So we look at it as sort of really, it's an opportunity for discovery. You know? So if you just got some time and you're like, oh, I wanna go to this I want a new place to go eat. Let me check this out.
David Derryck:And when you show up, it's all, you know, geolocation on your phone so you can get directions to the place and give you a little challenge. But the second thing we're really starting to think about is that works well in sort of a local kind of area, but how do we gamify a larger component? So back to that question of if 250,000 businesses is where we wanna get to, we have two ways to get there. You know, it's either sort of constant research and finding and pulling and aggregating data. But the second part we really think about is, but what if we could get people to actually be more involved in this?
David Derryck:So we're thinking a little bit of over the next few weeks, this is actually being built, so we've got some developers working on this now. What if we gamify? So every time you give us some referral, you know, you're gonna get some kind of points in loyalty program. Yeah. What if every time you leave a review, you know, you're also gonna get these types of points?
David Derryck:So thinking about the actions we want people to take and how do we reward them from those components. So for us, the challenge is from the merchants who wants to participate and getting those folks on board. And then secondly, then from the individuals, them being able to say, okay. Let me refer somebody. Let me refer a business.
David Derryck:Let me visit a place and do those types of activities. So that's sort of where we see gamification headed. As again, the treasure hunt, we've done some tests, and it's been well received. We've started doing a little bit of just the referrals just to see, hey. Will people refer in as I said?
David Derryck:We've been getting them unsolicited. But to think if we can actually figure out a way in which people you know, if you get 10 and, you know, certain think of all the loyalty types of mechanics that you can employ with it, but that's really where we're gonna be heading with the gamification side. If you went on our site, days, we've done also some interesting things with gamification. The light gamification with our loyalty program, where in the background, you were actually getting a starting to be able to take advantage of some of these things, know, fill out a survey, fill out Oh, got
Dave Charest:it. Okay.
David Derryck:Business and those pieces.
Dave Charest:Got it. So I guess I'm curious, how do you get to this place where or how do you, I guess, balance, right, promoting both you've got the business side of things where you're promoting to black owned businesses, right, where you're trying to get them on the platform. But as we've been talking here, you've also got the consumer side of things. What are you learning? What are you finding?
Dave Charest:Like, how do you strike the right balance of what you need to do there to make this thing successful?
David Derryck:Dave, you hit the literally the question that I asked. The big question? This is the big one? Yeah. This is big We're gonna hunker down.
David Derryck:We gotta
Dave Charest:well, we've got five minutes, so if you can figure it out, that'd
David Derryck:be great. I mean, I think this is the that's the hardest thing that we're trying to trying to figure out. You know, I think this is probably one of these things. So, actually, one of the things I'm hoping with Constant Contact that we're gonna be able to solve on this is is we wanna be able to really send sort of a single call it email Yeah. Per week, which actually addresses both of those parties.
David Derryck:We're 100% struggling at the moment with the fact that we send out emails to the businesses. Yeah. We send out emails to the consumers, and then there's moments where inevitably you were like, but they should probably get the same thing here. Or they're interested in this, but because of the way the days are set up, it's one of those moments of it's just, you know, it's sort of a spaghetti soup at the moment. Right?
David Derryck:You know? So so I think we're Right. So I think we're trying to figure out I mean, that's the big question is, like, can we figure out a way in which we can send the right information to the right people dynamically Yeah. On a weekly basis so that they get it when they want it? And, you know, in today's world with personalization, you know, I think that's the thing we're really thinking through is Yeah.
David Derryck:Is we're about to send out a survey next week that's literally asking, like, do you want these topics? Would you like them on a specific day? How much do you wanna personalize them? Because I think as we've slowly moved forward, what we're finding is that people do want personalization. Yeah.
David Derryck:I want it on Mondays in the morning. You might want it on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you know, and someone else wants it seven days a week. And I think with technology and certainly as we look through these automations and such, the triggers and things are there. I think for us right now, what we're struggling with is is probably just stepping back Yeah. And mapping out the full process.
David Derryck:Because I think that to us has probably been as we're trying to balance the different things, just taking the time and saying, okay. You know, we need to actually step back, map out what are the different inputs from a content perspective, and then how do we allow people on the back end to say, I want a, d, f, and g Yeah. And I want them on these days with this frequency. Yeah. And and we know it's feasible.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Well, I was gonna say I I think you'll be interested and have a good time really kinda digging in there, and I think it it warrants Maybe in the future, once you've had some things running after a while and get things going, we could come back and see how that's working out for you. But I think as you start thinking of, like, dynamic content to your point, even, like, things like click segmentation, right, starting to think of what actions are people taking, what are the triggers, then allow you to send more timely and relevant information and do those things like you're mentioning where you're just sending one email. But what's in that email that the person is receiving is changing based on who they are. Right?
Dave Charest:I think all of that stuff is stuff that you'll have a fun time getting in there and digging in. So that'll be cool.
David Derryck:Yeah. We're getting close to our
Dave Charest:the end of our time here, David. And so I wanna give you an opportunity to really just, you know, thinking kind of about the future and where you're going and where you want this platform to go. Right? When you reflect on what you've learned so far up into this point and as you move by by black.org, you know, into the future, I guess, what are some things that are standing out to you right now?
David Derryck:I think the thing that stands out to me most is I think there's a clear recognition in this country that we've been on you know, like, wealth inequality exists, revenue inequality exists, and I think there's a clear recognition that people want to fix that or at least bring it closer in, the disparities closer. And so I think one of the big takeaways for me has been that, you know, a mission driven business, which is what we are. We're organized actually as a social purpose company in California, is that it's relevant today. And so I think that's probably the first piece is that we are seeing a change, I think, in the way in which businesses operate, and we like to think of ourselves as being a part of that change and being at the forefront of thinking about how do we balance a business and a mission and really be a mission driven organization. I think the second thing that comes to mind is how do we help small businesses actually reduce the friction of getting to their customers and increasing their revenues and increasing just their success overall?
David Derryck:And I think what we're finding though is at first, we've thought about it from a platform perspective, but I think the real eye opener for me has been how do you develop partners to work with. So I think in this case, as we think about, like, Constant Contact, you know, frankly, when I first was thinking, I was like, you know, oh, we're gonna use this internally. And then realizing, well, wait a minute. These are actually tools, and our relationships with some of these partners can help to to actually carry that through or be the pass through to saying, alright. Here's how you also can remove friction.
David Derryck:We did a webinar actually last week with Constant Contact and our members thinking a little bit about AI. And just hearing the members ask questions about AI, then seeing, like, here's some answers, and here's a platform I could actually take advantage of, I think was one it made me feel good, you know, just as a fact of, like, hey. We're making this available to tour members. But I think it reinforced for me the fact that it's an ecosystem that we have to develop. You know, our platform alone will do one inch of the movement, but it's through all those other relationships that you establish and build that you actually get that and start to build and see the real change.
David Derryck:And then I think the third thing that I would say is sort of my big takeaway is community matters. More than I thought, as we said about sort of like the digital world and all you have to do is connect to people digitally and you do this and do this and these things happen. But I think, like you said, the tangible piece of, like, going out on that float and seeing people and touching folks and actually being with people who believe in our business, some who knew about our business, many who didn't. Most, I'd imagine, who didn't. I mean, it's hundreds of thousands of people literally, you know, in in the along the parade route.
David Derryck:I wish they all knew who we were. We'd be at different place. But I do think from the community standpoint of really seeing that there are I've moved from thinking about it just not only do we have community members and members on our platform, but we have stakeholders. You know? And I think that fact that there's other people who are seeing all of the pieces together actually make the whole, and that that's what's important.
David Derryck:And you've gotta interface and work with these other groups in order to actually be successful. I continue to just I continue to be excited, you know, about the fact that we're growing this ecosystem. You know, marketing is obviously a key component because that's what's growing it, is that people are seeing that there's value by being associated with ourselves or with other parts of that ecosystem.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number one, use automation to deliver value beyond your product. David's team is using Constant Contact to send a welcome series that not only greets new members, but helps guide them toward getting certified. Something that can unlock new opportunities. Now for your business, map out what your audience needs after they sign up or purchase a product.
Dave Charest:Then build a simple automation to deliver the information they need step by step. Number two, don't underestimate the power of brand awareness. Now buyblack.org offers free digital advertising to premium members to help them build long term recognition, not just short term clicks. Now for your business, you don't need to have a big budget to stay top of mind. But remember, consistency even in small ways adds up over time.
Dave Charest:Number three, get direct feedback to refine your content. Now David's team listens closely to what their audience wants, like Amazon seller spotlights, for example. And then they adjust their editorial calendar to reflect that information. Now for your business, watch how people engage with your emails and social posts. Then let their engagement and responses shape what you do next.
Dave Charest:So here's your action item for today. Set up an automated email in Constant Contact that asks one simple question to help you organize your contacts into smaller lists or segments. For example, David would ask a question like, are you certified? Or are you a consumer or a business? You can use that information to deliver more relevant content.
Dave Charest:You can even use click segmentation to automatically build those segmented lists. This will help you build better relationships and, of course, get better results. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to ratethispodcast.com/bam.
Dave Charest:Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's ratethispodcast.com/bam. Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.