August 22, 2016 | By jwdavies

The Davies Allen Biz Buzz Blog: Sebo Marketing

Today’s client feature, we sit down with Bruce Rowe, President of Sebo Marketing, a marketing firm that builds and designs websites, drives traffic through SEO and Pay-Per-Click Advertising, and monitors visitors and their behavior to bring them in as a paying client. Bruce has a bachelors degree from BYU and a Masters degree from Idaho State University. In 2013 he was selected as the Utah TechX Mentor of the year for giving his time and talent to over 70 companies, as well as donating his time to additional education and mentoring.

D+A: How did you get into Marketing?

Bruce Rowe: I was in-between jobs and did a temporary job with a company that did a mail order catalog. They didn’t have a website, and I said, “You know, I think we should have a website.”

I had no background, and I had done nothing with websites or online marketing or anything at that point, so I said, “We should build a website, drive traffic to the website, and see what happens.” It completely changed their business. Within a couple of years, they dropped mail-order completely and it became an online business. So I just became interested on how things like that happen and work.

I had the job lined up, and was about to start, and a friend of mine found out about this change and said come work for me. I said I’ll either take this job that I’m already scheduled to start, or I’ll accept this friend’s offer. He made a better offer, so I switched over.

About a year later, their company was doing really, really well and I tried to hire a marketing company. The marketing company wanted to take my money, but I wasn’t very confident they were any good at it. So I took some clients on the side, and within three months, I was making more money on the side than I was the full-time job. I started adding some employees and doing that. That was about 12 years ago.

D+A:  How do you judge whether a marketing company is reputable and will help your business?

Bruce Rowe: Well, the reason I wasn’t confident is the business models at the time said sign up with us and we’ll take care of your online marketing. It’s a two-year contract, and it’s a fixed amount of money per month. We had a lot of money because we were doing pretty well with this company, so we basically had set a budget of about $5,000 a month to pay a marketing company. When I did the math, $5000 a month times 24 months is $120,000. So, your contract that you’re asking us to sign says you’re guaranteed $120,000, and in reality, we may or may not make you a dime. So, you’re stuck paying us $120,000 whether or not what we do works. And I thought, “Why would I sign that?”  In my mind, that was the first change. So when I started picking up clients, I said I’ll start working for you for free, and if I can actually increase your sales, then keep me around. That was the model.

D+A:  You deal on the analytics side, the SEO, Pay-Per-Click, do you work with design firms to create content?

Bruce Rowe:   We don’t do social, and the reason we don’t do social is because Google changes their SEO rules more than a thousand times per year, and Google changes their Pay-Per-Click and algorithm rules multiple times a month. So for us to keep a relationship with google and to be better at Google’s stuff better than anyone, because they chose us, we don’t do the social side. When someone comes to us to ask us for that, we refer them to another company, and they work with designers and other companies as well.

D+A:  What kind of suggestions do you have for entrepreneurs who are just starting out?

Bruce Rowe:  I would say know what your goals are and what you’re trying to accomplish and then find ways to track them, and break bigger goals into smaller, individual goals.

Bruce, thank you so much for sharing your incredible knowledge and talent. For more information on Bruce and his company, visit http://www.sebomarketing.com.