Tim Whitley On Smart Digital Marketing No Longer Tethered to Smartphones

Tim Whitley

Tim Whitley, a former operations manager and director at KNWA-TV in northwest Arkansas and KARK-TV in Little Rock, co-founded Team SI (Social Innovation) in 2010. The firm, a sister company to Little Rock ad agency Mangan Holcomb Partners, was recognized last month as one of Inc. magazine’s 5,000 fastest-growing firms in the U.S. for its 1,670 percent revenue growth since 2012.

A native of Abilene, Texas, Whitley graduated from Mississippi State University in 2005 with a degree in meteorology. A member of the Arkansas Business 40 Under 40 Class of 2015, he serves on the boards of Camp Aldersgate and the nonprofit Women & Children First.

Exactly how does the agency quantify the effect of its work?

A huge part of digital’s appeal is the ability to realize real-time impact and response rates. But all campaigns are not created equal; it’s about being in the right place at the right time with compelling content. The message is as or more important than the media. You must break through the clutter. Whether it is views, click-throughs, filling out online lead forms or making a purchase, we can quantify success and continually refine campaigns to maximize ROI for our clients.

What is your favorite social media marketing campaign?

Social media engagement doesn’t occur in a vacuum with approvals months in advance from the board room. It comes with understanding that social media is a conversation and allowing the freedom to try new things based on what is trending. My favorite social media marketing campaigns are the quick, successful hits that are spontaneous and genuinely engage an audience. An example was during Super Bowl XLVII when the entire stadium went dark. Not four minutes later, Oreo came out with a tweet that broke Twitter: You can still dunk in the dark. This type of timely, relevant content drives engagement.

What’s the next big thing in digital marketing?

That is the million-dollar, no, billion-dollar question. Right now, it’s a race to aggregate data to achieve a new level of personalization. From swiping a rewards card at the grocery store to buying a no-foam latte at the local coffee shop with the touch of a smartphone, consumers are telling us every day with their actions, purchases and devices that they want to engage in the digital space. It’s up to us to analyze that data and figure out how to connect them with client brands.

What trends are you seeing for digital marketing involving smartphones?

Smartphones are collecting more information than any other device or platform today. We’re using it in innovative ways, from geo-fencing a user at a competitor’s location to let him know there’s a better deal across the street, to delivering tourism destination ads because we know the user is a traveler based on her smartphone activity.

But the smartphones are only the beginning. Think of the Fitbits or the smart watches or smart switches we use to control our front porch lights. As technology continues to evolve and the “Internet of Things” becomes a part of every aspect of our lives, the future of collecting information will be in vehicles, homes, music, movies, sitcoms, wearable technologies and yes, the smartphone. Our job is to use that data to be smarter, creating and delivering marketing messages that consumers actually want, building engagement and loyalty.