John Bracamontes

Running a 10-person B2B SEO shop in St. Louis — which is not exactly the sexiest elevator pitch at a dinner party — how do you actually explain what you do to someone who immediately glazes over at the word 'SEO'?

Funny thing is it feels near impossible. A good example of it is this question… Because we aren't just an SEO shop. Every customer we work with gets a package of services one of which is SEO. So how I talk about the company is… "We connect businesses with new customers". I tell them that we run ads, create articles and put them in directories that ensure when companies go looking for services they need, the companies we work with get found by those other companies looking for those services. Then if someone asks for more, I go deeper into the details. But that seems to satisfy the question from "normal people".

Acumen Studio sits in this interesting space where data and creativity have to coexist. Do those two sides of the house ever genuinely fight with each other, and who usually wins?

Yes, they Always fight. And I think this is something Atomicdust can relate to well. Both should coexist and work together at the highest level. They can, with enough thought, iteration and good execution. But in most cases that requires time and budget. If someone doesn't have the time or the budget or either, then it's hard to deliver at the "highest level". A good example is Walmart vs Nordstrom vs Barneys. They all are the same thing.. A Retailer of goods. But obviously different. Walmart delivers on low prices (they do their best in the other areas, but in those other areas it will never be as good as someone may think they should be), Nordstrom delivers on Accessible Luxury (the price is high, but not out of reach, the experience is higher and and makes you feel important, but again, the things their good at is providing that Middle High End experience. If you want more, they will struggle to provide that too you, if you want a deal, it's probably not gonna happen), but then you have Barneys who delivers the Highest Tier Experience (high end brands, exclusive products, the most elite experience. but all of that comes at a very high price). It's the same with content and design. Your budget and time determine what you can get. So if you aren't able to have the Barney's like experience with an agency, then you need to accept the fact that you must compromise and focus on certain areas and goals such as getting more awareness, more traffic, more leads, more sales, brand repositioning, brand refresh, brand upgrade, etc. You'll dial in on a specific area and be okay with average in the other areas. The answer is in the agency world, neither wins. That monster of wanting it all, all the time, is what wins, every time.

St. Louis has a reputation for being a city where people stay in their lane and play it safe. Has that ever worked against you when trying to sell clients on taking real creative or strategic risks?

Yes and No. We don't actually push companies to the bleeding edge. We get them to a place where they are producing good results consistently. The biggest issue we deal with is people not wanting to follow convential marketing strategy. Strategy such as, speak to the outcomes that a customer wants to acheive. Don't just tell them what you do and how, tell them what you deliver for them. If a nonprofit wants more donors, then you tell them you will get them more donors. Don't tell them that you can design a flyer. Tell them you can get them more donors, more than they've ever gotten before and that you can do that using the strategy you've built around a very specific, highly top secret, donor acquisition flyer design & message (I'm being hyperbolic, but you get the point). Every marketer knows this, but when it comes to doing it for themselves, they get scared and chicken out. They want to say they design flyers, full stop. I say Boooooo to that!

You're the president of a 10-person agency — which means you're probably doing about six different jobs on any given Tuesday. What's the job you secretly like most that's technically below your pay grade?

Simple answer here… Building back end logic to improve operational efficiency. I could give details, but whatever you're imaging, the answer is yes, I love doing that.

B2B marketing has this long-standing curse of being considered the boring cousin of consumer work. Do you think that's finally changing, or are people in the industry just telling themselves that to feel better?

I don't think it's changing. And that's fine. Examples that could convince someone otherwise are seeing commercials for companies like Anthropic, OpenAI and Googles Gemini or even products like Base44 (now owned by Wix), the problem here is that it's not just B2B, they are also selling to the general public and capitalizing on their novelty in the consumer space. Yes, a regular person at home can make a to-do list app for themselves, or create a useful inventory management app for their household (I should do this myself), but that's not really selling to the B2B market. As for most other B2B industries, I think they are doing more, which is good, but is it really any different than it has been in terms of messaging and approach….? Not in my opinion