By Jacob Owca, Madison Media Partners contributor
“When I was your age, I just had the drive to sell. I don’t know what your generation wants in this field or how it’s going to change.” A colleague and I sat outside of my cubicle and pondered what marketing will look like as younger people, like my 20-year-old self, enter the field, perhaps for reasons beyond the more quantifiable benefits. I may have found the answer a few cubicles down in my colleague Laura Fitzgerald.
Laura has devoted herself to a new marketing campaign she helped pilot at Madison Media Partners called Ask the Expert. This campaign puts a spin on traditional product-focused advertising and points the needle in the direction of the consumer for their good and the good of the businesses featured.
Laura is a kind, corgi-owning Madisonian with three children who describes herself as more of a consultant than a salesperson. She told me how she approaches marketing, and the mission she described was simple: Build success with your clients and their customers rather than seek it out only for yourself. I quickly learned that this mission stayed consistent in the Ask the Expert program.
Ask the Expert is less of a marketing campaign and more of an exclusive video series that Madison Media Partners produces, giving it and its businesses, as Laura describes, “an endorsement from a trusted member of the Madison community.”
Here’s how it works: Working with Madison Media Partners, an expert from a business uses their prowess to answer common consumer questions in their field via video. The video is then shared on social media and on madison.com.
Andrew Larson, owner and general manager of Larson Home Services, informed new and progressing homeowners how to inspect their home’s insulation to make sure they’re not losing money on unnecessary heating. This video has more than 37K views on Facebook.
“Positioning the client as an expert allows them to not just sell a product, but to offer up valuable information to consumers,” Laura said. Laura emphasized that when businesses participate in Ask the Expert and make content for Madison consumers, those businesses “build trust” with their customers-to-be.
When it comes to relationships with their clients, businesses who participate in the Ask the Expert series tend to go above and beyond with their marketing messages. Laura directed me to Evolution Body Transformation, a medical spa in Monona. Owner Dr. Stacy Stropshire filmed one of her videos on how women can cope with urinary incontinence, an issue mothers struggle with that is often overlooked. This video has more than 21K views on Facebook.
“This is something that can be embarrassing and private, but [Stacy] brought the information to the forefront without making those mothers share their struggles with the world,” Laura said. “She’s solved an issue – people might not have known how to come forward. After seeing this, now they know where they can go.”
Watch all of the Ask the Expert videos on Facebook here.
Follow Madison Media Partners on Instagram for more updates about our team, events and marketing strategies. For more information about participating in Madison Media Partners’ Ask the Expert campaign, email Laura Fitzgerald at lfitzgerald@madison.com or Jared Felix at jfelix@madison.com.