Alex Melen is an Award-Winning Serial Entrepreneur & Keynote Speaker. He is the founder and CEO of web hosting company T35 Hosting (founded 1997) and advertising agency SmartSites(founded 2011). SmartSites now manages over $30MM/year in advertising spend and has 6 offices worldwide. SmartSites has been featured in the INC5000 for 3 consecutive years as one of the fastest growing digital agencies and Alex has been featured in Business Week’s Top 25 Entrepreneurs, Bloomberg, Forbes, NPR & more.

Where did the idea for your company come from?

I started SmartSites with my brother in early 2011. The idea was to offer a full-service digital experience to small business’s and help them bring their business and ideas online. Prior to SmartSites, I spent several years working at Publicis – one of the largest advertising agencies in the world. At Publicis, I was a digital manager for first the Samsung account and then for Walmart. In those roles, I saw first hand the power and results the digital space can bring to companies. However, the small and medium size businseses were being left behind as they couldn’t afford to spend enough to hire companies like Publicis. With that though, SmartSites was started as a combination of several other smaller businesses both my brother and myself were involved with at the time. The merged company (SmartSites) brought together the entire digital experience – from web site hosting, to website design, SEO, PPC and more.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

Wake up 6am-6:30am. Spend 2h with my kids (5 and 4 years old) before heading into the office. Our HQ is located in Paramus, NJ – but we also have 5 other offices worldwide. From 9 to 6, I spend time with the typical day-to-day tasks of running a business. No day is the same. At the end, I make a quick pit stop at the gym before joining my family at home for dinner.

How do you bring ideas to life?

My favorite thing about the digital space is that it’s actually very easy – and fast – to bring your ideas to life. In fact, the first business I ever started (T35 Hosting, circa 1997), was all about allowing others to quickly and freely create content on the internet and bring their ideas to fruition. In the digital marketing space, everything is about experimenting, optimizing, etc.. so I get to test and experiment with my ideas on a daily basis.

What’s one trend that excites you?

The continued trend of digital adoption continues to excite me and drive our company to grow. Even in 2019, digital advertising represents only a quarter of U.S. Ad Spend. At the same time, it represents more than half of media consumption. Think about it – by lunch time, how many hours have you spent on the internet and on your phone? How many hours of TV have you watched by that time? I’d take a wild guess and say you’ve spent 2x more time in the digital space, but the ad-dollars haven’t caught up to that yet. That creates an amazing arbitrage opportunity and allows for some amazing results from digital marketing.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

Organization – I think it’s key to increasing productivity and being able to accomplish more with less time.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Take more risks. I’ve been involved in several online businesses since the mid 1990’s – but at the time, I took the safe and slow growth road too many times. The younger you are, the easier it is to take risks and I encourage everyone to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams when they are young and able to do it with a lot less consequences.

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

I still think Twitter is one of the most important social media platforms – it allows you to broadcast your message in a truly public way. Most will disagree though with Instagram having the most growth these days, and Twitter having the lowest market valuations of any major social media platform.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Follow your dreams, set (realistic goals) and follow through on them. Take risks, get outside of your comfort zone.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

Keep customer satisfaction and employee moral as a key focus has been a key factor in helping us grow at the “perfect” pace. Grow too slow, and you get squeezed out by competitors. Grow too fast, and you can jeopardize quality and moral.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

I had dozens of failures with a variety of businesses. I’d say – don’t be afraid to fail, take the failure, realize what you learned from it, and move on.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

AR/VR contextual advertising will be the next big thing in the digital advertising space. Now is probably a great time to start developing some unique things around that.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

Another $100 in PPC ads. Even now in 2019, I know that every $1 invested in PPC ads for our own business, we get $6 in life-time sales. It’s not the $8:1 or $7:1 we had in previous years, and I know it will be $5:1 next year – but it’s still the best investment you can make.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

We’ve recently started using Zapier for integrations and automation. We’re even a certified partner for them now. Great software to really revolutionize your business in terms of automation.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

I’m not a big book-reader to be honest. Instead, I follow key publications and key people on social media. My advice? Follow me, twitter is best (@amelen). I regularly posted the most relevant and important articles and information.

What is your favorite quote?

Begin. The rest is easy.

Key Learnings:

• Take risks, especially young. Follow your entrepreneurial dreams.
• Don’t be afraid to fail. Learn from your failure and start again.
• Digital still offers a huge arbitrage opportunity for advertising.
• Follow me on my social media profiles to stay up-to-date in digital space.

Connect:

https://www.smartsites.com
https://www.alexmelen.com

 

Original Source:

Alex Melen

Alex Melen is the Co-Founder of SmartSites. Alex Melen is a thought leader, influencer, and risk taker, and provides the vision and energy that has inspired the creation of SmartSites. Alex Melen joins other leading CEOs and Founders and Co-Founders taking part in our Leader Roundtable Interview Series. The DotCom Magazine editorial team has awarded SmartSites as an Impact Company of 2019, and we are delighted to have Alex join us for our Leader Round Table Interview. The SmartSites story is very interesting, and we are very excited to not only interview Alex about his very successful business and entrepreneurial spirit, but also put Alex through our popular speed round as well.

 

Expertise in website design, SEO and PPC

Alex, thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy day for this interview, and answering some questions about leadership, your vision, and your SmartSites.

1. Can you describe what the “elevator pitch” for SmartSites is?

SmartSites is a leading full-service digital agency, with expertise in website design, SEO and PPC. We are laser focused on providing the best results for our clients and being their trusted partner in the digital space. We have nothing but 5* reviews on every review platform online and have consistently ranked in the top agencies in the world.

2. Many of our readers are just starting to build a company. What advice can you give Founders just starting out regarding keeping a company moving forward, and please tell us the key to your company’s success?

As you’re in the initial phases of growing your company it’s very important to zero-in on your core competencies and where you bring the most value to your clients. Once you have that figured out, it’s all about steady growth without sacrificing quality or jeopardizing cash flow.

3. For other entrepreneurs seeking to build a business as successful as SmartSites, what advice can you give them when times get a little challenging?

Even in 2019, there are A LOT of opportunities in the digital space, and really in most industries. An example I like to cite is that even now (in 2019), the Digital Space only represents a quarter of US Ad Spend. While at the same time, digital dominates our day-to-date and where we (the consumers) spend most of our time. It’s opportunities like this that allow for arbitrage opportunities and for companies to come in and succeed. The same opportunities exist in almost every industry – you just have to look for them. In terms of “challenging times”, they will always happen – you just have to focus on what you (and your company) does best and not focus on the ups and downs as much.

4. How important is the commitment to client satisfaction at SmartSites, and how do you make sure your customers will become raving fans of your company?

Client satisfaction is actually our top priority and the results can be seen from our stellar reputation. I’m a big fan of the amazon approach with an almost over-bearing focus on making sure our clients are happy and getting results. Everything else will follow.

5. What is the one overriding belief that SmartSites has about what it is doing?

Our believe – and goal – is to help our clients succeed online. That is our underlying goal with everything that we do here.

6. In today’s fast changing business environment, what do you do to keep up with the changes? What do you read to stay abreast of things?

As we have grown, we now have employees whose sole job is to keep up with the industry trends and help bring all of the latest and greatest into our services and processes. For others just starting out, I’d recommend following key people on social media (like twitter) which will help them stay in the loop on the latest trends. I personally post a lot in the digital and digital advertising space, so everyone is welcome to follow me @amelen of course.

7. What is your “Why”? Why do you get up in the morning, and how do you keep yourself at peak performance to lead SmartSites?

Every day I see more and more people struggling in the digital space. Sometimes it’s a local mom-and-pop shop. Sometimes it’s a 3rd generation company that has always survived on advertising in the yellow pages. My personal goal, and that of SmartSites, continues to help bring everyone we can into the digital space and help them succeed.

8. Can you recommend a book that has had an influence in your career? How did it influence you?

I’m not a big reader of entire books. And I don’t want that to come off in a weird way – I just keep my reading to specific articles and posts by specific individuals. It helps me absorb a lot more information in the short periods of time I have available. I wouldn’t say anything bad about books though – I know they can often be a lot more insightful than the tidbits of information I get from my sources.

9. In one sentence, can you tell us what the most important thing about being a leader is?

The most important thing for me is creating a company that has values, helps our clients succeed and make our employees happy (and excited to come in to work every day).

10. In one sentence, can you give some advice to fellow entrepreneurs wishing to build a company as exciting as SmartSites?

I’ll do it in 2 words: Do It. Very few people have regretted starting a business or venture, while millions regret never doing it or passing on that one idea they had that was great. The younger you are, the easier it is to take the risk (while you have less responsibilities), but I think it can be done at any age. Even if your idea fails, the amount of learning you will gain from the experience will in most cases be more valuable than the time and risk you took to do it.

 

Digital Marketing

Alex, we would like to have some fun and do our famous “First Reaction” round with you! We will ask you ten more questions that we want you to answer in just one to three words only.

Here you go!

1. In three words or less, What makes a successful CEO?
Vision & risk-taking.

2. Describe SmartSites in one word?
Innovative

3. Describe SmartSites customers in one word?
Happy

4. What one attribute do you look for when hiring an employee for SmartSites?
Passion

5. What is the one word you want your customers to say about SmartSites?
Helped-me succeed (sorry needed more words!)

6. In three words or less, describe your SmartSites?
Digital Leader

7. In three words or less, describe what it takes to be successful?
Passion, Drive, Follow-through

8. In three words or less, describe your first year in business at SmartSites?
Scrappy, Driven, Unpolished

9. In three words or less, describe how running a successful company has changed you?
Increased focus & drive.

10. What is the one word that you believe has the most power in the English Language?
Success (everyone wants it).

Alex Melen, thank you so much for sitting down with us at our DotCom Magazine Impact Player Round Table. We very much appreciate the time you spent helping others to learn more about your company and what it takes to be a leader. We we wish you, your family, and of course SmartSites, nothing but the best.

Thanks again!

The Alex Melen Roundtable Interview brought to you by DotCom Magazine.

Original Source:
https://dotcommagazine.com/2019/03/alex-melen-cofounder-of-smartsites-a-dotcom-magazine-exclusive-interview/

Alex Melen is an Award-Winning Serial Entrepreneur & Keynote Speaker. He is the founder and CEO of web hosting company T35 Hosting (founded 1997) and advertising agency SmartSites (founded 2011). SmartSites now manages over $30MM/year in advertising spend and has 6 offices worldwide. SmartSites is featured in the INC5000 as one of the fastest growing digital agencies in the U.S. and Alex has been featured in Business Week’s Top 25 Entrepreneurs, Bloomberg, Forbes, NPR & more.

Hello Alex! What inspired you to create SmartSites? How did the venture come about?

Smart sites were started in 2011 almost 8 years ago at this point and it was started with with my brother kind of putting together both of our experiences in the online space. My experience before starting Smart Sites I worked in the digital space for both first Samsung and then four for Wal-Mart. In that position I really got to know the digital space and the agency world really well and I saw a huge opportunity for the small and medium sized businesses that were really being underserved. Bigger agencies obviously wouldn’t go and try to service those kind clients and those businesses were really left to fend for themselves. Oftentimes they would just hire one person in-house to try to do their digital data, outsource at to someone’s brother or cousin or try outsourcing overseas and wind up with that experience. So the goal Smart Sites was to bring the high level of agency service that the Fortune 500 companies received make that kind of level to small and medium sized businesses. So it’s smart sites we literally do everything in the digital space for making the Web site to develop into a SEO, paper click, social media, logo branding anything digital you could think of. We have the expertise to do and we really strive to be a partner to the businesses so that business owners could really focus on their own business and what makes them successful and we can focus on the digital aspect and helping them be successful in everything that they do. We’ve been doing that for eight years and consistently growing 30 / 40 percent every year as far as our services grow and our clients keep referring more and more clients as as they see the level of our service.

What marketing strategies do you use to promote your clients through SmartSites in the beginning?

The strategies we use for our clients are actually funny enough similar to strategies we use for ourselves. So the core strategies we focus on on the marketing side is a SEO which is search engine optimization, organic traffic, paper click which is you literally paperclicks. So that’s the platforms like Google ads, Bing and Facebook. Post to do a little been a social media side. Which is usually a little bit more of a supportive effort. And when I say social media I exclude actually paid ads while paid ads, part of social media is still very powerful. The social media part it’s more of a commenting, posting, it’s still a little bit more on the supportive side but those are the main services and they actually work the best when combined together so SEO is really really good for a long time, long term strategies. It’s very good, very good value in the long term but you have to invest in it for a long time. You have to invest for it for months and months to see results but the results are long lasting. Once you stop investing in it doesn’t disappear but it’s organic search traffic you literally show up in organic results where you don’t have to pay for those clicks and it’s tremendous value over the long run. Then you have a paper clip which is almost the opposite- paper click is very instant. I could build you campaign today and you can start getting traffic and sales today but you’re paying for every one of those clicks and as soon as you stop it you actually will stop getting sales and then we have the social media phone app which which helps bring build your brand identity helps you interact with your clients helps on the customer service end. And like I said when you bundle all those together the SEO for for a long term visibility paperclip for their immediate results then social media for interaction and brand building. It actually provides the best results both for own internal marketing efforts and for what we do for our clients.

As a keynote speaker, what are your favorite topics to speak on?

As a keynote speaker I love speaking about everything digital. Digital, the digital space though is such a broad category that it spans so many different things and so many different levels of expertise. For example when I attend small business conferences where it’s companies and business owners that aren’t too familiar with digital we cover more basic topics. Talk about digital in general the importance of it. Talk about the metrics and trends. The reason why they should be in the digital space because as most people know that’s where the eyeballs are shifting to that’s where attention is and you obviously want to be in front of your customers where they are. But in terms of speaking topics it could also be a much more specific where done multi hour events. Just speaking about SEO and the logic behind SEO I also done events where I speak about paper click and specific paper click strategies. But as you could probably already tell anything digital I’m very passionate about. I’m passionate about helping people understand digital and people helping people succeed with digital online. Even 2019 digital is such a space where the advertising spends doesn’t cut up. If you look at the actual raw numbers companies in the US still overall on aggregate spend more money on TV and TV ads than digital while at the same time if you look at where people spend their time- people are spending a lot of more of their time on digital. Literally people are on their cell phone even when watching TV. So I really am trying to help a lot of people understand that and help them refine their marketing and actually optimize our marketing and digital presence to start generating results. And even in 2019 the opportunities are still there and we still have a lot of businesses that we bring online that see phenomenal results that didn’t think it was possible in this day and age and they felt that it was too late to be getting into digital.

What upcoming technology changes or policy changes will alter the digital marketing sphere?

So the digital space is actually really interesting because in terms of changes and technology changes it is always changing as opposed to things like out of home which is billboard, prin,t ads in magazines and newspapers, radio which has been pretty much the same for decades. Even when the others change, there’s so minor that they’re not revolutionary. The digital space is changing almost in real time- I don’t see any dramatic changes there will be a game changer where I could say well in two years you’re not need a Website but there are still a lot of changes happening. For example in the pay per click side more and more people are actually doing Google ads, which is not surprise. And as more people get do it it actually becomes more expensive for everyone and you have to become more efficient, better and more targeted to be able to generate results. On the SEO side which is organic search traffic, Google’s always coming out with new rules, new best practices- things that they don’t want you to do and things that they do want you to do. For example, five years ago mobile wasn’t as important. Now Google takes into consideration they’re really pushing mobile so things like that are always going to be changing but I think the core thing to remember is entire digital space is always in a state of change and you always really have to keep up with the best practices and what you should be doing. Otherwise you get left behind pretty quick. A perfect example I have is Google last year rolled out new types of expanded ads. So what that means is you can now have more text. What that means is in the Google search results when someone searches something if you’re following the new ads, your ad now takes up twice more space but only twice more real estate without any extra cost. If you did not know this new ad type was just rolled out you wouldn’t have known to make it and to create it and you would have lost out. So the takeaway is digital is always changing and you really have to keep up and follow all the best practices.

What’s next for SmartSites (Melen, LLC)? Any exciting projects, expansions or projects coming down the pipe?

Here at Smart Sites we always try to grow the business obviously in any business you don’t want to stay stagnant and just keep doing what you’re doing but especially in the digital space where everything just moves a little quicker. So the next steps for Smart Sites is to continue to grow our business. As we’ve always done we finished 2018 with with 85 full time employees worldwide. We plan to finish this year, 2019 with 100 and that mimics the goal and roles that we’ve had in the years prior. Obviously there’s there’s a lot that comes with that both growing the employee count but also growing our capabilities growing our office space growing. How many projects we work on and really the quality of service we provide. So there’s a lot of fun goals for smart sites. We hope to continue our growth and it’s primarily driven by the service that we offer. There are happy clients keep referring other future happy clients, our employees love providing the services that we do and it just fuels our growth and we plan to keep expanding and keep trying to help as many small and medium sized businesses with their digital presence as we can.

Original Source:

https://lama-app.com/interview-with-Alex-Melen?utm_source=Linkedin&utm_medium=Post&utm_campaign=Alex-Melen&utm_term=Alex-Melen&utm_content=Alex-Melen

In this interview, Alex Melen, Co-founder and CEO of SmartSites, discusses the importance of automation and data-driven decisions

TDE: Thank you so much for taking our questions! Tell us a little about your business and its history?

Alex Melen: SmartSites is a full service digital agency helping small businesses with website design and digital marketing. I started the company with my younger brother at the start of 2011. Since then we’ve grown to over 85 employees in 6 offices worldwide.

TDE: What are your thoughts on the current pace of digital transformation in your industry? Do you feel overwhelmed with the prospect of introducing technology solutions to manage & streamline parts of your business?

Alex Melen: The digital space is very interesting in the way it is always growing at a rapid pace. Fortunately, that has helped our business as more and more clients need help traversing the digital landscape. We typically become the trusted digital partner to help them succeed in the ever-changing digital world.

TDE: What is the one technology trend within your industry that cannot be ignored?

Alex Melen: In a macro-scale, the big trend over the last few years has been based on the importance of digital and the bigger role it plays in our lives. People no longer pull out the yellow pages or call their uncle to find a trusted service provider. Instead, they turn to the internet, getting access to an unprecedented amount of information about service providers, their reviews and more.

Leaky pipe? Car check engine light? Hungry for dinner? Our first reaction is to whip out our cell phones.

TDE: What has been the most significant technology integration/implementation so far, at your organization? Why? (could have impacted your employee efficiency, customer satisfaction, profit margins etc.)

Alex Melen: Pursuing data aggregation and automation has been the most significant technological implementation in our company. We have become a much more efficient company by automating both menial tasks and those that would have never been possible with just manual labor. Additionally, with the amounts of data in the digital space, we have been able to source and combine data and generate meaningful insights for both ourselves and our clients.

TDE: Do you have a dedicated in-house IT team? What are some of the challenges your IT team and employees faced before, during and after bringing in this solution? How did you resolve them?

Alex Melen: Being a digital agency, our entire company is more or less an IT team. We have in-house capabilities in both the development services we sell as well as our own IT, computer systems and more.

TDE: What’s the internal technology challenge your organization aims to resolve in the immediate future? (could be internal workflow/workforce automation or having internal operations such as CRM, HR, Inventory powered by front end mobile apps) 

Alex Melen: Our near-term challenge is to continue the implementation of automation and to polish our internal processes. By automating many tasks, it frees up our employees to spend their time on more value-driven tasks and making decisions from data instead of spending all day gathering it.

TDE: From an external viewpoint are you considering using mobility solutions/mobile apps to promote/sell your products online, or to promote/sell your products to your dealers and allow them to order online?

Alex Melen: Although we don’t use mobile apps to promote or sell our products, we spend a big bulk of our advertising budget on digital media (Google Ads, etc..), often focusing on mobile devices or traffic.

TDE: How do you keep yourself updated? What are some of the websites or magazines or apps that you subscribe to or read regularly?  

Alex Melen: I keep myself updated by reading a variety of sources. Instead of relying on a single media source, I use a combination of Google News (personalized/aggregated news) as well as LinkedIn updates from people in my network.

TDE: What’s your favorite social network – Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter?

Alex Melen: My favorites are Twitter and LinkedIn. Those are also the platforms I tend to get the most engagement on and where I spend most of my time. However, on a personal level, I do still enjoy Facebook and Instagram. They are great platforms, as long as you realize that the time spent on them is recreational in nature and not really for learning.

For more DX insights, follow Alex Melen on LinkedIn and Twitter

 

Original Source:

https://www.thedigitalenterprise.com/interviews/digital-marketing-interview-with-alex-melen-co-founder-and-ceo-of-smartsites/