For eleven years digital marketing agency Minds On has built their business around networking and honest conversations. Founder and President Tom Augustine created a successful company that is not only helping businesses with their digital strategy and presence, but is fostering a creative workplace, all while giving back to the community.
The services within Minds On’s four core specialty areas take a strong emphasis on business to business marketing for the hardware, software and manufacturing industries.
Strategy starts a business’s marketing process and represents Minds On’s first focus. A business needs a plan for their process. Who are they trying to reach? How are they going to reach them?
As for reach, a website is a business’s number one marketing tool, so as another area of expertise, Minds On focuses on website development with an emphasis on content messaging and positioning.
A solid strategy and strong website are the foundations for a business to sell itself, but Minds On takes a client’s positioning one step further with what Augustine describes as sales enablement through an inside out approach.
“We really focus on working with our customers’ sales teams and marketing teams to develop marketing strategies and tools that they need to be successful, to nurture that lead to a sale,” Augustine says.
Minds On creates items like presentations, demonstrations, white papers and webinars – the materials a client would need to educate a customer through the buying cycle.
Finally, Minds On creates external campaigns for their clients. While their focus is heavily digital, sometimes businesses want to utilize more traditional marketing tactics.
“We’re really big on thought leadership campaigns and positioning our customers as thought leaders,” Augustine says.
Minds On strives to understand a customer’s target market and audiences, while appealing to the large number of people that can influence a buying decision.
And how do they know who to appeal to?
“We sat on the other side of the table, we’ve held these positions with the clients that we’re meeting with,” Augustine says.
Minds On is determined to build long-term relationships with all clients. Augustine wants clients that view them as a partner versus a vendor. Long-term partners means long-term success, and members that become an extension of each others’ teams.
Minds On has held some clients since day one . Day one was 11 years ago.
Augustine dove into the web at its inception in the early 1990s. He started as a graphic designer, primarily focused on print before switching to web design, and to eventually building websites. When the company he was working for was acquired in 2000, he reached out to others that were moving on to then open Minds On in 2002.
“Really from day one we were profitable,” Augustine says. “We built the business around being conservative.” Augustine and his team worked on a strong financial foundation before beginning operations, creating success from the get-go.
Their stability and continued growth earned Minds On a spot on the 2013 Inc. 5000 list for fastest growing companies in the U.S. Augustine contributes their solid foundation and strong internal culture as reasons for their continued success.
“Culture is extremely important to me,” Augustine says. The founder strives to foster a family environment with a work hard, play hard mentality. Employees can break for a game of ping pong or some video games, but can also expect quarterly team building events, and a continued emphasis on learning and improving business.
Minds On doesn’t stop at helping clients and building their culture – an important part of the business is also giving back to the community. Augustine mentors newer startups on the hurdles one often faces when building a company. His goal is to help them gracefully face the obstacles they once experienced as a new business. Minds On also supports several local charities throughout the year.
For more information, visit mindson.com.
