Practicing what they preach: Asheville marketing firm believes small businesses need to couple traditional marketing approaches with social media.

• Author: Hughes, Leah
• Position: JB MEDIA GROUP

How does a marketing company market itself? That's a question Justin Belleme of JB Media Group in Asheville has been addressing since founding the firm in 2011. Apparently, his answers have been successful: Belleme's three-year-old company now has 12 employees and has grown 70% to 100% year-over-year for the past two years. In June 2014, the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce named him Entrepreneur of the Year.

JB Media Group is a full-service Internet-marketing agency offering search-engine optimization, social media, public relations, online advertising, and strategy and consulting services. In summer 2013, JB Media Group founded the JB Media Institute, a six-week online-marketing training program. The attendees include students, small-business owners, and marketing professionals sent by their employers.

"The future of our business is in training," Belleme says.

As for JB Media Group's marketing approach, Belleme says the company is "not pushy' It proves its ability and worth through transparency and established expectations. The results and return on investment for its services are easily tracked, and JB Media Group makes sure clients understand those outcomes. Losing clients is costly, but repeat clients who come back with a desire to extend the contract and expand the scope of work are valuable.

"We're really flexible in how we come into and out of relationships with our clients," Belleme says. "Our No. 1 priority is success and growth of our clients, and if that's happening, then everything will

turn out OK on our end."

Belleme's original model of a service company doing content-creation work for a retainer is still intact. But as the company grows, that model is increasingly difficult to manage and in some ways can become less profitable. To be sustainable, the company must increase the size of its contracts, not the number of clients. On the other hand, the JB Media Institute can add more sessions and more students without incurring much increase in cost.

Belleme isn't afraid of teaching himself out of business. The nature of the Internet-marketing industry ensures that clients will return to him as their business models and goals change, and as technology evolves and new platforms enter the marketplace.

"We'll walk away and allow them to internalize it," Belleme says. "There will be changes, and if they trust us to do the right thing and be a good steward of their resources, they will come back to us for additional work."

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