Latest / Small Biz Florida / Ep 417 | Get Found: Small Business Marketing in the AI Era with Mimi Damm

Transcript

Ep 417 | Get Found: Small Business Marketing in the AI Era with Mimi Damm · Small Biz Florida

• 0:00
  Welcome to Small Biz Florida, your go-to podcast for all things small business in the Sunshine State.
• 0:08
  This podcast is sponsored by Florida First Capital, your trusted partner for financing and support.
• 0:13
  Here, you'll discover the latest news, trends, and invaluable resources to help you grow and succeed.
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  From startup strategies to scaling your business, we've got you covered.
• 0:23
  Join us as we explore the vibrant Florida small business ecosystem
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  and connect you with the experts who can make a real difference.
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  And now, please welcome your host, Tom Kindred,
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  Regional Director of the Small Business Development Center at Indian River State College.
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  This is Small Biz Florida, the podcast and broadcast.
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  That's all things business across the state of Florida.
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  And if you've been tuning in lately, you know, Small Biz Florida is on the road again.
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  We are at the 2026 Small Business Success Summit,
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  all taking place here at the beautiful Sunseeker Resort in Charlotte Harbor.
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  The conversation is all about small business entrepreneurship.
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  The room is full of small business owners, entrepreneurs, all here to share best practices,
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  take some workshops, engage with some presenters and speakers,
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  and hopefully take all that information back home to their small business.
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  The lobby is absolutely full of exhibitors who are providing resources, assistance, tools to Florida's small business community.
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  We have one of those experts with us right now who is a speaker at the Small Business Success Summit.
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  It is our good friend Mimi Dam, who is a media specialist.
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  I like to call her a global media specialist with Gray Media.
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  Mimi, welcome back to Small Biz Florida.
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  Well, thank you so much for having me.
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  I'm very excited to attend.
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  This is my second year speaking at this summit.
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  You know, this is one of my favorite networking events of the year.
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  And I've just been able to meet so many great business owners, consultants, solopreneurs.
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  It's just really fascinating.
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  And it's interesting how the challenges and obstacles that they're facing here in the state of Florida,
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  how that can translate up and down the East Coast, even as far away as New England and the little state of Vermont, facing the same challenges.
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  Yeah, well, you make a great point.
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  I mean, small business is small business.
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  And while the regions may be different, a lot of those core issues are all the same, probably.
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  Absolutely.
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  And a lot of the solutions remain the same.
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  It's consistent.
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  I like that.
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  We're going to talk about solutions.
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  So let's start as we always do.
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  Mimi, just a little bit of your background pathway to your current role with Gray Media.
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  Absolutely.
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  So I've been in this space for well over two decades.
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  And, you know, I started out in print, in traditional media.
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  And, you know, I've been working with small business since the beginning of my career in this space.
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  So, you know, being able to grow and understand their needs and how they've evolved over the last 20 plus years has been really fascinating.
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  So now almost I feel like I'm coming out on the other side.
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  And it's such a fascinating space right now where the digital landscape has changed drastically.
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  And I'm not talking in the last 20 years.
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  I'm talking in the last two years.
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  The last 20 minutes.
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  20 minutes.
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  Exactly.
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  Exactly.
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  You know, it's funny.
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  You talk about all those changes.
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  I had someone tell me one time they said, to your point, even like when I was back in business, she told me, she said, you know, back when we were in business, we had four channels to market on.
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  Now we have 400 channels to market on.
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  So, yeah, it's a whole new complex world in marketing.
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  Absolutely.
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  You know, we talked just very briefly about your topic that you're going to present on.
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  Incredible topic.
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  Talk about the topic and kind of take us a little bit into your presentation for that topic.
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  Absolutely.
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  I mean, over the over the last year, there's been many businesses have been affected by the changes that, you know, AI has has, you know, changed in, you know, the discoverability of, you know, I'm not being found on Google.
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  I'm not being found within AI.
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  And what do I do about this?
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  What's happening?
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  And it's interesting how, you know, they're they're very unaware of the things they need to do in order to be visible across the digital landscape.
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  And it's interesting how, you know, working with other agencies, how these agencies have not informed them of these changes.
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  And so they're asking why, you know, this is happening.
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  So it's really important to understand.
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  Yes, you know, AI has changed the landscape.
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  These are the things you need to do in order to, you know, to be discoverable, to be seen, to be visible so people can find you.
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  And, you know, there's lots of different things that you can do.
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  It's not just any one thing where maybe before all they had to do is bid on a certain amount of keywords.
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  And then they were always trying to outbid their competitor and driving most of their budget into what we call the bottom of the funnel.
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  Whereas that's all changed where now you have to really look at it from, you know, a full funnel perspective.
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  You know, video is having a huge impact.
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  Utilizing video, putting this video on your website, creating blog sections, utilizing YouTube.
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  Google owns YouTube.
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  Google loves video.
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  It's not a coincidence.
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  They are going to deem this business more credible if you are utilizing YouTube.
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  So there's, you know, it's many different things.
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  It's not just any one thing.
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  And it's really about operating from a full funnel perspective and not just focusing your entire budget at the bottom on Google keywords, which has historically been the case.
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  I mean, how important.
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  I mean, how important is this for a small business owner?
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  If they're out there trying to scale, grow, find new customers.
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  How important is this that they understand these, you know, these complexities now in this space?
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  It's not just important.
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  It's critical.
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  It's absolutely critical that one, they understand it.
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  And two, that they have a plan moving forward in order to implement it.
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  So it's interesting because I was actually just speaking to a small business on Saturday and we ended up having a conversation where she, you know, was experiencing a severe decline and clicks to her website.
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  And that's because people don't have to click anymore.
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  They're getting everything they need through AI.
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  They're going to chat GPT.
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  They're going to perplexity.
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  They're going to Gemini.
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  They're getting everything they need in one place.
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  So they don't have to click on your website.
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  So being able to draw that line of attribution from, you know, a Google keyword to your website is just not really possible anymore.
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  So these are all things that you want to keep in mind moving forward.
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  Well, I guess it's been a while since I own my small business, but I don't know that I want to own one again.
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  But how does a small business owner, how did they learn about this?
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  You know, we, an earlier guest, we talked about the whole concept of, you know, you got to spend time working, you know, in the business, but you also got to spend some time working on the business.
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  I mean, how much time should a small business owner really be dedicating to this and to figure this out, to get engaged?
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  And I guess part B to that question is, where do they go to figure this out?
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  That's a really great question.
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  And that remains one of the biggest obstacles for small business because they still have a day job, right?
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  They have to operate a retail shop.
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  They have to be on construction jobs.
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  They have to manage real estate.
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  Whatever the case may be, it may even be a small automotive dealership.
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  Whatever the case may be, they need to make sure that they are operating the day-to-day functions of their business.
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  Now, they may, you know, try to hire someone internally to manage those operations.
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  But here's what I want every small business to keep in mind.
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  Okay, hold on.
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  I'm getting my notebook.
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  Let's go.
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  Yes, get your notebook out.
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  Okay, here we go.
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  Write this down.
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  So they are an expert in what they do, whether that's selling cars, selling real estate, construction, placing bids.
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  We are experts in what we do.
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  So why not outsource to an expert to manage that for you?
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  I certainly wouldn't try to sell my own house.
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  I certainly wouldn't try to build my own house.
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  I wouldn't try to, you know, I wouldn't try to make my own clothing, right?
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  These are things that we outsource to other entities.
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  So marketing is really no different than that.
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  So why are you trying to do something that you should really let an expert handle for you?
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  That's an excellent point, Mimi.
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  So, okay, I'm going to play devil's advocate.
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  Small business, is this going to be overwhelmingly expensive or is it something the money I invest is going to come back tenfold?
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  Kind of how does that small business owner take that leap and say, you know what, I've got to invest some money in this with an expert?
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  Absolutely.
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  And that's another great question.
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  And that's a question that we are faced with every day.
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  And here's what I'm going to say.
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  You know, everything is scalable.
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  And like I told, you know, this small business I just had a conversation with on Saturday, I asked her, are you putting money aside each year for a marketing budget?
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  And she says, no, I wing it.
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  And I was like, and she felt, you know, she felt a little embarrassed to tell me that.
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  But I was like, you're not alone.
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  That's what the most small business, they're out there winging it.
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  I'm going to throw a little money here, a little money there.
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  And all of a sudden, it's a lot of money, right?
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  It all adds up.
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  So I would recommend in any business, small, medium, large, that you take a percentage of your gross sales, your annual gross sales, and you put that into a marketing budget.
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  That may be a small marketing budget.
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  That may be a huge marketing budget.
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  But regardless, have a marketing budget, no matter the size.
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  And then make sure that that budget is used as cost effectively as humanly possible.
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  Right.
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  So.
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  And then, you know, be deliberate about this campaign, I guess.
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  How does one know that it's working?
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  So, again, I know that's kind of a big question.
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  But how long do you stick with something before you start to see some tangible results?
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  What is a tangible result?
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  Is that a couple of people walking in the store and saying, oh, gosh, you know, I saw your YouTube video.
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  How does a small business owner maybe measure this?
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  And how long do they stick with something before they say, let's change it up?
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  That is another very popular question.
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  I just every day.
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  Well, you know, I was a small business owner.
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  I know.
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  And that's a valid concern, right?
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  Because you have to have money coming in to have money going out.
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  It's just the basics of economics.
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  But here's what you need to remember.
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  Three words.
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  Consistency equals visibility.
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  And if you're not consistent, you will not be visible.
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  So, again, you know, whatever that budget is, it can be very small, very large.
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  But you have to be consistent.
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  Those businesses that say, I'm going to try this for a month and see how it works.
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  I don't even want to work with that budget.
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  I would rather they keep their money because it's not going to work.
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  But those that are consistent and doing the right things every single day, whether those are, you know, very expensive platforms or just very small, concentrated amounts of money, they are going to be successful over time.
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  And that is the key to all of this is consistency and over time, because there is no such thing as being successful right out of the gate.
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  If you're not doing the right things today, you're not going to be doing the right things tomorrow.
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  So you really need to make sure that you're doing the right things each and every day, even if it's just small things, that it's consistent.
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  Yeah.
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  It makes all kinds of sense.
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  Are there multiple parts in here?
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  Do we?
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  Um, I guess one of the things that I used to remember was, um, we would talk to clients about, you know, this is going to take so many hours a week to manage your digital marketing.
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  And that you're only going to have so much time for, uh, so many channels.
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  You can't have, uh, six different outlets.
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  You're going to have to focus on a website, Instagram and Facebook or something.
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  Is that, is, is that a, is that a reasonable thought process in building this campaign?
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  Do we, we have multiple parts, but we can only do so many multiple parts.
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  What does that all look like?
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  Well, you know, every business is different and every budget is different and it's really about working as effectively as possible with the budget that you have.
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  So that may mean working on a few components and trying to make those as effective as possible or looking at it from the core.
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  You know, if they're not visible online, just really looking at, um, you know, trying to create those options that are going to get them there.
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  But, you know, yes, you can, you know, manage the whole spectrum, um, which, you know, we're, we're currently doing for a client right now where we manage, uh, the organic posts, the paid posts, uh, social media, um, Google AdWords.
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  So, you know, we can certainly manage the entire spectrum, but every business is different and maybe they just don't have the budget for the entire spectrum.
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  So it's really about choosing the platforms that they need to focus on right here and now, and then growing.
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  I love to grow with a business where we start small and then all of a sudden they're seeing the return on investment.
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  And then we grow the budget and we grow it a little more each year.
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  Um, and actually I'm using that as a case study tomorrow.
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  One of my presentations, um, it's, uh, you know, she's a small business based out of Rutland, Vermont, and she's been able to sell her products online across the country.
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  And she's got a 237% ROI with, uh, our search engine marketing campaign.
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  So those are the success stories that I love to talk about.
• 14:38
  Yes.
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  What, um, now you are the, uh, as we mentioned, you're the global media specialist.
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  Let's go with that one.
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  That's right.
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  Uh, how does someone in our marketplace, cause I know you're, you're not from Florida.
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  Are there gray media folks in Florida that they, small businesses could connect to?
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  How do they get connected to gray media?
• 15:01
  Great question.
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  So this might be a little, you know, not to step on toes and get a little sensitive, but, um, you know, I work with clients all over the country.
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  I work with, you know, automotive dealership that has rooftops out in Colorado and Wyoming.
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  So, um, you know, I like to think of it like this, you know, if you're creating a partnership, you're creating the relationship, then work with that person.
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  Work with who, you know, you're comfortable with, you know, and, you know, here's the thing, you know, if it comes down to expertise, if it comes down to experience and credibility, then that's where you need to go.
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  Um, so yes, we want to work, you know, in little tiny state of Vermont, we love to work with clients all over the country.
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  It doesn't mean we can't.
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  And that's the beauty of the digital landscape is that there's no boundaries to who we can work with.
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  So how do we find you, Mimi?
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  I am very active on LinkedIn.
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  You can certainly find me on LinkedIn, Instagram.
• 15:55
  Um, I've connected with a lot of different businesses and consultants just in the last, I think, 12 hours that we've been here so far.
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  Yeah, I'm sure you have.
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  The room is full of them.
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  The room is full.
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  So, um, yes, I'm easily discoverable through, um, social media and I am very, very responsive as well.
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  All right.
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  It is, uh, Mimi Dam, uh, with Gray Media.
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  She serves as a, uh, media specialist.
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  She is a speaker here at the 2026 Small Business Success Summit.
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  Uh, Mimi, thank you for your time here on Small Biz Florida.
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  Thank you for your, uh, time here at the conference.
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  It's in the summit to provide, uh, what is important, uh, information for small business owners.
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  Uh, and thank you for your support of, uh, of small business all over the globe.
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  It's my pleasure.
• 16:47
  Thank you, Tom.
• 16:48
  Thank you.
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  This is Small Biz Florida.
• 16:50
  I am Tom Ginniger, host.
• 16:52
  It is all about small business here at the 2026 Small Business Success Summit.
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  All taking place here at the beautiful Sunseeker Resort in Charlotte Harbor, Florida.
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  Stay tuned.
• 17:04
  More to come.
• 17:04
  More to come.
• 17:04
  This is Small Biz Florida.
• 17:06
  That's all for this episode of Small Biz Florida.
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  We hope you found valuable insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial journey.
• 17:14
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• 17:19
  an episode.
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• 17:24
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• 17:29
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  Until then, keep innovating and keep growing.
• 17:44
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  We'll see you next time.
• 17:45
  Bye.
• 17:46
  Bye.
• 17:47
  Bye.
• 17:48
  Bye.
• 17:48
  you
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  you