Latest / The Scene Projects / Amos Buelow on Uplift Local Media, StartUp Sioux Falls, and Marketing Growth

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Amos Buelow on Uplift Local Media, StartUp Sioux Falls, and Marketing Growth · The Scene Projects

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  Today, we're excited to have Amos Belo on the show.
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  Amos is the driving force behind Uplift Local Media, a company bringing businesses together
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  through creative indoor digital billboards and community focused advertising.
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  He's here to show how uplifting businesses can uplift entire communities.
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  Let's dive in.
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  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
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  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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  from across the Midwest.
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  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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  Welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
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  I'm your host Bubba Starts, and with me today is my friend Amos Belo.
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  Amos, welcome to the show.
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  Yes.
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  Thank you.
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  And I appreciate you saying my name so well too with the pronunciation.
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  You really drove it home with just like the cookies, so I appreciate you.
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  Yeah.
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  I'm I'm happy to be on the show even even though I'm not necessarily in the art scene and
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  whatnot, but we do focus on uplifting the culture of Sioux Falls, keeping it positive and
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  innovative and uplifting.
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  So, I think maybe maybe that allowed me to to have this conversation with you here today, so
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  that's cool.
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  Well, I'm not limited to just art.
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  We have five different shows in the network now, and we're always about supporting local
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  businesses.
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  And that's what I find so thrilling about, having you on is that you are a local business
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  who supports other local businesses by working with other local businesses
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  Yeah.
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  To bring your advertising in.
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  Oh, it's so many wins, man.
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  So, go ahead and tell us a little bit about, you know, a little bit about your background.
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  I know you've been on the show before, but it's been a little while, and we got a lot of new
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  viewers.
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  And then we'll talk about, you know, uplift and, I mean, really the last year of really
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  taking off and doing this.
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  So go ahead.
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  The floor is yours.
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  Sure.
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  As you can tell, I'm a firm believer, and so that's really where my background starts.
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  I got my cross on, my dad's pastor, brothers are pastors.
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  And in that upbringing, I got two things.
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  One, an entrepreneurial experience without actually knowing it with my dad having to run
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  around, wear all the hats, be everything for everyone, even a janitor or secretary.
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  But I love that lifestyle, and I wanted that for my family.
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  It was inbred into me.
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  Realized that when I was 20, I don't know, 22 years old after graduating college, managing a
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  gym, and I realized I wanted to, start my own business and that I had that upbringing.
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  The second thing I learned in that upbringing, though, was there's really nothing as special
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  as person to person relationships and communication and family, and taking care of
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  each other.
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  And so that really went into every decision I made as far as what my work would look like and
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  the the situations I put myself in.
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  That's why I loved training at the gym and managing the gym, just being so personal with
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  people.
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  That ended up leading into my first business, which was, men's developments, Christian men's
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  developments, and that allowed me to do more than I was able to just at the gym.
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  I was in a better setting for it to really work holistically with with people.
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  And then, from there, got into a couple consulting roles to round out my experience as
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  a business owner, as a coach, and wanted to get rerouted into the community since I was doing a
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  lot of online work at that time.
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  And the the relationships and in person contact was important to me.
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  So in an effort to do that, worked at StartUp Sioux Falls for two years, which is how I met
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  Bubba.
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  And, that was really a good conglomeration of all my skills and talents to put me in a role
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  to kinda run a co working space and have prop up entrepreneurial programming and community
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  building and also just talk about business and entrepreneurship a lot of the day.
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  The goal is always to start my a new business again after that.
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  So two years in, launched this in November, and been working on Uplift Local Media with my wife
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  as a business partner in a larger organization that I also work with to do this around town.
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  But Uplift Local Media is my local brand, my local mission, and gives me an opportunity to,
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  in in this day and age, you know, kinda protect Sioux Falls and insulate Sioux Falls a little
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  bit from national influence, national exposure, national ads, national sports, this, that
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  influencer, and the other thing, and just created a good, solid insulated network for
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  Sioux Falls people, businesses, culture, content to keep our community on the right
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  track and focusing on each other first.
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  So that's, that's where I'm at now.
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  I love I love your comparison and really bringing attention to the fact that I think a
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  lot of people would never think of it, but as a pastor, you are.
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  You are running a business.
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  Right?
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  It may not be a for profit business, but you are wearing all the hats just like you said.
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  So, love that, you know, a little bit of tidbit there.
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  What explain I mean, it's just perfectly hearing the whole backstory now, perfectly
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  explains how you got here.
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  It makes so much more sense now that you've always been surrounded by community.
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  Growing up in the church, community and physical contact and and real conversations
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  have always mattered to you.
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  It's just been how you were raised.
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  And I think now more than ever in our society and in human history, we need that.
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  And I love how Uplift is focusing the influence not on the national brands, but on small
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  brands.
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  Right?
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  Especially in South Dakota where we are a small community, and a lot of these national brands
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  don't even make it here.
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  Right?
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  So why do we need all of this advertising, for for brands that we may not even in see in our
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  day to day life?
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  So much better to support people that, may go to our church or that we are actually in their
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  store, on a regular basis.
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  So love what you're doing.
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  Can you explain a little bit of what you're actually doing?
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  We talked about the digital billboards off the top, but what is that, in the physical sense?
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  Yep.
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  So I have two arms to what we do at Uplift Local Media.
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  What we're talking about is we have this network of 50 to 85 inch screen TVs inside of
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  local businesses.
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  Let's say I'm sitting in a coffee shop or a restaurant or I'm working out and right there
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  where that mirror is in the background, that could very well be a 50 to 85 inch screen TV in
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  my environment as I'm sitting down here that is playing twenty second commercials that are
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  silence, not super intrusive to your environment, that allows you to tell tell a
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  story about your brand in those twenty seconds and have you connect with them through video.
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  So we built that for people.
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  We have a creative team that builds those ads.
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  We update them and communicate the messages you wanna be known for over time in the community
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  and and for people to come to you for that.
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  And we also put on those screens local events, good local news stories that the community
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  should know about.
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  Like, we pick one or two every single month that for the community to get involved in,
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  usually.
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  We can put nonprofits up there.
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  We donate some space to nonprofits on the screens.
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  So good content like that also rotates throughout.
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  So these are in places like Nectar Juice Bars who are are locally owned by a couple that are
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  wonderful.
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  Jersey Mike's is the one franchise we work with, but awesome local owner, Andrew Tickner.
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  And then, Frontier Climbing and Fitness, Fit Body Boot Camp, Severance Brewing Company, six
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  zero five Ninja, Rack City, Antigua Taco House.
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  Just some of these really cool people that have roots in our town over generations.
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  So that's the advertising side.
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  So advertisers can pay to be on the entire network or maybe 10 or 20 at a time.
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  But I got 25 locations right now.
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  My goal is to build up to probably 70 and then eventually get into t Harrisburg and Brandon.
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  And then I also have marketing services.
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  So it's it's harder to track anything besides impressions on billboards.
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  So we also have a full marketing team that can launch and run more trackable campaigns like
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  geofencing or meta campaigns or pay per click so that we can marry those two together and
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  have them, basically bolster each other in a more effective way than just doing one by
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  itself.
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  And I think that gets lost a lot with people.
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  You know, you in traditional media and the way things were done, you know, for from the
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  fifties, right, with the advent of kinda television until now was that you kinda paid
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  money to that thing that would get a lot of impressions and do that.
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  Now with everyone's attention divided so much and we spend so much time on our phones and in
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  front of other screens that you really have to have a piece of all of them and to have them
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  all working cohesively.
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  So I love that you kinda have the the full marketing agency side to that to not just, you
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  know, yes.
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  We have this service and you get on the digital billboards, but this is how you really
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  capitalize on that.
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  Maybe you're using a QR code in your billboard campaign that people are able to scan that's
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  bringing them further into that world, into a funnel, or to a website where now you can track
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  those impressions and be able to move people farther along the, the trust ladder, if you
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  will, to finally being a customer.
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  Yep.
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  That's exactly right.
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  That's the whole purpose of that.
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  So, it's enjoyable to be able to do both parts.
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  And I it's not just me and my wife doing that work.
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  So we actually have a team of 50 plus that, support our fulfillment and our reporting and
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  our innovation and all of our marketing services as well as support our creative, ads
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  that we're that we're producing for for companies as well.
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  It's so exciting for me because the last time we really spoke and got a chance to catch up
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  was maybe in December or January.
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  This was just getting off the ground.
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  You maybe had one or two clients at the time and just getting started, but so much of what
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  you have now was built in those times.
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  Right?
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  What was you know, the ideas, there's so much prep and planning that go into these things and
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  so many relationships that need to be formed.
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  Right?
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  You don't have a physical space to put the TV.
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  You could have a 100 TVs in a storage unit, but they're not doing anyone any good there.
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  So you really have to go out there and graciate yourself to the community, to these businesses
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  to even, you know, have the space to put the space, right, the digital space up.
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  So love what you've done, man.
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  I'm so proud of you and your wife and the whole team of what you've built in such a short
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  amount of time.
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  You mentioned that trying to get to 70 in Sioux Falls is kind of the goal that you're driving
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  towards now.
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  How long do you think that'll take you?
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  I mean, you've gotten to 25 or so, you said, in just a few short months.
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  I got to imagine things are really starting to accelerate now as more people are not just
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  seeing you, but they're seeing the advertising and the effectiveness of it as well.
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  Yeah.
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  I I always tell people that it's a methodical growth is how I how I work and how I appreciate
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  doing things because it allows me to act on opportunities as they come up because of things
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  that I'm doing, but I also do it in a more methodical way where I'm not forcing
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  relationships, saying yes to absolutely everything if it's not not that good of a deal
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  or if I'm if it's costing me a lot more money.
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  So, I do put infrastructure into these businesses that I have to pay monthly for.
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  And so it really forces me to to consider who am I working with, why am I working with them,
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  and how can I now leverage the current network to your point?
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  I have a little bit more leverage now, a little bit more credibility in my network to go to
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  larger places.
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  And that takes more time.
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  You know, it takes more time to talk to the marketing director, to the VP, to the
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  president, and get them all in a room.
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  That might take six months.
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  So you just start to build these different relationships and your patience.
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  You're eternally optimistic.
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  You do what you have to do outside of it so that you can make good decisions, and it feels
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  good for everybody.
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  So how long will it take?
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  I don't know.
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  Maybe a few years to get up to, like, 70 good locations.
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  And that also means I have to have a better handle on managing all those relationships well
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  because I'm not gonna create it if I can't handle it well.
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  I don't think that's that's good for either of us.
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  So, just methodical growth.
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  You know?
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  I try to cover my expenses so my family's taken care of.
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  And, if that means times are tough for a little bit to have it to have it grow more organically
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  and in a better way, but I'm all for that.
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  That's that's how I wanna work.
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  So Well,
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  it's something I'm I'm thinking about while you're talking is, like, you know, those 70
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  relationships are just the tip of the iceberg because then you have your, you know, maybe
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  another 70 advertisers that are advertising on the billboards.
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  Like, there's only there's only so many hours in a day that you have to nurture all of these
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  relationships and making sure that people have, that one to one.
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  I know that's so important to you.
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  You've made it very clear today that, you know, not that you won't offload things to team
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  members throughout the the course of a relationship, but, that you really wanna work
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  with people, not just working with, you know, with a company that it's that one to one
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  relationship.
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  And and like you said, it takes time.
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  I'm learning that in our world, you know, trying to get advertisers in with us.
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  And because I'm so focused on the content production, I don't always have the hours to
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  dedicate to the sales side of it and building out those relationships with potential
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  advertisers.
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  So working with someone like you, kind of maybe open some doors for us as well, and and I hope
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  that we get a chance to work together in the future.
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  Amos, I'm so proud of you guys, man.
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  I know that leaving the security of startup was a scary a scary thing for you.
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  We became close, and I was in that building a lot as you were kinda making the transition out
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  of that.
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  But, to see everything working and just continuing to grow, it makes me so proud to
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  call you a friend and, to see you out here doing something that's needed in this world.
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  And I I I know that better than most.
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  So, where can everyone find you online, find out how to become an advertiser, how to become
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  a partner, where some of these screens can go up in their buildings?
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  Yeah.
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  Sure.
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  I appreciate everything you're you're saying to me and, the respect that you show me.
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  I respect you too and the work you're doing.
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  And I know it was it was scary for you too.
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  You know?
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  You're going out there.
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  You're hitting it harder than a lot of people to provide for your wife and your kids, so
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  you're being a good role model.
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  The website is the best place for us, upliftlocalmedia.com, and you should be able to
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  find anything from there, from, advertising to our locations, to our marketing services, and,
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  you can just contact me from there.
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  So
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  Awesome, Amos.
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  Well, I appreciate your time today.
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  I hope we get a few minutes after we get off camera here, to chat about how we can work
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  together to continue to promote local businesses.
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  I think we both have a passion for seeing businesses succeed and to, do anything that we
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  can in our power as kind of the voices of this, of this space to do so.
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  So congratulations to you and on all your future success as well, and thank you for being
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  part of the scene.
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  Yeah.
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  Thank you too, Bubba.