Brett Jackson, the CEO of Systemax, has been advising organizations on strategic brand and growth initiatives for more than 10 years. His company was ranked one of the Best Places to Work in Illinois in 2017.
When working with his clients, Brett always tries to understand customer’s current challenges, and then provide ways to dynamically change their processes to generate extraordinary results. Throughout his career he has constructed marketing campaigns with ROI’s reaching more than 13,000 percent.
Brett is a graduate of the ABA School of Marketing and a Certified Financial Marketing Professional. He utilizes his knowledge and experience to help various organizations across the country tackle their branding, marketing and advertising challenges. Brett spends his free time with his wife and their three daughters.
At the MDMC18, Brett is going to be one of the panelists at the Facebook Advertising Panel, sharing his insights together with Clayton Clark and Nichole Holzum.
Here are the some of Brett’s answers from the pre-conference Q&A session.
Q.1. What are some big mistakes a business could make when it comes to digital marketing?
B.J.: One thing that we see frequently is that a business picks the youngest person in the company, or a niece of the owner to run their page because “they are young and are always on social media”. Once it flops and they don’t see any results, they give up and say Social Media doesn’t work for our business.
Q.2. What are some social media time management tips that help you stick to your campaign goals without losing a lot of time?
B.J.: One of the simplest things we do is create a content calendar. It helps us organize our thoughts and know exactly what we need to do and when.
Q.3. Share your favorite digital marketing case study. What did you like most it?
B.J.: A local non-profit came to us to help them with a campaign. Their goal was to raise $20,000 in 4 weeks. We built out a more targeted audience than what they originally wanted to use, and had to beg and plead for them to let us use the targeted audience vs. their audience that was too broad. We started the campaign on a Friday, by Monday morning we raised $50,000. That was a lot of fun!
Q.4. According to you, what are the top three mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging digital marketing?
B.J.:
- Not using it
- Not being consistent
- Trying to sell instead of being social
Q.5. If you were looking to hire a digital marketer, what are the top 3-5 skills you would be looking for in a candidate?
B.J.:
Curiosity – to figure out what is working.
Analytical – to break down the data.
Experimental – to be willing to try and fail
Q.6. What’s the industry buzzword that annoys you the most these days and why?
B.J.: All buzz words annoy me, and don’t get me started on shortening words like Tote’s, Adorbs, quant, just say the whole word!