Episode Details

Ben Worthen was a journalist for most of his professional career. During those years, he heard many marketing pitches and grew to dislike the type of marketing that focuses exclusively on selling a product. That's why, when making the transition to creating his own digital agency Message Lab, he focused on combining journalism, data, and design to create content that resonates with people. In this interview, about how he has focused on marketing that creates meaningful interactions. Ben also shares his agency's growth strategy and why it's important to grow smart rather than growing fast.

1. Creating meaningful interactions. Most companies are focused on trying to sell you something all the time and are missing 90% of the chances to create opportunities for meaningful interactions. In this sense, Ben has never really liked the type of marketing that focuses exclusively on selling a product. Instead, when he transitioned from working in journalism to working in the marketing industry, he knew he wanted to bring his approach to storytelling to his agency and always ask "how can I make someone care?" This is what he tries to do for his clients. Making stuff and putting it out into the world with the goal of making it valuable.
2. What's driving their growth. When it comes to creating something that people will care about, you don't want everyone to care. You're trying to find your audience, find the people who care, and then focus on them and show them understanding, authority, and a plan. If you try to create something for everyone you'll end up creating something for no one. This is what Ben has been working on to effectively communicate with people in the key non-sales moments and it is what has been driving his company's growth. "You care about people that you're trying to reach, and those people are somewhat narrow," he says.
3. Growing smart. Despite seeing some pretty big successes in just three years, Ben regrets starting with the idea that running a digital agency would be really easy. This drove him to make mistakes like going on a huge hiring spree as soon as the company started to grow. "We convinced ourselves that we had the business model of a high growth startup," he recalls. This meant that, as much as they were growing, they were not growing smart or strategically. They were not investing through time and ewsearch strategy and trying to make their service better and that created what Ben calls weak growth. Now he tries to look at growth as an indicator that what they're doing is what people want.

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