Unlocking Local Success: Community-Centered Marketing and Growth with Globafly

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Mariya, with a Y, and she is the CEO of Globafly. Welcome.

Mariya Palanjian: Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for the warm welcome.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to get to know you and your business. Tell us a little bit about Globafly. How are you serving folks?

Mariya Palanjian: Oh, God. Well, I want to give you a little bit of a backstory on Globafly, because every time people ask me about how I got into advertising, it’s I love sharing the why behind things. And it kind of goes with Mariya with a Y, because everything I do has to have a why.

Mariya Palanjian: And so, I’ve been a serial entrepreneur for many years, since grad school actually. And when I started my startups, a lot of them were online back from 2002, I realized that I was really good at marketing and sales. And one of my companies, that was a shoe company, I ended up getting VCs invested in it. And the VCs pulled me aside and said, “How do you sell $3,000 shoes online?” And I basically, I gave them a few pointers, but then as a joke, I said, “You have to pay me to get the rest of the secrets.” And that’s how I got into advertising.

Mariya Palanjian: And so, to sum it up, what we do is we do city takeovers and we utilize multi-channel approach and community, very community-centered. But it’s a combination of traditional channels as well as emerging channels, like podcast, audio streaming, programmatic ads. And as an entrepreneur, as a serial entrepreneur, it’s very important for me to really help shine a light on some of these amazing brands that are out there providing great products and services.

Mariya Palanjian: So, in a sense, I feel like I’m continuing to be a serial entrepreneur through the journey of helping our clients grow continuously because they are all in different sectors. We’ve got the government sector, we’ve got smaller startups that are in the beauty industry and much, much more.

Lee Kantor: Now, you used the term city takeover, can you talk about what that means and what it’s like when you do a city takeover?

Mariya Palanjian: Yeah. And actually the idea came to me when I was working at New York Times, spearheading the Influencer Marketing Department. I was a director of an execution team. And a lot of the brands back then were coming in, and I’m talking about Louis Vuitton and Cartier and Royal Caribbean, huge brands that would just spend so much money on influencers. And a lot of the times, the complaints were we don’t know what’s happening with our ad dollars, you know, we’re spending all this money on influencers.

Mariya Palanjian: And so, the idea came to me because I was trying to solve that problem of trying to understand what is happening to our clients’ money. Are they seeing results? And I suggested to run the campaign at a city level rather than a national campaign. And what we did is we ran a campaign that was targeting four or five cities, approximately. And we ended up looking at the data analytics, trying to see how the campaign impacted sales.

Mariya Palanjian: And when you’re talking about a big brand like Cartier, it’s extremely hard to tell how the campaign impacted. But when you’re looking at the city level, you’re able to see it. And so, really, the concept came from working with larger brands and trying to help them understand what’s happening. And I sort of took that approach, and I fell in love with the idea of really understanding each city that we’re going in.

Mariya Palanjian: And it’s not just about, you know, understanding the data and looking at analytics and saying, “Oh. We tested in Los Angeles, did a campaign in LA, and now our sales grew 10 percent. That means our ads are working.” It’s not just that. It’s really connecting with the community, making sure that the ads are relevant to the people that we are talking to in that specific community.

Mariya Palanjian: And sometimes, like, for example, Los Angeles, where I’m from, LA has subcommunities. So, when a client comes and tells me, “Oh. I want to market to everyone in Los Angeles.” I’m like, “Wait. Wait, wait, wait. There are so many subcommunities in Los Angeles and you can’t take that same creative approach and try to go after all of them.” And so, that’s where we come in, where we’re very sensitive to different, diverse communities, and we make sure that the creative content resonates with the audience that we’re trying to reach.

Mariya Palanjian: And a good example of that would be, you know, if we’re trying to, let’s say, reach the Middle Eastern community in Los Angeles, well, we first partner with Middle Eastern influencers. And the influencers aren’t necessarily only influencers on social media. They could be radio hosts. They could be T.V. personalities. They could be moms and pops. It all depends on who we’re trying to reach. And then, we have these people act like the ambassadors of the brand. They create the content. And then, that’s where we come in, helping the brands connect with these influential people in these diverse communities.

Mariya Palanjian: And then, once the content is created by these individuals, then we amplify the content through traditional media, like billboards as well as digital billboards, and then streaming and audio, and so on. So, it’s a very community-centered but also 360 tech-driven approach.

Lee Kantor: And then, how long does the takeover last? Is it something that once you go to a market, then you’re there permanently? Or is it like a —

Mariya Palanjian: It all depends. It all depends on our clients’ budgets. We have clients that are doing it ongoing and they’re literally running national campaigns in different cities. We started with a few cities, tested the model, and then realized what works, which channels work for them, and then just duplicated that model across many different cities.

Mariya Palanjian: But, generally, when the client comes to us with, let’s say, $100,000, we won’t take that money and spread it all over the nation. You know, we’ll just focus on the top few cities that they are interested in growing and then come up with a strategy, partner them with the right influential people, and then start the campaign. And, again, it all depends on what the goal of the campaign is, and are we trying to get customers for them, or is it just brand awareness. And then, depending on that, the money can go as far as it can based on the goal, the KPI of the campaign.

Lee Kantor: And do you work primarily with B2C brands or B2B or government or non-profits? Is there a niche that you’re in?

Mariya Palanjian: Great question. So, I started in the tech space initially, LegalZoom ZipRecruiter, MeUndies, Blue Apron, Boll & Branch. Those were really the tech companies that we became really, really good at helping them scale and grow really rapidly using a lot of the traditional as well as emerging channels, like the podcast, and radio, and audio space. But then after that, we started – not after. While we were growing in the tech space, we started taking on more auto brands.

Mariya Palanjian: And then, when the pandemic happened, I decided to utilize our buying power and help some of the amazing government programs that are out there. And that’s when I became actually WBEC certified to be able to take on federal contracts and be able to assist government entities, like Department of Labor to promote their amazing programs that they have out there, whether it’s for youth or underserved communities, and so on.

Mariya Palanjian: So, I would say we have a really good diverse client base. It kind of goes across the tech space, all the way from tech to the government sector, corporations, as well as Fortune 500 and 100 hundred companies. But in terms of specific industries, we’re really good at pretty much anybody who’s trying to reach direct to consumer, is trying to promote a product or a service direct to consumer.

Mariya Palanjian: B2B, we’ve obviously helped B2B as well. I would say LegalZoom and ZipRecruiter are the best two examples that, you know, we’ve seen a lot of success. And it’s utilizing radio shows, for example, that we know small businesses are listening to and promoting business related products and services to them. So, I would say probably both leaning more towards B2C, but we are pretty good at helping B2B companies as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, a lot of the listeners of this show are business owners, and you are an expert in marketing and advertising, any advice for them when it comes to marketing and advertising in order to get the most bang for their buck? Like, what advice would you give an entrepreneur listening on how to leverage marketing and advertising in their business?

Mariya Palanjian: That’s a great question. So, recently I was part of a webinar where, actually, a woman-owned business owner asked if she could do a billboard advertising. And the host who was promoting or teaching them about marketing said, no, billboards are so expensive. And here I am listening to the webinar and I’m just like, no, they’re not. Please don’t give up on the idea.

Mariya Palanjian: And so, the reason why I’m bringing this example is I want the listeners to know that technology has given us the ability to be able to buy anything and everything that we want that 10, 20 years ago wasn’t possible for small businesses to touch. You know, like, for example, if you want to have T.V. ads, T.V. ads ten years ago were so expensive only the large corporations could do. But nowadays, a small brand that has $2,000 can have a T.V. ad because of the way things are available now, there’s programmatic buys, there’s programmatic audio buys, where, you know, if you want to partner with a radio station, there are ways to buy it inexpensively and test out that channel.

Mariya Palanjian: So, the advice I have is don’t just assume and say, “Oh. This channel could be too expensive for me to try” or “I’m not there yet. I can’t afford this.” Technology has changed so much to the point where you can be on a billboard for $500 a month. And, yes, I’m going to repeat that, you can be on a big digital billboard for $500 a month, and these are $18,000, $20,000 billboards, but you can get in for $500 a month. What you do is you buy a few hour time slots per day versus paying for 24 hours. So, that’s one example of how everything that is out there can be so possible and attainable for any business at any size.

Mariya Palanjian: So, I would encourage them to maybe just simply reach out to me and I can give them the advice and tell them where they could go to purchase some of these channels and be able to test, because there are a lot of technical technologies out there that are making it available for anybody to do it themselves too. You don’t need an ad agency necessarily to buy these media channels for them.

Lee Kantor: Now, who is your ideal client? Do you work with the cities to attract more brands to the city? Or do you get the brand first and say what city do you want to go to?

Mariya Palanjian: Another great question. So, ideally, it’s the brands that are trying to grow in a particular city will come to us and say here’s what we need. And a lot of times, you know, being a serial entrepreneur and having so many startups of my own, I’ll look at their budget. And a lot of times, I might say, “Listen, this is something you can do in-house. Let us train you and teach you how to do it in-house. This will be more cost effective.” A lot of times, you know, if they don’t have the bandwidth or they do want us to provide that service for them, we’ll go ahead and execute it for them.

Mariya Palanjian: But, generally, brands will come to us and say, “These are the top cities we want to be in. Help us get in and acquire new customers.” Like I said, you know, we provide two different services. It’s either training your in-house team on how to do this yourself, which can be very affordable, because there is no minimum budgets that you have to abide by. And you could just simply start and add campaigns as you go or you could just hire us to help you with strategy as well as the execution piece, the advertising campaign.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community? You mentioned you were kind of hoping, I would imagine, to leverage to get access to government contracts, but was that kind of the reason at first and maybe it’s expanded since then?

Mariya Palanjian: Yes. Yes. That has been the reason from the beginning, to be honest with you. I love helping the tech industry. I really do. But obviously the pandemic impacted a lot of industries, not just the tech, but the auto industry as well. And I just felt like I wanted to do something that was a little bit more impactful and really helping my community.

Mariya Palanjian: And when I started researching all these different government programs, I realized that they’re still so old fashioned in the way that they communicate to the public and share the programs that are out there, especially specifically the ones that are targeted towards youth. And I decided that I want to use my buying powers and help some of these programs. And as I was researching, I realized that, you know, I need certain certifications to qualify for the federal contracts.

Mariya Palanjian: And, honestly, I’m so thankful for WBEC-West specifically because, I want to say, two months after I got my certification, I ended up getting my first contract with the Department of Labor. And then, in the last three-and-a-half years from that one contract, I went on to 23 different contracts now. And so, I’m very thankful for the certification.

Mariya Palanjian: And now I’m going above and beyond where now I’m looking into more corporate accounts or clients that I can potentially go in and help the team get trained, if needed, or just sort of expand a little bit more. But mainly I would say, my WBEC certification was and has been helpful for the government sector for me specifically.

Lee Kantor: So, what do you need more of right now for Globafly and your growth kind of trajectory, and how can we help you?

Mariya Palanjian: Oh, thank you. No one ever asks me that question, I love it. I would love to be able to help and train a lot of the smaller businesses and show them the way that they can really grow their brands effectively and use a lot of these emerging channels that are out there.

Mariya Palanjian: I love teaching and training. I’m one of those people where instead of upselling, I tend to down sell. You know, if a client comes and they’re like I want to do this. I’m like, “Wait, wait, wait. Don’t waste all your money on this. Let’s do this first and make sure that it’s generating ROI before we jump onto the next one.” And I think it’s probably because I’ve had my own startups where I had to be bootstrapped and just my heart gets so soft towards women, especially women entrepreneurs.

Mariya Palanjian: And so, I would say, I just would love the opportunity to train and teach others on how to develop a really solid marketing team internally, because with AI and everything else that’s available to us, there’s no reason why every company should not have a really solid marketing team or department in-house. So, my hope is to do that, to teach and train for everybody out there to be able to have advanced marketing strategies and campaigns and grow, be able to promote and grow. Because without marketing you cannot grow. You have to create awareness about your product or service in order to grow. And sales is the key for any business to succeed.

Lee Kantor: So, if somebody wants to learn more about Globafly or connect with you, what is the website? What is the best way to connect with you?

Mariya Palanjian: Just reach out to me through Globafly, globafly.com or mariya@globafly.com, or they can just follow me on Instagram and connect me through Instagram, @mariya.with.a.y.

Lee Kantor: And the website is G-L-O-B-A-F-LY.com.

Mariya Palanjian: Correct.

Lee Kantor: Well, Mariya with a Y, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Mariya Palanjian: Thank you so much. I appreciate the work that you do, too, shining a light on all these amazing women out there. Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.