In this episode of Failing to Success, Chad Kaleky interviews Nancy Marshall, the founder of Marshall Communications, a PR and social media agency that focuses on tourism, economic development, and healthcare industries. Nancy talks about her journey of starting her company, how she landed on these three industries, and how she helps clients in economic development. She emphasizes the importance of having a strong website and social media presence, media relations, and speaking engagements for clients who want to attract new businesses.

Nancy's process for her clients begins with creating a strategic marketing communication plan that identifies the brand story, targeted audiences, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and the competitive advantages. Then, they create avatars or personas of the target audiences to attract them to PR or social media. The agency helps the clients to implement the strategies and tactics such as trade shows, special events, speaking engagements, media tours, etc. to promote their business.

Nancy shares a case study of her first big success story before the internet existed. She helped a man named Paul Shipper, who had been forced to retire by American Airlines after a crash, to generate national publicity about his skiing streak. When he passed on, the New York Times did a one-half page obituary about him and talked all about his skiing streak.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro

00:01:21 Economic Development

00:02:29 The Marshall Plan

00:07:38 Recommendations for New Entrepreneurs

00:08:48 Contact Nancy