We Love What We Do
I started Savvy Marketers with the goal of helping our clients transform their business by identifying where to play and how to win. This means what categories to compete in and how to build the strategic pathway to win with their brands. Our Design Thinking and Experience Design expertise allows us to uncover deep consumer truths via our proprietary AI technology that helps our clients innovate and design with their consumers and brands in mind.
9 years ago, I left the corporate world after spending more than 20 years as a marketer in industries such as Banking, Food, Consumer Packaged Goods, and Private Equity, managing some of the most iconic global brands to start a new journey. I wanted to bring my global marketing expertise and know-how to help companies, and their teams, thrive.
After the birth of my oldest daughter, I became pregnant with twin girls. I was told they would be born prematurely and would likely not survive. I became relentless, challenging my doctors and fighting for their lives. It wasn’t until after they were born, at 2lbs and 4lbs, that I found a new sense of purpose. They gave me inner strength that I did not know I had, and that is why I created Savvy Marketers.
Opening Savvy Marketers was a big career move, personally and professionally. It required having a clear vision, a strong sense of purpose, and the guts to invest in the right technology and team. Our services had to provide value to our clients that would set us apart from other marketing firms.
I started my business from my home. Little by little, I expanded by bringing in a diverse, multi-cultural, best-in-class team of savvy marketers, designers, creatives, trainers, and researchers, to be at the forefront of innovation. We not only offer traditional marketing services, but connect the dots and bring our offerings to life in a unique and ownable way so our clients can succeed!
I am grateful to see what we have created at Savvy Marketers. Everyone on our team is not only proud of working for this company, but embraces and loves what they do. We put our clients, their brands, and their consumers at the center of everything we do, and we are relentless at discovering, ideating, strategizing and innovating to help them flourish. When our clients succeed, we succeed, because everything we do is for them and the brands they represent.
I am proud to say that a company I built from scratch is a multi-award-winning global marketing firm that has helped numerous clients transform their business and become winners in the categories they play in.
Challenges & Experiences
One of the challenges we face, like any small business, is bringing in new clients. Despite being registered as a diverse supplier, with the highest certifications as a female minority owned business from the WBENC, SBE, and others, for many companies, it can take months to years to get business, especially from large companies. We have to focus on bringing in new business which mostly comes through client recommendations. We are grateful and humble for that, as we care deeply for our clients and to have them recommend us, opens the door to more opportunities. Their continued support has helped pave the way for us to be successful.
When the pandemic started, many of our clients reached out about how we could transition our projects and services from face-to-face to virtual. We knew we had the technology, infrastructure, and team to address our clients’ needs and achieve their goals. For the first 5 months of the pandemic, while working from our homes, we focused on making all our services available virtually, and we continue our virtual offerings even as we had reopened our offices last July.
Cutting Edge Services
The name Savvy Marketers is all about being creative and innovative! We are always at the forefront of innovation across everything we do. Throughout our Innovation Labs, we offer over 15 unique services and offerings for our clients.
Some of our cutting-edge services include Strategy & Go-To Market Solutions, Multi-Dimensional Market Research via Biometrics & Sentiment Analysis, Best-In-Class Modern Training & Development for marketers to thrive, and Innovation via Design Thinking & Experience Design.
We have a team of creatives that help bring everything to life for our clients through Brand Footprints & Design, Packaging & New Product Innovation, UX Design for Websites and App Development, as well as Storytelling Presentations and Videos. By leveraging our AI technology, we conduct Multi-Dimensional Research, Global Trends, and Consumer Understanding to identify where our clients play and how they can win with the right strategies and portfolio to address consumer needs.
We conduct Multi-Dimensional Research utilizing our proprietary AI Biometrics & Sentiment Analysis to uncover what consumers feel beyond spoken words. More than half of human emotions can be interpreted using facial expressions, and this technology analyzes those reactions in real time which is all via neuroscience. We also utilize AI to track tone of voice and eye movement, as well as, wearables and VR experiences to identify deep consumer emotions through their actual product or service experiences.
The importance of modern learning cannot be understated. This leads us to implement custom Modern Learning Trainings & Innovation Bootcamps. Our award-winning training programs are tailored to our clients’ specific needs. These are exclusively designed to build the right capabilities and competencies to help their teams become better at what they do, and help our clients educate and inspire their employees. In addition, our live, virtual or face-to-face bootcamps enhance their ability to ideate, innovate, and co-create no matter where they are in the world.
To set us apart from everyone else, we are certified in Design Thinking from Stanford University. It’s a proven approach to problem solving that helps our clients uncover deeper truths, build empathy, define problems, ideate, prototype, and test ideas in a more agile way.
Overcoming the Impact of Covid-19
This pandemic changed more than just the way we live, work, learn and shop. It changed how we engage and communicate with consumers. How a company handles social issues, including this pandemic, is important to consumers not only in the United States, but in many markets across the world.
At the start of the pandemic, we worked virtually and by July, our offices started to re-open in 3 phases. We implemented online daily health surveys, temperature readings, UV light sanitation, social distancing and mask wearing at all times. This commitment, from clients and employees, paved our way to continue doing business, despite not knowing if a return to normal would be possible in the upcoming months.
We overcame these challenges by innovating, being relentless, and focusing on the bigger picture. We continue to provide the solutions to support our clients’ needs, when they need it most. We are fortunate to work with clients looking for answers on trends or changes in consumer behavior that will remain post pandemic as we are constantly doing research to uncover new global trends and shifts in consumer behavior.
Work Values and Culture
To work at Savvy Marketers, you have to be savvy. You need to be innovative, open to new possibilities, and eager to stay ahead by learning something new every day. Challenge the status quo and step out of your comfort zone.
Embracing Diversity and Inclusion
We are a female, minority-owned business driven by diversity, inclusion, and creative thinking. I believe having a diverse group of people working together is instrumental in how we find the right solutions for our clients and see things from different perspectives; 75% of our team is multi-cultural, while 50% of our team is comprised of women.
As a leader, I feel that my team is a part of my family and I am inspired by everything they do as collaboration and team spirit helps us give our very best across everything we do.
At the Forefront of New Technologies
We have to go above and beyond, it’s that simple! That means being on the lookout for new technologies and offerings to keep us constantly innovating. Technology is critical for better learning, clearer communication, more engagement, and providing the services that help us go beyond traditional market research, to multi-dimensional research. With our proprietary AI technology, we uncover consumer wants and needs beyond spoken words. We leverage neuroscience in real time no matter where consumers are. We are always giving a higher value to clients because when they see us go above and beyond, they always come back.
Contribution to the Community
Our commitment to the community includes every year, choosing a nonprofit organization or diversity owned small business and providing our services to them for free. We are committed to help underserved communities, nonprofit organizations, or social causes.
As a female, minority, business owner of Cuban immigrant parents, I am personally committed to helping others in need. We have helped our community for the past 9 years, and we will continue to do so in the future.
On a more personal level, I proudly support educating mothers of premature babies. When I was pregnant with my twins, I was told by a majority of doctors, “If my girls were born, they were not likely to survive.” My family and I know how hard it is to defy those odds. This led me to partner with March of Dimes, because my girls are proof of the benefits that organizations like this provide.
Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Remember, your clients’ success becomes your success. In all of my years as an entrepreneur, I have been helping our clients set the stage for long-term success by identifying where to play, what threats they may face and how to successfully overcome them.
Whether you are opening a business or already in business, you should be mindful of the brands and services you represent. Today, there is a greater focus on a company’s morals, and consumers look for companies that are making a difference. We have many clients in Consumer-Packaged Goods and Healthcare, so we try to stay away from companies that may not connect with our company values, or who cause harm to the health or wellbeing of others, or the environment.
Research is critical to uncover who consumers really are. Through research, you gain deeper insight into what impacts their lives and what plays a pivotal role in shaping their attitudes, beliefs, and needs. Research also encourages you to think globally, because who may not be your competitor today, may become one tomorrow.
Most importantly, if you want long term success, you cannot be afraid of taking risks, and you should always do the right thing, especially when no one is watching.
Vision & Approach to Business
We help our clients gain deeper understandings of their consumers, customers, and the categories they play in. We work with them to better grasp the competitive landscape and spark breakthrough innovation in an ownable way. We feel inspired about making a difference and doing it in a Savvy way!
Future Aspirations
Our aspirations include expanding our reach to include more clients, building a broader team to continue adding innovative new offerings, and implementing services that address future unmet needs across the world. We want Savvy Marketers to inspire others to become better marketers and make smarter decisions to help build a better world.
Our strategy revolves around our mantra, “If it’s not a masterpiece, it’s not Savvy.” As a company, we put our heart and soul into everything we do for the good of our clients, the consumers they serve, and the brands they represent.
My vision for the future of Savvy Marketers is to continue to stay ahead and innovate for our clients. They are the pilots of their own planes, and our role is to help them from the control tower, guiding them on where to go and how to get there. We monitor the weather conditions, altitude, or if there are other planes in their airspace, and work with them to navigate safely, and more importantly, help them arrive at their destination in a successful and flawless way. We help them get to where they want to go, and my vision involves continuing to do that, but taking it to the next level.
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