Reisterstown Marketing Company Uses Social Media to Stay Ahead of the Game

After dropping out of school  just a couple of semesters into his tenure at Towson University, Eric Chessler quickly learned something while working for his father’s business that he may never have caught on to had he been busy daydreaming in some lecture hall.

Determining that he’d be more likely to understand marketing a business if he was actually employed by one, Chessler went to work for his dad’s picture framing shop in Baltimore, helping his father with the company’s website, E-newsletter and Facebook page.

He soon learned that his father wasn’t the only guy around town that could benefit from utilizing a social media expert. When other businesses came calling, Chessler realized the demand for helping others with social media marketing. He told his dad he was ready to start his own company.

Some two years later, Chessler, 23, is sitting in the office of his own business on Main Street.

Chessler and his partner Jason Cohen—who at 42 brings to the table some two decades of experience as a marketing director for various companies—formed RockIt Digital Marketing about 11 months ago and are offering their clients a  blend of social media and mobile marketing, as well as web design.

Both Chessler and Cohen operated their own companies for about a year apiece and passed work to one another before eventually deciding to share their clients and form a larger company.

While typical marketing companies rely on traditional outlets like print and television to publicize their clients, RockIt is uses Chessler’s expertise related to social media tools Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn combined with Cohen’s overall knowledge and proficiency with text message marketing.

“I think it’s huge,” Chessler said. “I think it’s something I haven’t seen at any other company and I think it’s the reason that other companies aren’t growing like we are.

“A lot of [the competition] are either guys in their 40s or 50s who had these ad agencies who are now trying to get into social media, or they are guys my age who know social media and mobile and they’re young and they get it, but they don’t have any marketing experience, which I think really helps us because we span both.”

RockIt’s approach centers on a multi-faceted process that starts with growing a business’s potential audience through various social media outlets and mobile messaging.

A prime example is RockIt‘s self-developed “LikeSpike” which uses QR (quick response) codes that enable a consumer to scan a company’s QR barcode and have its logo and a Facebook “Like” button immediately appear on their phone. (LikeSpike, which is currently in the trade marking process, is the only way to get Facebook likes from print.)

“I like to think that Like Spike puts us way in front for developing things people haven’t thought to develop before,” Chessler said. “A lot of companies are still playing catch up.”

After revamping a business’s “online footprint” RockIt puts the various platforms to use to get customers in the door. RockIt then collects data on how beneficial each outlet was and provides their clients with an analysis of the results.

It’s the attention to the bottom line that helped draw Lori Martinet of Communications Electronics.

Martinet, the company’s marketing director, learned of RockIt when she saw Cohen speaking at a Baltimore Business Journal event.

“Jason’s incredibly knowledgable, and what impressed me most about [RockIt] is they’re really focused on results,” Martinet said. “Not just performing the social marketing, but achieving results from it and tracking them.”

Martinet does not foresee the demand for digital marketing services like RockIt not going anywhere anytime soon.

“It’s definitely where the focus is headed,” Martinet said. “The idea is to be in front of people where they are to get your message out where they are spending their time. They are spending their time on Facebook and their cell phones, so I think the need will only continue to grow.”

As the need grows, RockIt does as well.

Chessler and Cohen have added creative director Mike Hennessie, web designer Rachel Schoen and are looking to add a fifth piece to the puzzle in the coming weeks.

RockIt boasts some 20 clients, including well known restaurant chains Pizza Hut (of Maryland) and Boardwalk Fresh Burgers & Fries. However, RockIt customizes what they can do for any particular company, regardless of the size or spending budget.

That level of flexibility, along with the social media and mobile focus, is paying dividends.

“We have some clients that say 'build us a website and let us handle it from there,' one time charge. It’s all custom,” Chessler said. “Some people say we want you to run all the campaigns and we want to pay you monthly to maintain our website, send broadcasts and do designs. It’s both ends of the spectrum.”