Tell us about your business:
Colure Media is a marketing & advertising company that focuses on bringing small to mid-size businesses both digital (mobile app development, search engine optimization, social media marketing, paid media, display advertising) and traditional (television, radio, billboard, transit, magazine, newspaper) advertising solutions. We opened our doors in Soho, New York in September 2012. The founders of Colure have over 80 years experience combined, creating advertising media and branding for Fortune 500 companies.
Why the name Colure?
Because we envisioned a financial portfolio being brought into the advertising world. We wanted a name that resembled a portfolio (which is usually a mix of colors, labeling the different types of financial investments and it usually presents as a circle). In return, we came up with the word “Colure”, which means celestial rings and it sounds like color.
What started as just discussions over cups of coffee at Panera Bread Cafes and the NY Hilton Bridges Lounge, eventually exploded into the creation of Colure Media. What motivated us to start Colure, was the lack of available media services for small & mid-size businesses. These included digital and traditional marketing & advertising services all under one roof. For large corporations, they always had access to traditional & digital advertising services. They were readily available, only one phone call away. Unfortunately, small and mid-size businesses would have to make several calls to fulfill all their marketing needs. It was not an even playing field. We identified a void in the marketplace and created Colure in response.
Why Soho?
Opening our doors in Soho was tremendously important. When we thought about what we wanted Colure to be, we wanted it to reflect the spirit Soho. We looked at a number of locations in NYC, from Dumbo, to Long Island City, to the Meat Packing District. In the end, we love Soho because it is a culturally driven part of NYC. This is the land of the artsy spirit. Simply – Soho is Colure.
Challenges in the beginning?
When we first opened our doors, we offered all of our clients a guaranteed ROI (Return on Investment). We quickly learned not every business had a business model that would allow our strategist to project a proper ROI. This could be because of the quality of the company’s brand, product or service. One of our biggest issues was that some of our first clients wouldn’t allow us to alter their brand even when we pointed out gapping holes and flaws, but at the same time we were still guaranteeing ROI. That was a big mistake, but in the end, very profitable as a tremendous learning opportunity. Today we no longer guarantee ROI to every client we take on. Instead, we guarantee ROI on a case-by-case basis. Additionally once we analyze our client’s media plan and marketing plan we can also guarantee website traffic, quarterly revenue sales and or even downloads for mobile apps.
What makes your business leaders in your industry?
We see ourselves as “Marketing 101 meets Marketing 2.0”. The advertising landscape is changing at warp speed, new media, new platforms, new devices. But there are truths that will always remain. First, foremost and forever – brands need big communication ideas that can manifest themselves in any and every media. These ideas have to connect with your target in ways that are meaningful, emotional, actionable, and they have to have “legs”. That’s what we bring to the party. We are the love child of old school truths and roots and new school savvy and smarts.
What separates us from the competition is that at Colure, we hold ourselves to the same standards as a financial advisor. We analyze monthly and quarterly performance to ensure we, both ourselves and our clients, hit performance goals. Another separation from our competition is that some of them are very “silo” oriented in their approach to advertising (often they see things in a select, isolated view). They look at advertising from their own perspective, not that of the clients. For our digital advertising competitors, they are so confident that they truly believe that technology and algorithms alone will simply solve all their problems. The key issue of branding is often totally neglected. For our traditional advertising competitors, they are not the biggest fans in analytics and accountability; they leave many of their clients with the issue of wondering which half of their budget performed and which half of their budget went down the toilet. Simply stated, we hold ourselves to high performance standards and constantly analyze campaign performance metrics’. At the end of the day, we are all very strong storytellers. We are able to communicate clean messages that transcend into any medium.
Who or what has influenced you?
Colure has been inspired by the “financial advisor”, we look at advertising the same way a financial advisor looks at an investment portfolio. A financial advisor has a fiduciary responsibility to remain focus on your goals, versus being product specific. A financial advisor builds you portfolio that will achieve your long-term goals and that’s what we do here at Colure. We don’t push one media over another. We recommend the best media mix that will accomplish our client’s goals for the long term.
What key qualities do you look for in your employees/team?
We believe in innovation, inspiration and integrity. Those are the cornerstones of what we look for in all of our team members. Team work makes the dream work.
Words of advice for others growing their business?
The phrase “build it and they will come” is no longer true in the advertising world. Just because you have the most innovative product, doesn’t mean it will sell and fly off the shelf. In this new world of doing business, we want to remind business owners there are a few vital components to success. 1st, make sure you do have an innovative product or service. 2nd, make sure your company is setup to recover a profit, unlike the tech startups back in 2000. Lastly, but most important to us, the brand identity has to be combined with strong marketing. Both old and new marketing strategies are based upon the same, simple truth – successful communications always connect with the individual consumer on a personal, meaningful, and emotional level, driving them to take action. Even though technology is advancing at lightening speeds, building brand identity still requires creative storytelling. What is your product’s story? What is your company’s story?
Contact Information:
Company name: Colure Media Inc.
Address: 62 Greene Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York. 10012
Website: www.colure.co
Email: info@colure.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/colure-media?trk=company_logo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ColureMedia
Tumblr: http://coluremediablog.tumblr.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/coluremedia
