Today we’d like to introduce you to Ramona Long.
Hi Ramona, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m Ramona Long, owner of Money Pages of Northwest Georgia. Entrepreneurship has been such an exciting journey! After spending 25 years as an education specialist & consultant, family circumstances led me to early retirement. While looking for an opportunity that would allow me to be available to my family, my husband, Brian, and I went down the road of franchise research. Having spent my life thus far founded in the “it takes a village to raise a child” philosophy, I wanted something that would help me be impactful in my community still. That’s when we were introduced to Money Pages.
Money Pages is a 22+ year national marketing agency with a specialty in direct mail & digital marketing. My dad had been a small business owner of a landscape & construction company, so I knew how much marketing (and lack thereof!) impacted his business. I watched him work hard, provide jobs to others, and support local sports & activities…and to be overshadowed by big companies with bigger & better marketing! He even named the company AAA Landscaping to be first in the phone book because other marketing strategies just weren’t within his reach.
Brian and I have made it a mission here in Northwest Georgia to provide high-caliber marketing strategies to local business owners to “Help communities save, and businesses grow!” the tagline and core philosophy of the Money Pages culture. We started 5 years ago with a direct mail magazine to 30,000 homes in Kennesaw. Since then, we have expanded to 151,000 homes in Kennesaw, Acworth, Woodstock, Marietta, and Powder Springs! We have coordinated campaigns involving our direct mail magazine, exclusive postcard options, digital campaigns for Google PPC, social media, and targeted display banner ads as well as programmatic radio and OTT television campaigns. We have helped hundreds of businesses in our local communities to connect with their target consumers and ultimately grow their business.
We have been blessed to have been featured on Atlanta Small Business Network TV and Business Radio X. Our Money Pages franchise has also been awarded Best of Cobb for the past 4 consecutive years for our excellence in direct mail and earned Best of Georgia Marketing Agency Regional Winner 2023 (nominated again in 2024!).
We love that we can partner with and support local businesses by providing them with competitive marketing. Having grown up knowing that every penny spent from the business is a penny off the family’s dinner table, we pride ourselves of creating custom campaigns that will provide a positive ROI. As much as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an even bigger village to grow a business! That is why we don’t sell advertising; we form partnerships.
Brian and I are also firm believers that when you are blessed, you should be a blessing. Money Pages corporate founder Alan Worley created a culture of giving back that we have fully embraced here in our communities! We sponsor over a dozen community events each year, donate space in our magazines to feature our church and several of our charities of choice, such as Atlanta Community Food Bank, Blue Thanksgiving, and others.
For us, supporting local is so much more than a hashtag on social media. It is the focus of what we do every single day. We get to know our partners & their families (we have even babysat for some of them!!!) and we get to help people save money in this difficult economy without sacrificing quality of product or service as all of our partners are vetted licensed & insured professionals who are also just looking to take care of their community through their area of expertise.
We absolutely enjoy what we do and are so grateful to have been embraced by both businesses & consumers who recognize us a resource for quality & convenience in supporting our local partners.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Perhaps the biggest struggle came in year two. Brian, my husband, had just decided to leave his VP role with a larger national company to join me in the business, and then the Covid shutdown came. We had been slated to open a second magazine, and that got delayed a year. We were pretty fearful at first. Then, we remembered how much God has blessed us, had faith, and kept moving, and He blessed us some more with amazing new partners! Also, we approached local government officials and donated covers & pages to feature public service announcements about care facilities and safety protocols to help keep our community stay informed & safe. We stayed true to our mission, and we were able to still grow throughout that time frame. For many of our partners, especially the restaurants, it was coupon offer returns from our magazine that sustained their businesses through the pandemic.
Beyond that, the challenge we face the most, like many business owners these days, is with recruitment. Finding salespeople who can put aside the ABC mentality of “always be closing” to one of finding partnerships, and who enjoy meeting business owners and learning about their dreams vs thinking of it as cold calling, and really have a heart for supporting local businesses has been more difficult than anticipated.
We’ve been impressed with Money Pages of Northwest Georgia, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Money Pages of Northwest Georgia is a franchise backed by a 22-year company that partners with the likes of the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team, Salt Life, Planet Fitness, the Better Business Bureau, and more. So, we are not merely a 5-year small local team. We have a full complement of award-winning professionals behind us that we communicate with on a daily basis to ensure the success of our partners’ campaigns.
We actively engage in philanthropy in the communities we serve… after all, we live here, too!
We specialize in direct mail marketing with our 4 flagship magazines that lands in 151,000 mailboxes monthly, as well as postcard products at 19 cents apiece designed, printed, postage & delivery. We also specialize in digital marketing, particularly targeted display banner ads with geofencing options and OTT streaming TV campaigns.
The first thing that sets us apart is that we will say no if a client is not a fit or will not achieve their goals through our strategies. It is never about a sale and always about the partnership. We customize every campaign based on the needs, goals, and budget of our partners. Our consultation is always complementary, and we will refer to others if we are not the best fit for their business needs.
The second thing that sets us apart is our results. Every campaign has a dedicated project manager optimizing efforts to ensure ROI because, again, every penny out of a local business is a penny taken away from that owner’s family. We never lose sight of that.
We are so proud of the quality of the products & services we offer but are most proud of the consumer-voted awards we’ve earned in our 5 years. Best of Cobb direct mail the past 4 consecutive years. Best of Georgia Marketing Agency Regional winner 2023, nominated again for 2024.
We’d like readers who are consumers to know that our partners are locally owned, so please do more than just #supportlocal… use them! Readers who are business owners, we’d love for them to know that there is an agency that functions like we are part of your company. Like your marketing director that understands and respects that our success is contingent upon your success. So, we won’t just sign you up for something for the sake of a sale. We’d also like them to know that no matter the strategy or tactic, print or digital, we have a solution for you!
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
As long as there are businesses, there will always be a need for marketing. However, consumers are always evolving, and marketing strategies need to keep up! Digital platforms, like YouTube, social media platforms, and targeted display campaigns, will continue to be an integral part of a successful growth marketing campaign, but consumers should expect to see more authentic content, increases in video vs. stagnant image promotions, and more companies engaging in partnerships with influencers.
Influencer use will be very interesting as consumers are increasingly skewing their purchases towards messaging that aligns with their personal values; so, influencer partnerships may be utilized to try to engage new consumers, but the wrong choice could alienate an existing, loyal customer base. We’ve seen both occur with some larger brands in the past year, so it will be fascinating to see whether influencer marketing is a trend the larger corporations and mainstream American business owners continue to embrace or not.
AI will continue to be a growing trend for creating content, managing consumer experience, and measuring results, but consumers have expressed concerns about this growing trend as it pertains to their privacy. While customers want a personalized experience, they also don’t want people data mining them to be able to create that personalized experience.
Creating a customer-centric approach to your marketing campaign in a privacy-first world will be challenging. This is why diversity in your business strategies and tactics becomes important. Interestingly enough, direct mail continues to be one of the largest industries in the country, and statistics show that even younger consumers look to the mailbox for not just savings but for credibility; one study cited that 83% of millennials trust direct mail more than any other source when engaging with a new company. Despite our digital world, direct mail remains both relevant and impactful as mail performance continues to improve and consumers actively engage with mail to fight digital fatigue. 62% of people (of varying ages) surveyed said that direct mail encouraged them to act.
So, while there are technological advances that are causing some shifts in adding platforms and there are some social and cultural trends that are impacting content, proven tactics and strategies continue to be the most reliable and profitable forms of marketing for businesses to utilize, especially your small to mid-size local businesses.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.moneypages.com/locations/northwest-georgia/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoneyPagesofNorthwestGA
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramona-long/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riAB150RX9c&t=5s
