Momentum Digital is a digital marketing agency focused on helping small businesses grow online. Working across numerous industries such as retail, healthcare, and real estate, Momentum has taken off these past few months as more business owners transition their service, products, or listings online.
Our office recently connected with Momentum Founder and CEO, Mac Frederick, as well as co-owner, Sean Boyle, to learn more about the company and the career opportunities they have to offer.
What are some of the ways a student or recent grad might get involved with Momentum?
Mac: “There are two different divisions within the company. There’s the digital marketing agency which manages services, which is essentially providing digital marketing and online advertising services for small businesses. For example, web design, SEO, pay-per-click advertising.
The second division is known as Momentum 360, which Sean runs, which is our property marketing group where we do a lot of different property marketing through digital marketing, content marketing, photography, and virtual tours.”
Are there particular industries your agency works with more than others?
Sean: “For 360 in particular we work with a great number of industries — healthcare, retail, restaurants. The best and biggest industry is definitely real estate. We’ve seen virtual tours really boom and it’s crazy right now in Philadelphia.
People are in need of these tours and it’s going to be something a lot more common.”
What has business been like during this time?
Sean: “During this time, to be honest with you, we’ve had at least three dozen unique companies come and talk to us. They don’t just use [Momentum 360] from a real estate perspective, trying to get more viewers. Some organizations use it to get reservations for their restaurant or to go to an online store and shop. It’s kind of transcending what we thought it would be with virtual tours…
With COVID, small business owners have had to close their doors permanently or temporarily, everything is going online now. Whether we’re talking about real estate, which has been our big ticket, or it’s been restaurants trying to get more reservations and retail folks trying to direct customers to their online store or whatever coworking space trying to get new members. It’s really all digital.
People have a great demand for what we offer. It’s a really great time to be in the digital space.”
What are some of the roles you typically recruit for?
Sean: “There’s sales people and there’s photographers. We go into different areas with our sales people and then our photographers shoot in those specific areas, too. It’s a great opportunity for people who are wanting to learn sales and for people wanting to get into photography in the digital space as well, not just the traditional sense. We also do traditional photography but the digital space is our golden ticket.”
Mac: “At Momentum Digital the intern or entry-level roles are really more focused around digital marketing for SEO, paid advertising, web design, social media. For 360, it’s more photographer, sales, and content marketing.”
What are some of the specific skills you look for in applicants?
Sean: “The biggest thing, whether they want to do photography or sales for 360, really is the passion…
The biggest thing is asking questions and really being involved. Something that I did when I was an intern and from our team members who really want to grow is always ask questions. Asking, ‘you know, I know we’re doing it this way, but is there another way we could be doing this to save money or be more efficient?’ I open that brainstorming culture. I think that it’s so important.”
Mac: “To sort of sound off that, probably the two biggest things for me are their attitude and just being proactive. Like, asking questions or looking things up. One thing that really bothers me is that we’re in a digital era now where so many people are working from home, working online and it’s the information age.
There’s unlimited information at our fingertips. There are certain things you can learn quickly by going online, doing research. There are a lot of great podcasts, books, and mentors.”
How can students prepare to apply?
Sean: “Well, what I can definitely say is you’re going to have the core basics — resume, cover letter, etc — that’s standard. I’d also add your portfolio and any relevant experience to spice up your application.”
Again, we go through an interview process where we always talk to people before we hire them. I think that every company should really talk to a person before they make a hire, regardless. But with that said, you need to understand where they’re coming from and who they are as a person.
Something they could do to really stand out, I would say, is watch Gary V, watch Tony Robbins, watch these people who are very influential. If you’re more art oriented or with communications, I would dive into that and I would also have a couple questions prepared, too.”
Do you have any advice for young professionals?
Mac: “For sure. Sometimes I speak at local universities like Temple and Drexel about getting a job out of college. It’s going to be even more difficult than when I graduated college. It’s going to be the gig economy or the digital gig economy. It’s going to be a lot of people graduating with any sort of opportunities they can get, that might be working for Uber Eats. You really just have to stand out with what you do in and out of the classroom.
More specifically, my approach, and what I’d suggest to people, is find out exactly what it is you want to do. Hopefully you’ve had the opportunity to understand what you want to do with previous job and internship experience. And then sort of tailor that based on what you’re good at and what you’ve learned from your experience so far and then reverse engineer getting that dream job.”
Sean: “Just to piggyback off of what Mac said, I can’t stand enough how important it is to really find out your passion. That’s not something that’s easy to do. For me, it means so much more to me to really own a business because it’s like ‘are you really going to do this? Is this something you’re ready to do?’ For me, I was 100% ready and only saw a great opportunity, there were no cons.
It’s very important, like Mac said, to find out what you can do and then reverse engineer that.”
