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October 19, 2023
DE PERE – Two decades ago, Element, a local marketing agency located at 2081 Profit Place in De Pere, got its start with only four employees.
Fast forward 20 years, the firm now has 45 employees and Nikki Peroutka, director of operations at Element, said it is stronger than ever.
“Much has changed in our 20 years, but our bottom line is the same – we give clients our word on what we’re going to do for them and stick to that,” she said. “We’re doing great work, and more and more clients are putting their trust in us. I’d like to say our growth has all been because we’ve gotten more clients, but there has been some strategic planning in there as well.”
Element is a full-service advertising agency providing a blend of in-house services that combine traditional and content marketing tactics with interactive strategies.
“You don’t have many marketing agencies of this size,” Peroutka said. “Normally, I think 10-20 is a good number, so our increased numbers are significant, especially in this industry.”
Peroutka said Element got its start in a basement.
“We were the small guys (in 2003),” she said. “When we first started, I remember saying, ‘how are we going to compete with these bigger agencies?’ There were some in the (Fox) Valley who had 70-80 employees.”
Peroutka said much has changed in the industry since then – especially digitally.
“It’s changed a ton,” she said. “Element has changed and adapted as well. Years ago, you may have worn several different hats as an employee (at Element), but now you have SEO (search engine optimization) specialists, social media specialists and PR specialists – we’ve gone from being more generalized to more specialized to make sure our clients are offered all the services they need to be successful under one roof.”
Element Marketing Agency recently celebrated 20 years in business with its employees. Submitted Photo?
That’s something Peroutka said makes Element unique.
“I remember talking to a client who was struggling because he was working with four or five different agencies,” she said. “One place was doing his website, another was responsible for the design, another doing PR, etc. He spent all his time dealing with these different agencies instead of doing what he wanted to do for this business.”
Peroutka said that was an “aha” moment for the Element team.
“We then moved to becoming a more fully-integrated agency,” she said. “We offer all of those services under one roof so now marketing directors can work solely with us and not five separate ones.”
Peroutka said the hard part has been getting to 20 years and carving out Element’s place in the industry.
“We’ve proven we know what we’re doing,” she said. “The hard part has been navigating through tough times – like recessions and COVID-19 – and coming out stronger on the other end.”
How have times changed?
When Element began operations in 2003, Peroutka said Facebook wasn’t even in existence – that didn’t come along until a year later.
Though tactics have changed with the rise in popularity of Facebook and other social media marketing platforms, Peroutka said the end goal has not.
“It was a lot of the basics,” she said. “We are sales-focused, then and now, so we’d learn the sales process and then figure out how to use marketing to strengthen that process.”
Over the years, Peroutka said how things are done have changed with the evolution of technology.
Element is located at 2081 Profit Place in De Pere. Submitted Photo
“Twenty years ago, it was more printing out sheets, handing out folders, etc. – but now that’s evolved into more of a digital presence,” she said. “There are more options today, so we have to figure out what’s the best mix to impact that bottom line.”
Peroutka said where they see opportunities to uncover, “we’ll take those opportunities.”
“We’ve got the right people in place – the possibilities are endless,” she said.
Artificial intelligence (AI), Peroutka said, will also be a part of future marketing strategies.
“That’s completely impacting our business now,” she said. “We have an AI task force that is assessing all these different platforms and tools being introduced to the market. We’re staying on the cutting edge of how our industry is being shaped by new technologies. It might not affect us immediately, but we know it’s on the horizon, so we need to be prepared for it and embrace it.”
Peroutka said a dangerous phrase for any business is, “we’ve always done it this way.”
“That’s so true, especially in marketing,” she said. “We can’t remain stagnant.”
How it’s all gauged
Peroutka said to understand if Element’s marketing strategies are effective – or ineffective for that matter – it uses analytics.
“That’s been part of our growth,” she said. “Along the way, we needed to prove our worth. ROI (return on investment) was the big word back then. Our clients wanted to know what the ROI was for their marketing efforts. We hired a data/analytics specialist in-house – that (is) their full-time job.”
Peroutka said that specialist’s job is to look at all the data and analytics of the strategy Element put together and is executing.
“We see how effective our strategy is,” she said. “If there are areas we can be more effective, we optimize those strategies. We’d meet with clients quarterly and see how we can be better.”
Peroutka said if a company comes to Element with a good product, but it’s not doing as well as it should – or as well as the owner expects – that’s an example of where the marketing agency can help.
Nikki Peroutka
“We’d start with an audit of what the company is currently doing – what’s working, what’s not,” she said. “That’s where the data and analytics comes in – someone trained in that area. That’s hard to ignore – it tells a story.”
Element offers case studies of success on its website (goelement.com).
Some remote work, too
Peroutka said Element has a handful of remote employees – one in Oklahoma, one in Colorado, one in Illinois and a handful in the Milwaukee area.
One of those remote employees is Lisa Scebbi from Colorado.
“I was introduced to Element when I was starting my career with JBS (Foods), which is a global protein producer – I was on their beef team,” Scebbi, who is currently an account executive with Element, said. “I was introduced on the client side of the business via Element. Before these last six months, I worked with them for eight years as a client but then joined their team six months ago.”
Scebbi said Element “loves working with clients specifically who have very targeted prospects.”
Piggybacking off Peroutka’s comments, Scebbi said, “Element has a lot of services it offers.”
“Many agencies usually focus on one specific area, but we have a little bit of everything in our agency,” she said. “All of those touchpoints we offer ‘talk to each other.’ They are cohesive in branding, cohesive in messaging, cohesive in timing – we work collaboratively with that client to execute that.”
