Setting up a marketing agency has never been an easy task. And today it is bloody and unrelentingly difficult.

The market is saturated, and agency reputations have never been lower because of unethical competitors and training gurus who discourage potential clients from trusting professionals

If I am a trainer-guru and convince you that you can market yourself and that agencies are "evil," I can sell you my courses! Peace if you then spread yourself very badly and ruin your business.

But Deep Marketing is here. It endures. It grows. We break our backs like few others, but so many love us. Here is my take on doing business, my clients, and the accolades we have achieved in a very short time.

My version of the facts

In 2018 and after a long career in multinational companies, I resigned as a manager. I had always had the vocation of entrepreneurship in my heart, but my means at the beginning were very modest, I had no "connections," no help, no support network. I could not afford the risk of failure. I was from a remote village. I had no alternative but to start from the grassroots as the last of the employees in a super-company, conquer one grain at a time, get esteemed, win recognition. Only when I had enough "cash" in the bank, knowledge of professionals and potential clients, professional respectability and expertise, did I take the plunge. First on a VAT number, in a kind of virtual agency in partnership with my most esteemed freelance colleagues, then - in 2021 - making it official with the company Deep Marketing.

It's unbelievable how many handshakes, how many clients, how far, how many things have happened to me since 2019. And let's not talk about the rest of the world. The pandemic, the fuffaguru explosion of education, the collapse of many "listed" agencies, a recession, the commodities crisis, inflation, war, one of the most hostile markets in decades. Wow.

Yet here we are. Despite only a few months in business, Deep Marketing is already tremendously respected, as we will see in a moment. We are a small boutique agency but with a respectable balance sheet, solid, with excellent margins, and still able to make exceptional prices to clients and pay employees ethically.

My (un)advice

Compared to many colleagues, I struggle to give profound entrepreneurial advice, partly because I still feel like a manager at heart. My vision is the one I had from childhood and probably the result of my Veneto imprinting. And I have no other. Simply:

  • I think you have to work so much, much much much more than would come naturally to you. Especially if you are small. The company is a child that you have to give your soul to, at least in the early years. If you don't have that attitude, you'd better do something else.
  • The margins (= money) come as a natural consequence of theobsession with wanting to be the best. Or, at least, among the best. Making money to make money makes no sense, because it does not start from any primary instinct and engine in our unconscious. We need something else. And I think this other is obsession. Which in turn depends on a mixture of perfectionism and love without belief for one's craft. As my grandfather Francis used to say, "youmust be sick of your work."
  • Making mistakes is part of the game because we are human, but the difference between Series A and Series Z agencies is that the former make small mistakes and don't waste a second fixing them. We have often found ourselves fixing damage done by other agencies (almost always bigger than us) and we have never backed down. That is the difference. I think respect for the client comes mostly from outperforming when there are problems. Caused or not caused by us.
  • There are very few capable people in the marketing market; finding great people is far more difficult than finding great clients. I want to have only the best on my team because that is my mission, and the only way to do that is a continuous process of solidifying the best talent, scouting, investing in diamonds in the rough, and closing with others. I find no shortcut except to accept this process. Again: nothing is easy in doing business.

The awards

Without any desire to convince you of my views, I want to share with you the very important "pats on the back" that have come our way. They are a confirmation that all in all the game is worth the candle. And I hope they are also a signal to those who have "ethical" doubts about the best way to do business. Don't believe the glitter of the gurus and their "everything is worth everything" and "selling ice to Eskimos." Don't believe them. Doing business is too high adventure to be sleazy (and in the long run their message doesn't pay off anyway; it's an open secret that their companies are always one step away from closure).

GoodFirms

The outstanding U.S. B2B marketplace GoodFirms analyzed our company, its clients and services, and listed us among the best digital agencies in its database. Here is the in-depth review. And here, when I was interviewed by GoodFirms. Here is the banner they created with my big face:

Sort List

A European aggregator of agency services, SortList has ranked Deep Marketing first among Veneto agencies for many services. And we topped the list of Italian agencies.

Design Rush

In April, leading global marketplace Design Rush sent a press release to 156 newspapers and a total of 53 million users sharing its selection of the world's best agencies. Deep Marketing was among them. In a very lucky 17th place 😉

Google Partners

Nothing so stellar but absolutely worth remembering: Deep Marketing is a Google Partner. It means that our services on all platforms of the Silicon Valley giant are certified and our professionals are fully trained to handle them. Of course, we are also Hubspot partners and many other players. But it is objectively less prominent.

Wonderful clients

I believe that the quality of a marketing agency is not analyzed by the giant turnover (we are craftsmen, if we work well we can never follow "too many" clients!), but by the quality of its clients and the robustness of the budget. For the budget, I look forward to updating this page with the 2022 results (coming soon) so we can celebrate together. But on the client side, why not share the names of the big brands that have chosen us? Just a few:

  • Genertel and Genertellife, in two extraordinary projects to optimize advertising budgets and increase conversions. For Genertel, we also provided training on digital analytics tools to their super managers.
  • Plant Based Clinic, Mediterranea, Nuttch: three leading vegan brands in their own segment. Mediterranea (with e-commerce Natigua) is the most famous and respected bioveg brand in Italy, Plant Based Clinic the European benchmark in evidence-based health disclosure, Nuttch is a crazy underwear brand that we helped launch in the U.S. market and that makes low-impact one of its foundations.
  • Tunit: accessories brand chosen by Apple, within the ICT/Juice group. We ferried Tunit into 2022 in a tremendously bold and successful rebranding. From commodity to fashion accessory of high visual charge and storytelling.
  • PT Turin: my long-time fashion bridge customer with a thousand retailers worldwide, in recent years has gone from pants-only to total look. We have accompanied PT in at least "two mutations," and we are really proud of that. The company has such high margins and is so valuable that it was recently acquired by a fund with a very high valuation, associated with relative delisting to the stock exchange. Great PT. An almost unique case in Italian fashion as far as quality of accounts.
  • De Angeli Products: stellar company. State-of-the-art Italian technology. These gentlemen produce carbon fiber cables (for long distances and pure electric motors) and smart cables at a global leadership level. I personally have a relevant esteem for the CEO as well, among the few Italian super-executives to combine engineering and humanistic talent, and the imprinting in the company is evident. For DAP we followed the image repositioning and today we work with them in content marketing.
  • Entando: If you are familiar with Kubernetes technology, I am sure you are well aware of who Entando is. Half Sardinian and half Californian soul, among the top global players in the industry according to Gartner. We worked with them between 2021 and 2022 helping them heavily launch their visibility and marketing and PR operations in Italy. Judging by the results, it went well.
  • Car Free: they propose a totally innovative concept of long-term rental based on changing cars often but with an expense that does not grow. As a car lover, they won me over immediately. Car Free has grown so much that they are now planning prime-time advertisements on national networks. We are helping them lower their online advertising spend and dramatically increase their results and return on investment. The industry is super competitive but we are getting great satisfaction. On the other hand, when there is service ...

Stars everywhere

I am not a big fan of online reviews for B2B companies since our customers are always very busy and are not always as helpful as consumers. Also, I don't think a B2B company can be analyzed in a simplified way with star ratings. But that is the game. So thank you for your support!

DMAI

It is not an acknowledgement of others, but it is a great goal of mine finally realized. I started studying and programming neural networks in 2003, had even conceived a start-up in 2004 (but remember I was penniless and without an economic support network, so I avoided it). For exactly 20 years I have been developing Artificial Intelligence solutions like crazy: for myself, for the companies I work for, for my marketing clients, and even for clients to whom I have sold AI tools. It is one of my great passions.

You can well understand what it was like to make DMAI: the first AI platform verticalized on marketing and trained with mountains of evidence from the discipline, successful case studies, and feedback from Deep Marketing professionals. DMAI is scary and is already a silicon deity for me: combined with the work of a marketing strategist it allows us to create marketing strategies, assets, copy, branding elements at 10% of the normal cost. So it's perfect for professionals and SMEs that can't afford a digital agency.

Yes, we use GPT-4 😉

I recommend that you buy the DMAI report for your brandReport DMAI for SMEs and professionals, it costs only 399 euros.

Science Project

Another project that rejuvenates me, a few months ago I decided to combine my Quora outreach (thanks to almost 35 million views guys!) with something private: Deep Marketing Science Project.

The first portal in Italian and English dedicated ONLY to the science of marketing. Almost every day I simplify a paper, a study, evidence, law, statistical analysis. Anything that helps people think more critically about the discipline and stop buying any nonsense from too many educators. Marketing is serious, however difficult. I do my best to make it easier. Give me a hand by spreading the word!

Thank you

In short: thank you. Work with us, to build extraordinary new brands together and get back to marketing for good.

Together.