Author: Pascha Apter

10 Giant Highlights from 10 Years in Business

Posted on July 13, 2022 by Pascha Apter - Giant Fun, News

We’re celebrating ten years in business this month, and to mark this milestone we’re taking a bit of a walk down memory lane. Read on for some of our favorite Giant memories from the past decade.

2012 – A Giant Rebrand

Giant Voices evolved from The JPG Group—a marketing and advertising firm founded in the mid-80s in Virginia, Minnesota.

Pascha Apter joined The JPG group as an account executive in 2005, became a minority partner in 2008 and purchased and rebranded the company in 2012, making her one of the first women to wholly own a marketing firm in northern Minnesota.

As a single mother to two young children at the time, Pascha’s decision to become an entrepreneur in a fast-paced industry was a huge risk with a huge payoff, not just for herself, but for every Giant along the way.

Pascha and her small team of Giants officed out of a charming space in Canal Park, taking Duluth by storm!

2013 – Lisa Bodine Becomes Giant President

When Pascha founded Giant Voices, she knew she needed a partner—someone to help share the heavy load of business ownership and provide the yin to her yang.

Pascha had worked alongside Lisa Bodine on several regional initiatives through the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce and while Lisa worked for Involta and the Area Partnership for Economic Expansion (APEX).

When Pascha approached her with an opportunity to become president and partner of Giant Voices, Lisa immediately agreed—and the rest is history.

Lisa’s sales and business development expertise and deep network of industry relationships have been invaluable to Giant Voices for the past decade, setting a trajectory for rapid growth.

2014 – Visit Cook County Goes Giant

2014 was a year full of new client acquisition success stories. One of our favorites is being awarded a contract with Visit Cook County, a relationship that continues to thrive today!

“We are personally invested in the success of all stakeholders in Cook County, Minnesota,” said Pascha.

We are incredibly proud of the award-winning work and record-breaking accomplishments we have made alongside the VCC team of marketing experts.

2015 – The Giant Creative Team Expands!

After three years in business, 2015 required what was effectively a hiring explosion at Giant Voices.

Most notable was the hiring of Cory Southerton and Sally Carlson—two of our incredible creative team members who proudly work at Giant Voices still today.

Cory was only 19 when we joined Giant Voices, and it felt like forever before he could officially join one of our many agency happy hours.

2016 – Pascha and Lisa Travel to Africa!

Business experts always caution that owners should never travel together—what if something happened? Would the company survive?

When Pascha and Lisa had an opportunity to travel to Africa together with their spouses, they couldn’t resist the temptation. They left the company in the capable hands of Barb Darland and Jena Mertz and set off on the journey of a lifetime.

After countless small plane flights, safari adventures, surviving an elephant stampede, and many other exciting yet frightening happenings, the Giant leaders returned to Duluth inspired and ready to tackle client and operational challenges alike.

2017 – The Giants Move to Downtown Duluth

After five years of record growth, the Giant Voices team was pushing the limits of our small Canal Park office. Lisa and Pascha explored significant renovations but ultimately decided that a new space would be a better fit for the rapidly-growing company.

They selected a 6,600-square foot space on Superior Street, putting Giant Voices directly in the heart of Duluth’s business district.The two-story office, formerly known as the ACE Hardware building, was completely renovated into a modern workspace.

It includes several conference rooms, expanded collaboration areas for staff, areas to showcase work and art, a fitness room and a kitchen. Apter also commissioned a hand-painted mural depicting the iconic Duluth skyline while incorporating a little Giant flare.

2018 – Pascha Recognized by Twin Cities Business

Pascha earned huge industry recognition when she was named one of the TCB 100: People to Know in 2018.

Pascha was recognized as an influencer in the business community and as a strong leader and savvy entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in marketing and advertising.

Pascha’s fierce passion for helping her clients reach their financial, operational and marketing ambitions inspires creativity and innovation.

We’ve always known she’s incredible, and it was amazing to see her featured so prominently and among such good company.

2019 – Jena Mertz Becomes Partner

Jena Mertz had been an essential part of the Giant team since 2013, bringing experience in sales and marketing to help Giant Clients strengthen brand awareness both internally and externally.

Jena also always had entrepreneurial ambitions, and she was thrilled to make that dream a reality with Giant Voices.

As a partner, Jena focuses on managing growth opportunities for Giant Voices while also overseeing all client relationships and developing strategic marketing plans that drive sales and operational growth for key client engagements.

2020 – Giant Voices’ Digital Marketing Team Executes a Complex Lead Scoring Strategy

The Giant Voices digital marketing team manages a database with nearly 100,000 contacts on behalf of a Giant Client.

We’ve leveraged the organization’s CRM investment to deploy a lead nurture framework and scoring methodology designed to identify, rank and grow qualified leads.

As contacts engage and interact with various assets, they earn a higher lead score and move down the funnel from Prospect to Lead to Marketing Qualified Lead to Sales Qualified Lead.

This process gives the client a stronger understanding of each contact and has helped nurture prospects into thousands of viable leads that are passed to the sales team.

Oh and we survived a global pandemic….

2021 – Involta Billboard in Times Square

Seeing our clients succeed is truly why we exist at Giant. We have been an extension of the Involta team since the inception of Giant Voices—and for a majority of the 15 years Involta has been in business.

We’ve partnered over the years, helping align marketing with sales, as the rapidly-growing managed IT and data center service provider transformed into a national powerhouse.

Our team has helped shape the marketing strategies that grew Involta’s footprint from one market to six, and we’ve helped build narratives for Involta’s ever-growing line of hybrid cloud solutions.

When Involta was acquired by the Carlyle Group, a growth-focused global investment firm, the Giant Voices creative team developed the billboard creative that was featured in Times Square during the holiday season.

We couldn’t be more proud that our work was featured so prominently at a national level. A Giant win-win, for sure!

A Giant Investment in Tiny Homes

Posted on August 16, 2021 by Pascha Apter - News

If you follow business trends, the stock market or Twitter, perhaps you’ve heard that multibillionaire, Elon Musk, has made a big move into a tiny $50,000 home in Boca Chica, Texas.

While the news may have come as a shock to many, one thing is certain—the company that creates these small, transportable, 400-square-foot units is onto something big.

Boxabl is a building production company on a mission to create low-cost, high-quality, quick-assembly homes to last for generations—and our team is proud to have invested in this venture this July through Giant Ventures, LLC.

Giant Ventures is a business entity created by Giant Voices leaders, Pascha Apter and Lisa Bodine. Giant Ventures provides capital investment and leadership to promising, growth-stage ventures needing expert branding, marketing and sales strategy support.

Recent investments have included Boxabl, Botco.ai and Edge Data to name a few.

“Helping ambitious, creative and inventive business founders take their ideas to market is a passion of mine,” explained Apter. “By providing capital and consulting services through Giant Ventures, we help entrepreneurs improve their chance of success in the marketplace. Boxable is an exciting innovation and has the potential to revolutionize the residential real estate market.”

Are you a start-up or an entrepreneur with big ambitions? We’d love to connect! Learn more about Giant Ventures and contact us today.

4 Marketing Trends We’re Watching in 2021

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Pascha Apter - Business Tips, Strategic Marketing

If the events of 2020 taught marketers one thing, it’s that we have to be prepared for anything. Companies ready to pivot at a moment’s notice bounced back from the pandemic faster than others.

Now that we’ve (finally) said “so long” to 2020, we’re excited to re-energize and share our top tips for getting ahead in the 2021 marketplace.

Here is what we expect to see trending in the marketing industry over the next 12 months.

Staff Augmentation

2020 came in like a wrecking ball, with the majority of companies feeling a financial strain. Many operations furloughed or reduced staff, decreased resources, and, in some cases, closed their doors for good.

So, it should come as no surprise that companies will be slower to hire new employees in 2021.

This creates an opportunity for agencies to offer help without adding to a client’s overhead costs. We anticipate a significant shift in staff augmentation, allowing agencies to fill marketing leadership and administrative roles for their clients.

Companies will likely hire contractors or part-time employees before adding FTEs to their organization
A few agencies (like Giant Voices) will offer staffing help, providing talented and trained marketing experts to fill marketing director, marketing assistant or CMO roles

During previous economic downturns, marketing agencies have been the thought-leaders and strategic partners helping clients get back on their feet. Agencies have played an integral role in providing communication, direction and support when organizations need it most.

At Giant Voices, we offer clients the support they need to sustain their operations and the strategy they need to thrive.

Full-Service Agency Support

The need for full-service agency support has shifted like a pendulum—especially in the past 10 years. Around 2010, companies preferred hiring multiple “niche” agencies to cover singular focus areas. One agency would provide social media support, another influence management, the next SEO support, etc.

However, many soon discovered how difficult it had become to manage 7-10 relationships with segmented teams, not to mention the inability to create cohesive and comprehensive campaigns that resonated with customers and prospects.

Moving into 2019, most companies wanted to limit their agency partnerships, preferring a full-service firm model that provided a much-needed integrated strategy. We see the pendulum continuing to favor the full-service agency model in the new year.

Companies want to create cohesive messaging across their many communication channels
Connections matter more now than ever, and clients want to work with agencies that understand them. They want to build a relationship with a single firm that can dig in and strengthen an organization’s brand while helping them achieve revenue goals
Firms like Giant Voices will expand their specializations to provide clients with full-service agency support

Sales and Marketing Alignment

Moving into a new year while trying to curb the effects of an ongoing global pandemic means companies need more than marketing help—they need sales help as well.

In 2021, we see more and more clients asking for help with sales and marketing alignment strategies. Our team advises clients through sales funnel development, visually showing them how their advertising and lead generation tactics will take their prospects from impressions to sales conversions.

Sales are critical – companies and clients aren’t just looking for a marketing firm, they’re looking for a firm to help them sell
Messaging matters – companies are reaffirming their competitive advantages by synchronizing their messaging in sales and marketing
Increasing ROI has never been more important – companies are tapping into full-service marketing agencies for conversion strategies
Numbers tell a story – companies are reassessing their KPIs to measure success and ensure sales and marketing alignment

Customers are part of the entire journey, not just the sale, which is why sales and marketing alignment will take on a new meaning in 2021.

Our firm knows consumer behavior, and we understand the importance of pivoting quickly when the landscape changes. We specialize in creating customized strategic plans that work best for each client’s unique situation.

Ongoing Growth of Personalized Connections

It’s been in almost every headline in 2020—we miss connecting with other people. While building relationships remains the key to successful client/customer and client/firm relationships, this sentiment holds true in 2021.

Companies will seek new, creative and innovative ways to reach their customers, and they will rely on their full-service agency to guide them to where they need to be.

We anticipate these tactics will perform strongly:

Video advertising: As thousands of Zoom calls in 2020 have taught us, nothing beats a face-to-face conversation. Whether it’s on social or in programmatic display, video ads will continue to be the preferred choice as each allows advertisers to communicate on a more personal level than a standard display ad.
Personalization using programmatic AI: The digital advertising landscape has transformed in the last two years, making it easier and more affordable for advertisers to send personalized ad content to targeted audiences. Providing the right content, in the right place, at the right time, is the best way to drive conversions.

2020 was a year of autonomy for target audiences across all industries—during that time, consumers’ needs changed drastically as they wanted to work, learn and gain feedback on their own time, in their own way.

Customers have had time to assess companies’ channels as well as the content they produce, so utilizing technology while emphasizing the importance of authentic storytelling will be critical to success as marketers embrace a new year.

Drive Growth in 2021 With These Marketing Trends

Four marketing trends will drive growth in 2021:

Staff Augmentation
Full-Service Agency Support
Sales and Marketing Alignment
Ongoing Growth of Personalized Connections

At Giant Voices, we practice what we preach. We are here to help you reach your ambitions as we embrace a new year.

Are you ready for 2021? We can help. Connect with us today for a discovery meeting.

4 Ways to Ensure Sales + Marketing Alignment

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Pascha Apter - Business Tips, Strategic Marketing

COVID-19 has left a gaping impact on business, not just in how we conduct sales and marketing, but the processes behind our sales and marketing efforts.

For the past several months, the old tactics—building relationships through coffee shop conversations or selling a client on data sheets in boardroom discussions—simply aren’t cutting it and likely aren’t going to be received the same way moving forward.

So, why are so many companies continuing to position their sales and marketing teams like it’s 2019?

4 Ways to Ensure Sales + Marketing Alignment | Giant Voices Blog

While our firm will be the first to admit that we miss the energy and growth that comes from in-person conversations with our clients and coworkers, we know and accept that today’s B2B landscape has shifted. We get it. It’s important to adapt in order to move forward—but that doesn’t always make it easy.

As a strategically-focused, ambition-based marketing firm, we work with clients to help identify their financial, operational and communication goals. Then we use that ambition as the foundation for all of our communication efforts.

We help maintain alignment across the board on messaging—from collateral to emailers to social media posts to sales rep communications. We work to ensure everything is cohesive when it reaches a prospect.

Knowing this background information, our simple advice might not surprise you when it comes to elevating your brand in today’s climate: synchronize your messaging in sales and marketing.

That means sitting down with both teams to reaffirm that communications are absolutely, 100%, without a doubt, aligned in terms of the messaging you’re sharing with your target audience.

After all, you can’t execute communication that will help you increase ROI, generate leads or put yourself in a position to market new products unless you can build from a strong foundation.

But how do you align your sales and marketing teams? These four steps will get you started.

4 Ways to Ensure Sales + Marketing Alignment

Establish a Team

If you’ve ever watched synchronized swimming, you’d know it’s obvious when someone is off. If a limb flies left when it’s supposed to go right, it doesn’t take much for a choreographed number to be thrown off course.

It’s the same with your marketing and sales communication and the quality of the experience you’re providing your prospects. If your marketing team produces content promising one thing and sales sings a different tune, you may miss out on the potential to develop profitable leads—which, to be frank, you can’t afford to lose.

We highly recommend that sales and marketing teams meet at least once a month to review what’s working, what’s not, what new products need nurtured messaging, what new communications need testing, to name a few.

These meetings will keep everyone on the same page and reaffirm that the teams work collectively to achieve the same outcome.

Put a Plan Together

An integrated marketing/sales strategy built on aligned messaging creates trust, credibility and consistent experiences.

So, where to begin to make sure your team is in sync? We suggest starting with sales enablement, the iterative process of providing your business’s sales team with the resources they need to close more deals.

It’s about producing cross-functional teams that can execute sales success through unified communications. Resources to elevate your sales and marketing alignment include:

Performance data sheets
Structured communication plans
Product information sheets
Marketing insights from digital and traditional media
Verbal coaching and sales communication

This is the simple starter kit to ensure your team is on the right track when communicating a consistent narrative and unified mission to your target audience.

Utilize a CRM

Our recommendation for maintaining organization when aligning sales and marketing messaging? Invest in an effective CRM—and use it.

A customer relationship management system (CRM) is a centralized location where you can track and manage the journey of your subscribers, prospects, leads and marketing qualified leads (MQLs) based on all of your communications.

Using a CRM will help improve communication with your target audience while also allowing your marketing and sales team to centralize their messaging based on the findings of interactions with each unique prospect.

Not only does this create unified messaging across the board, but it also allows your sales team to focus their time and energy on leads with the most potential.

It also offers tried and true insights for your marketing team to develop content that will produce effective results.

What’s more, an effective CRM will allow you to categorize your contacts as they work through the buying stages. That means your messaging—as unified as it is in overall intent—can be effectively tweaked to meet audiences where they are at on their journey.

The truth is, with buyer behavior today, your prospects are more likely to convert to customers if they’re part of the entire journey, not just the sale.

So, a key part of converting a prospect into a lead is ensuring that marketing materials and language are adjusted accordingly—whether a prospect has visited your landing page for the first time or they are ready to close on purchasing your product.

We firmly believe that having and actually using a CRM will help you organize contact data while allowing you to see how people are finding you in today’s changing market.

Put the Data to Work

Lastly, after you have found the CRM that best fits your interests, use the information it provides to ensure your KPIs (key performance indicators) match up with your ultimate plan to reach people. We recommend monitoring some or all of the following KPIs to measure success.

CPL (cost per lead)
CPC (cost per click)
Average total contract value
Monthly sales growth
Revenue per client
Profit margin
Client retention rate

Just to name a few. Digging into the data will provide concrete facts on where people enter the conversion funnel and answer the question: what does my buyer’s journey look like?

Modify and Pivot to Foster Success

There are four steps you can take to produce a well-oiled sales and marketing machine:

1. Establish a team
2. Put a plan together
3. Ensure you have a CRM
4. Put some measurements in place

As always, leave yourself room to modify and pivot—if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that our environments are constantly changing, and the needs of our buyers will inevitably change too.

Interested in learning more about sales and marketing alignment? Contact us today for a discovery meeting.

How to Brighten an Image in 5 Minutes or Less with Adobe Photoshop

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Pascha Apter - Graphic Design

Whether you’re a professional graphic designer, amateur photographer, web designer or you simply like to doodle rock-n-roll rodents or spaced out super heroes in your spare time, Adobe Photoshop is an awesome program that is great for business and personal use.

The thought of learning a new application like Photoshop may seem a bit daunting at first thought. And although Adobe Photoshop has extensive capabilities, it can be much easier to learn than you think.

Some popular uses of Adobe Photoshop are:

Photo Color Correction
Photo Retouching
Superimposing Images
Designing Website Layouts
Designing Logos
Digital Fine Art/Paintings

What is Photoshop?

Adobe Photoshop is an imaging and graphic design software application. It is widely utilized for photo editing but is also used for designing websites, graphics, logos, editing videos and creating 2D and 3D artwork.

In the professional graphic design industry, it is considered an integral tool. As a graphic designer/art director, Photoshop is a “must-have” application for me. I use the program on a daily basis and would be lost without it.

Let’s start off with some beginner’s tips on brightening up an image.

How to Quickly Brighten a Dull Photo with the Curves and Saturation Tools in Adobe Photoshop

The following is just one way to perform a simple color correction using Adobe Photoshop.

First, open the Photoshop application. Locate the image file you want to adjust in your browser and open the image (File>Open) (Fig. 1). Under file, go to “Save As” and rename your file. Doing so will leave your original image untouched.

Once you’ve opened your photo, open the Curves dialog box in the file menu. (Image > Adjustments > Curves) (Fig. 2).

Once the Curves dialog box opens, Click the Preview option so you can see how your image changes while adjusting the tones. Place your cursor in the center of the grid. Hold down the mouse button and drag the curve line to adjust a tonal area.

Dragging the points up or down will allow you to darken or lighten the tones. Dragging to the right or left will allow you to adjust the contrast of your image.

In this instance, we will be making a simple adjustment stemming from the mid-tones. Place the cursor in the center of the curves grid.

Drag the curves line up until you reach the desired tone you’re looking for (Fig.3). Feel free to experiment with the Curves line by dragging in different directions and adding points (Fig. 4). You can add several points to the curve (up to 14).

Points on the curve will remain anchored until you move them. Doing so will allow you to adjust tone in one area without affecting others.

To undo your adjustment, simply press the alt/option key and select “Reset” in the curves dialog box. Your image will revert to its original state and you can try again until you achieve your desired results.

If you’re in a pinch, for a super quick fix, simply open your image, open the curves dialog box and click “Auto”. This will automatically adjust your image using the Photoshop default settings. I don’t highly recommend this.

However, it can work if you simply need a quick adjustment and your friendly neighborhood designer/Photoshop guru is unavailable. Depending on the image, results may vary when using this particular option. Once you’ve reached your desired tonal results with the Curves adjustment, click “OK”.

Adjusting Color Saturation

Once you have adjusted your tones with the Curves tool, navigate to the File menu and open the Hue/Saturation dialog box. (Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation). While remaining in “Master” mode, drag the Saturation slider to the right. This will increase the color saturation over all color channels (Fig 5). Dragging to the left, will decrease the saturation.

You can also adjust individual color channels by clicking on the “Master” drop down in the Hue/Saturation dialog box (Fig 6). This option would typically be utilized by advanced users but feel free to experiment. You can always revert the image to it’s original state by pressing the Alt/Option key and clicking reset.

Once you’ve achieved your desired results, save your new file. If you’re saving for print, convert the file to CMYK (Image > Mode > CMYK) (Fig.7) and save the file at 300 dpi.

(Fig.8) as JPEG or TIF formats (File > Save As). If the image is going to be used digitally, you’ll want to convert the file to RGB mode (Image > Mode > RGB) and in JPEG or PNG formats at 72 dpi.

If you want to compare your altered image with the original, open the two files and compare side by side or open the History panel in the file menu (Window > History). Click on the small thumbnail image at the top of the History panel list to view your file in its original state (Fig 9).

Then click the last item in the History list. Toggle between the two to compare your images (Fig. 10). You’ll see how a slight adjustment here and there can dramatically improve an image.

Adobe Photoshop contains numerous in-depth editing tools and it can take years of use and practice to learn how to utilize its extensive capabilities.

Simply put, this exercise is a basic way to quickly brighten up an image. Again, it doesn’t matter if you are using the application as a professional or just for fun. Photoshop is an outstanding program, which anyone can learn.

There are numerous, in-depth Photoshop tutorials scattered across the web. YouTube, Lynda.com or LinkedIn Learning are superb resources as is Adobe.com. Dig into it and feel free to play around with the application. I promise, you won’t break it.

We’ll touch on some other ways to utilize the Adobe Photoshop application down the road. In the mean time, happy PhotoShopping!