Social media consultant goes for big but practical ideas

CORALVILLE — Nick Westergaard believes what he preaches.

'In a dorky way, better marketing makes a better world, because it can help this small business, this coffee shop, this community thrive,' Westergaard said during an interview at Tierra Coffee in Coralville last week. 'It helps the community grow, and communities growing helps the rest of the state — it sets off a little chain reaction.'

Westergaard's book on the topic of social marketing, 'Get Scrappy: Smarter Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small,' was released May 12. He works as a chief brand strategist for his company, Brand Driven Digital, speaks on the subject at conferences and corporate events, and writes a monthly guest column for The Gazette's Business 380 section. He also teaches social media marketing courses at the University of Iowa.

Westergaard found his definition of scrappy in the Urban Dictionary, which defines the word as 'seemingly small and unthreatening but shockingly able' to win a fight.

For those he advises, Westergaard translates that to mean 'You can make a big impact with little money.'

Scrappy, he added, 'is really a mind-set.'

One example he cites is Hawkeye Sewer and Drain of Iowa City. After having a 'two-toilet emergency' resolved by the company, the plumber handed him a newsletter on bright gold paper that had what he recalled as 'engaging articles' regarding toilet-related topics.

'They really do effective content marketing. It's not online content, but it is the right content,' he said. 'It provides value at the right time.

'It is easy to fall into the trap of checklist marketing — of how you need to be online. To hand me a piece of paper once you fixed my plumbing problem, there's nothing more valuable than that.'

Westergaard has written about marketing and branding since 2005. He started developing the book after talking with clients.

'It seems like everybody, big business or small business, is always trying to do more with less,' he said.

The content of his book was accumulated through the development of a curriculum for his 16-week class. And the structure of the book was patterned similar to his approach to developing an engaging and compelling speech, he said.

'I like to be a big idea but practical,' somewhere in between a keynote speaker and a one-on-one instructor, he said.

Westergaard is a Des Moines native, and his father ran an advertising agency out of his home 'before home-based businesses were a cool thing.

'I jokingly grew up, literally, in the advertising business ...

but I didn't have any big, magical plan to be in advertising,' he said. 'I think that (my dad) would say the same thing because I fell in love with marketing on my own.'

He attended the University of Iowa to study psychology and theater arts.

'I would like to say any other background — beyond studying marketing for marketing — the base of creativity and understanding human behavior is very useful,' he said.

He joined an educational publication company for five years in the early 2000s.

'It was an interesting time in marketing when stuff was shifting to digital,' he said. 'And I looked like someone young that worked in marketing, so I think I got to lead a lot of that stuff because there wasn't anyone else to.'

He did a stint with ACT for two years, and around the same time his father's business needed digital capabilities for his clients.

'He said you should come into the business and come back to Des Moines. And I said I like half of that,' Westergaard recalled.

The company was called Westergaard Advertising when Nick started there in 2007, but eventually became Brand Driven Digital.

'I stayed here and grew the business in a more virtual way,' he said. 'There are people on our team across the country and service clients all over the place.'

He added that, 'I hope to write another book at some point, but right now, it is the age of scrappy.'