While each client has their own unique situation and set of goals, the case studies below will give you an idea of the results and impact that you can expect when you work with us to get you featured in the media so you can become a recognized authority in your industry, attract more clients, and earn more money.
Dr. David Phelps
CEO, Freedom Founders
Key wins
- Earned hundreds of media features, creating massive exposure and authority status
- Spoke to the graduating class of Johns Hopkins University’s masters-level real estate and infrastructure program about the future of the industry
- Appointed to develop the Florida Department of Education’s financial literacy curriculum
Case study
When Dr. David Phelps first approached Spartan Media, he was easily one of the top experts in his field and people within his close circle would often refer to him as the “smartest guy in the room,” but outside of a relatively small group of real estate investors and dentists, he was unknown.
For context, he is a former dentist turned real estate investor, and runs the real estate investing community, Freedom Founders, which he launched after a family crisis forced him to pivot so he could support his daughter through a health crisis that nearly killed her.
Once we onboarded Dr. Phelps, distilled his background and story into a powerful and concise message, and developed a strategy, we hit the ground running.
We quickly started getting him featured in tier one media outlets—these are the biggest, most recognized media outlets that a tremendous number of people already trust and follow. This gave him a powerful opportunity to share his unique insight on a variety of real estate investing topics, which helped to demonstrate his expertise and position him as a recognized authority in his industry. It also created significant exposure as well.
This led to other people in his industry sharing this content on social media, often tagging him in their posts, creating even more exposure and authority status for him. It also led to a larger, more deeply connected network since people wanted to be aligned with him because of his status. That created a snowball effect that continued to grow exponentially as he continued getting featured in the media.
A few years into our relationship, a unique opportunity developed. In 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that would require all Florida students to take financial literacy courses in order to graduate. Upon hearing about this, we sprung into action, reaching out to our contacts in the DeSantis administration and the Department of Education, to get Dr. Phelps involved in developing this curriculum.
Over the next year, Dr. Phelps, along with the 12 other members of the working group, developed a comprehensive curriculum that would teach all Florida students the critical knowledge and skills they would need to become financially successful.
This put him in a very unique position because now, for the rest of his life, he can not only say that he played a critical role in developing this curriculum which would have a positive impact for tens of millions of people, but also that he could use it to further reinforce his authority status. The reality is that very few people have ever had an opportunity like this, and it puts him firmly in a very elite category of financial experts.
Over the next several years, we continued working with Dr. Phelps, both to get him featured in the media and to secure columns at several prominent media outlets where he had the opportunity to share his knowledge in depth through long form articles on a variety of financial topics.
We also secured a speaking opportunity at Johns Hopkins University, where he, Kim Kiyosaki, and a few other real estate experts were asked to speak about the evolution of the industry for the school’s graduating class from its masters level real estate and infrastructure program. This opportunity further bolstered his authority status, because a prestigious school like Johns Hopkins is very selective in who it asks to speak on its stages.
Along the way, he faced a few PR crises, like most prominent public figures eventually do, but thanks to a mountain of positive publicity earned over the years and our expert guidance, he was able to move smoothly through these storms, dodging the bullets effortlessly like Neo in The Matrix.
This multi-year campaign that produced several hundred prominent media features helped Dr. Phelps to become a recognized authority in his industry and beyond, attract more opportunities, and earn more money. And it also created a lasting legacy spanning both his entrepreneurial and social impact.
Amanda Webster
COO, Fund&Grow
Key wins
- Earned dozens of media features, creating massive exposure and authority status
- Landed her own nationally syndicated weekly TV show on financial topics
- Developed numerous high-level strategic partnerships that generated significant revenue
Case study
As the COO of Fund&Grow, Amanda Webster played a critical role in the company’s growth, but she needed greater authority status to develop the key affiliate relationships that would help the company hit its revenue goals.
We began by developing a comprehensive strategy to position her as the go-to authority in the business credit industry. To achieve this, we distilled her background, knowledge, and voice into a powerful message that provided valuable information to media audiences while demonstrating her unique and deep expertise.
From there, we quickly got Amanda featured in a variety of prominent media outlets in the business and finance sectors, including numerous tier-one media outlets. This included a variety of articles, TV segments, and podcasts. As the tsunami of positive publicity created third-party validation, even more opportunities started to come her way.
The first was a recurring column at Newsmax, where she published dozens of articles about business credit, financial management, and entrepreneurship, further reinforcing her authority status by enabling her to share her knowledge at a much deeper level. This then expanded into columns at several other media outlets, eventually followed by her own nationally syndicated TV show where she had the opportunity to talk about important financial topics for a national audience each week.
She consistently leveraged this publicity in every marketing channel, further increasing her exposure and authority status. It also helped her to build a larger, more deeply connected network since people wanted to connect because of her status. This created a compounding effect that grew exponentially as she continued getting featured in the media and leveraging it in her marketing.
More importantly, the publicity we earned for Amanda helped her to develop numerous high-level strategic relationships with affiliate partners. This produced a significant increase in both lead flow and revenue, helping the company reach its financial goals. And now, instead of having to constantly chase new business, these relationships were sending them new clients every day. With these new affiliate relationships, Fund&Grow now had a steady inbound lead source that enabled the company to scale more rapidly.
And while the campaign gave Fund&Grow significantly more exposure, it also gave the brand tremendous authority status, which made all of its marketing more effective. This helped the company to not only attract more prospects, but also convert them into paying clients more quickly and efficiently, resulting in higher revenue and profits.
David Bell
CEO, USA Mobile Drug Testing
Key wins
- Grew from just $300,000 in annual revenue to over $8 million
- Appointed to a board position at a prominent industry association
- Spoke before Congress and Senate on behalf of his industry
Case study
After seeing the disastrous impact of drug abuse first hand while serving a client in the drug testing industry, USA Mobile Drug Testing, David Bell sold his own company, a large and successful printing shop, and took on the role of Chief Operating Officer with that client.
At the time, David was brand new to the industry, and unfortunately, shortly after taking on this role, he was faced with a massive reputation management issue caused by the founder, which nearly destroyed the company. As a result, the founder stepped down and David was now forced to step into the role of CEO in an industry where he had no experience, connections, or authority, all while facing a tsunami of negative publicity. It was a perfect storm.
As he quickly developed the expertise needed to run the struggling company, Spartan Media leveraged a comprehensive public relations campaign to establish David as an authority in his industry. We started with robust content marketing and social media efforts as a foundation to demonstrate his expertise in drug testing, drug abuse, and workplace safety. Once we had a sufficient foundation in place, we began a two-pronged public relations strategy.
On one prong, we secured the opportunity for him to contribute articles, which we helped craft, to several highly trusted industry trade publications where he could share his expertise with an even larger audience while building his authority status. These trade publications played a key role in David’s public relations campaign because the content they publish is reviewed and judged by other professionals in the industry, so the bar is set considerably higher than other publications. In other words, while not as large or flashy as a publication like Entrepreneur, Forbes, or Fast Company, being published in highly trusted industry trade publications can be just as important in building authority status.
On the other prong of this strategy, we placed him in numerous other business and news outlets. This put him in media outlets that were seen and recognized by a significantly larger audience—many of which were potential clients for his company. Initially, we focused on digital and print media, but then later expanded to radio, podcasts, and television after working with him on media training to ensure his communication skills were honed to near-perfection. That training was critical because people tend to get nervous when a microphone or camera is in their face, and there’s no way to undo a mistake here.
Once this public relations campaign began to gain traction, we were able to then leverage the publicity in his other marketing channels. The publicity itself obviously created exposure for the company, but it was also able to be used in their social media, paid advertising, website, email, and even sales calls to further increase visibility and trust on a massive scale. This made the company’s outbound marketing exponentially more effective, and created tremendous inbound opportunities as well. Now instead of always having to hunt for new clients, its sales reps were on the receiving end of inbound calls from excited prospects ready to do business. And with both inbound and outbound sales, reps were able to close more sales, do so more quickly, and often, at a higher price.
This snowballed into steadily growing revenue, taking the company from around $300,000 in annual revenue to well over $8 million in 2021.
It also created several additional opportunities. One opportunity was board seat with a prominent industry association, which helped David to build numerous connections within his industry and further bolster his authority status. The latter is because as with industry trade publications, this board seat was vetted by industry peers, so in order to earn it, he had to be truly qualified. People know this, so when they find out someone sits on a board for an association like this, they instantly trust them more than someone who doesn’t. Another was the opportunity to speak before the US Congress and Senate on behalf of his industry. This was important because it gave David a chance to push for laws that would increase workplace safety, but equally important was that in doing so, he was placed in an elite category, yet again boosting his authority status on a massive scale.
Today, Spartan Media continues to work with David Bell to grow USA Mobile Drug Testing because he recognizes and appreciates our track record of producing powerful and consistent results.
