The Shark Tank

On May 15, Seth Price (founding partner of Price Benowitz Accident Injury Lawyers, LLP and founder and CEO of BluShark Digital) had Kristi Hagen (founder and CEO of Kristi Jane Inc) on his podcast SEO Insider to talk about all things digital marketing. They discussed Kristi’s career trajectory, how she started and grew her digital marketing agency, the particular challenges that come with Google SEO, paid ads such as pay-per-click and local service ads, and Kristi’s invention “RoadProof,” a current asset to car accident cases.

Kristi’s Career Trajectory

The first thing that Seth and Kristi discussed was Kristi’s impressive career trajectory and how she started her digital marketing agency. She shared that she worked as a research analyst, trainer, and writer for Search Engine News early in her career. Kristi spent much of her time behind the scenes, watching what search engines did, crunching data, and training others. However, she eventually decided to do digital marketing herself rather than continue to teach others. At the same time, she realized how marketers underserved the legal industry and saw an opportunity where she could put her skills to use and make an impact. Now, as Founder and CEO of Kristi Jane Inc., she offers a “holistic approach to growing your business experience and getting actual results.”

Growing Your Agency

Next, Seth and Kristi discussed tactics for growing your agency. First, watching competitors is a learning tool. Said Kristi, “You find more valuable real-world information from tiny little spots where somebody is just making a net…and watching what they’re doing.” Kristi and Seth also explained the importance of setting realistic expectations for how big you want to grow your firm. Kristi shared that for her agency, “being a giant marketing agency isn’t our ‘why’…our ‘why’ was creating. We’re builders, and that’s just who we are. We’re entrepreneurs.” Lastly, Kristi emphasized the importance of versatility and branching out. She shared that her agency works with different industries to apply their strategies and lessons to competing industries.

Google and Paid Ads

Kristi and Seth also discussed navigating the Google and paid ads landscape and how to use these tools to enhance your digital marketing. They discussed how Google is an ecosystem and the importance of having a complete website that elevates your entire brand and online presence, leading to GMB leads and PPC conversions. In essence, you must have every aspect of your digital marketing working together, not against each other. They discussed some difficulties their firms have faced, such as the tricky algorithm for local service ads and managing response rate and the intake process. One of the biggest takeaways from this discussion that Seth and Kristi agreed on was that you must be willing to invest in paid ads, or else you aren’t going to get leads or results.

Innovation: RoadProof

The episode ended with a discussion on Kristi’s innovation, RoadProof. Kristi shared, “I would say we’re about half of the marketing agency and half of a, you know, a development technologies company,” which is where the motivation for this product came from. RoadProof allows you to search for the video footage of your car accident based on the latitude/longitude, time, and accident date. You can instantly watch and download the footage and use it in cases. Kristi’s inspiration for this product came from working with many attorneys and wanting to help their teams be more effective. She shared, “Nobody else was crazy enough to do it because it was a big undertaking.” Through this invention, she has made a huge impact and helped accident survivors uncover the truth about what happened. Seth remarked, “If we’re gonna have big brother watching, we might as well have something more useful.”

You can watch this episode and catch future episodes of SEO Insider on BluShark Digital’s website, Youtube, or any podcast streaming services.