Brooklyn's Progress
December 2007/January 2008

BY KHADIJA BATUTA

Karma Martell is on a mission to help businesses update their marketing strategies for the 21st century.  While most businesses recognize the need for a press release, print or TV advertising and even a Web site, she notes they often fail to comprehend the role alternative media can effectively play in their marketing plans.

“Whether your business is a neighborhood storefront, a more broadly marketed consumer service or product, or strictly a business-to-business operation, its message must cut across both digital media and out of home and traditional channels to remain competitive in an increasingly flat world and digitized marketplace,” stated Ms. Martell.

Karma Martell is president of KarmaCom Inc., an integrated marketing firm founded in 1997, created to combine the then-emerging art of interactive and multimedia marketing, branding and public relations with best practices in traditional marketing communications.

“We help clients shape a clear, cohesive and compelling brand identity, value proposition and creative campaign that works well on all marketing communication fronts – traditional and new media, alike,” she explained.

New Media Puzzle
The term “new media” has described different communications vehicles at different times – cable and satellite television were new media 30 years ago – but what does it mean today?  Internet, electronic and mobile platforms – everything from email, mobile ring tones and video spots, message boards, IM (instant messaging), text messaging, blogs (Web logs), vlogs (video logs), video streaming, and electronic kiosks and billboards.

While new media can be part of a successful marketing and communications strategy, for many businesses, integrating the latest technology into their modus operandi is a daunting proposition on many levels.  Further, notes Ms. Martell, businesses often “short-circuit strategy” in favor of going straight to implementation.  This often results in disappointing outcomes whether employing traditional or new media.

So, she is committed to educating businesses through lecturing at various events for public and private business groups, including American Business Women’s Association, ITAC’s (The Industrial Technology Assistance Corporation’s) Fastrac program, as well as under the auspices of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.  A Member since 2005, Ms. Martell is very active at the Chamber, applying her company’s multi-pronged approach to her professional affiliations.

“Participating in the Chamber definitely helps heighten business awareness, which is a constant goal,” said Ms. Martell, who also served as leader for Ryze Brooklyn network.

Cyber Beginnings
Ms. Martell started her career in direct marketing – developing brands, product lines and new catalog media for Brylane/Lane Bryant and The Limited.  She created an $18 million department and grew sales by 900 percent in four years.  She also was senior director for a boutique New York public relations firm where she co-created a campaign for client Miracle-Gro that resulted in 100 million consumer and business impressions and the exit strategy sale of the company to Scotts, the industry giant.

With such success in the corporate world as an employee, what prompted her to venture into the risky world of entrepreneurship?

“I was convinced the Internet was going to be the most important and exciting thing happening in communications and I wanted to be a part of it,” explained Ms. Martell.  “I wrote a business plan to create and market an Internet portal to increase visitors for a tourist destination and its core business community. The plan was accepted and KarmaCom Inc. was born.”

In fact, KarmaCom’s inaugural project creating, developing and promoting the first and largest interactive regional tourism Web site in the U.S. delivered for the client one million unique visitors within three months of launch without conventional advertising.  Despite this early success, Ms. Martell’s prescient engagement with new media at a time when it was not proven in the marketplace presented specific challenges for the new company.

“Not only did I have to pitch the business, but I had to pitch the value of marketing across new media channels and marrying traditional marketing communications with interactive,” said Ms. Martell.

KarmaCom Now
Since launching her Carroll Gardens-based business 10 years ago, KarmaCom has grown to a core staff of four that often collaborates with key strategic partners, including Chamber Members Donald Schwartz, Imagelink Productions and Jaron Rubenstein, Rubenstein Technology Group.  The firm’s past and present client roster includes Blue Coast Financial Group, Community Voice Mail, Chef Ashbell, Ford Motors, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Metropolitan College of New York, PEI Beachpoint Seafood, Pinault Printemps Redoute, and Vermont Tourism.

The firm’s reputation has grown as well.  Chamber Member Robert Levin of The New York Enterprise Report tapped Ms. Martell to speak at their yearly marketing seminar.  The New York Times, Business Week and Adrants, among other advertising and trade publications, have reported on innovative work that KarmaCom helped execute for What’s Next Online – such as the first all-blog contest campaign for an internationally known travel company.  Plus, Ms. Martell’s ecommerce promotion strategies have been featured in Bulldog Reporter while PR Newswire has used her press features as examples of best practices in their closed-door seminars.  So what’s next?

“We’d love to work with more Brooklyn Chamber Members,” stated the Brooklyn native.  Ms. Martell is currently working with U.S. First Energy, a company she brought into the Chamber as a Member.

KarmaCom for the Future
Ms. Martell’s goals for KarmaCom include establishing the company as an outsource to larger marketing, public relations and advertising firms for which new media is not their core competency.  She also has several new media ideas and interactive applications that she would like to move from the drawing board to the marketplace. 

Keeping KarmaCom ahead of the curve, especially as new media increasingly shifts to the mainstream, is a priority.  Renewed concern for the environment has consumers eager to connect their values to their pocketbooks – a development Ms. Martell sees as an opportunity for marketers.

“My great joy is in creating, facilitating and executing ‘good karma marketing’ strategy where the client and consumer participate in an experience that rewards good citizenship and a healthy planet.  The socially conscious win-win-win scenario is, I believe, the leading edge of best practices in marketing,” said Ms. Martell.

To learn more about KarmaCom Inc. visit http://www.karmacom.com/.  Ms. Martell may be reached at 718-488-7810 or at info@karmacom.com.