We recently connected with Jomely Breton and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jomely, thanks for joining us today. Do you have any advice regarding quality control and maintaining quality as your brand grows?

When people think of quality control often they think of a product business. Actually, quality control is equally as important for us who provide services to other companies. Empire Bay Marketing was growing at a steady pace, this made it easy to maintain a balanced schedule. One summer this took a turn and we began to obtain new clients at a rapid pace, normally you would think that this is amazing but it can lead to chaos. We began to notice that our clients were asking for things like, “I want to make sure that x individual works on my account”. We knew that we had to maintain the same level of service that we have been providing to our previous clients and give the level of service we promised to our new clients. When hiring new employees we had to learn the balance between allowing our employees to have a voice and showcase their creativity while maintaining a level of structure with the deliverables. We were able to achieve this by having peers perform a quality check with each other, and yes this also means that when I am personally working on a project I will let one of my employees provide feedback directly to me. We strive in being a collaborative agency and not look at each other by our titles but as humans.

Jomely, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up around hard-working individuals. When I was a little girl in the Dominican Republic, I would see my mom baking cakes at 5 AM while my dad left to make deliveries at 4 AM across the country. My parents never showed me the struggles they went through, but yet encouraged me to learn about my own abilities and what made me happy and more importantly allowed me to explore my creativity with the classes outside of school that the community offered for free. My entrepreneurial endeavors started at the age of 8 when I would make name bracelets to sell at school, to me that was extra money for the piggie bank and nothing more, it was just fun to do. I did not realize that was entrepreneurial then! I came to the United States at the age of 11, after living in the big cities of New York and Boston I went to Tampa for college, I wanted to be admitted into the 4+1 graduate program though I did not know what I wanted my future to look like careerwise. In my first 2 years at The University of Tampa, I studied finance while aiming for a graduate degree and figuring out which big company I wanted to work for.

At the end of my sophomore year of college (2018), I was presented with an opportunity by RedBull to market myself as an individual and travel from Spain to the Netherlands with no technology or money. Which my team and I successfully did for 10 days. On our last night of the competition, we were able to bargain for a 5-star hotel in Amsterdam in exchange for a social media post and signed cans of Red Bull. I realized then both the power of Marketing and the power of social media.

I was already recognized on social media through my outlet of fashion which is when I started a clothing store at the age of 17. My first failed business attempt. Although I had the tools around me, I wanted to do it all by myself and did not listen to the experts.

In 2019, my former business partner and I wanted to do something new, and as we said, “clean the name of Marketing”. We noticed many small business owners complaining about spending money on marketing but not being catered to and/or listened to. This is when Empire Bay Marketing was born (Empire) because we wanted to help each small business around us build themselves in the community and create their own empire as we created our own. (Bay) since the idea was born in the heart of downtown Tampa Bay. Since then, the company has grown with clients worldwide and in 2021, Sara Muiños joined the team as my business partner.

We specialize in creative marketing. We offer services from graphic design, branding kits, and 3D renders to video production, photography, control product photography, and social media management. We can offer services a-la-carte depending on the needs of the client. We have worked with many companies such as beauty supplies, medical facilities, restaurants, spas, Influencers, coaches, and more.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Aside from Empire Bay Marketing, I am a content creator. I began creating content on Pinterest in 2011 and evolved with the other platforms as well. As the Co-founder of a marketing agency it is fundamental to understand social media, and how it is always changing. I personally built my audience on each platform by always staying true to myself. When I began posting on Pinterest I was showing my nails and outfits, when I started on Instagram I used to make Spanish comedy and showing my outfits. Now I created content surrounded by my lifestyle as an entrepreneur, my love for fashion, and travel diaries, and now while staying honest I am starting to add what’s new which is the life of a military spouse. I share these topics on all of the platforms that I am in but they are slightly different. For example, on Instagram, my largest audience is over 25 years old but on Pinterest, they are below 26, so I tend to switch things up depending on which audience I am talking to.

When it comes to my clients it is the same deal, understanding their audience is the most important factor. Once we understand who the current audience is on each platform, we create relatable content to maintain that audience engaged and on top of that, we create strategies to bring in a new potential audience that can benefit from the product or service that the business offers.

A pro tip, if you offer a service it is important to showcase the faces of those behind the business to portray a level of trust to that potential client. If you sell products, it is important for the potential buyer to see themselves using your product (which is why influencer marketing is so important). If you are a content creator, make sure you learn about yourself first, find those passions of yours, and use them for your benefit. One thing I learned is that you don’t have to stick to one niche, if you are a nurse by day and painter by night let both sides shine.

The last tip I have for someone starting out or revamping is to not try to be on all of the social media platforms at first, pick one or two platforms and excel at those platform before choosing to move onto the next and learn which ones are your strong platforms and which are your supplementary. For example, my primary platform as a content creator is Pinterst. I still use all of the other social media platforms, but on Pinterest I have a greater impact on making someone else’s day a little brighter.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

As a marketing agency, it is very hard to differentiate ourselves, people automatically assume “community manager, freelancer, just do social media, did not learn the subject” and more. What maintains us differentiated is our reputation. Although my business partner Sara and I are strongly proud of our years of experience in the industry since we both have over 5 years. We both have a Marketing BS and we both have Master’s degrees in the related industry. It is not about degrees and to be frank we both learned so much by ourselves such as certain adobe programs, blender programs, hiring, team-leading, or even how to work with a drone or 4k cameras. What maintains our reputation strong is that we are true to our promises. We do not offer more than we can give, and at any certain time that things may be hard or we are crunched on a deadline, we immediately communicate that we are troubleshooting with our clients. We learned that our name and face matter to our clients equally as much as the work that they are receiving because they trust our name and trust our work.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.empirebaymarketing.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/empirebaymarketing
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/empirebaymarketing
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/empire-bay-marketing
• Other: www.pinterest.com/iamjbreton/_created

Image Credits
Empire Bay Marketing