We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful CleAndrea Hayden. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with CleAndrea below.

CleAndrea, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

This is such a great question. Legacy – it’s huge and I don’t know if we talk about it enough. As I build my agency from a small business to a multi-million dollar entity, I think about what I am growing in terms of impact – how many people will be impacted by the work that we are doing. I am hopeful that my legacy will be one to include advancement, empowerment, and exposure.

Inked Digital Marketing Agency was created in part because I love the digital marketing space, however, with my experience in Corporate America, working in tech companies, I noticed that there were few to zero agencies invited to the “table” that were led by women who looked like me, African American. It was jolting. So with my agency, I work very diligently to bring talented, brilliant, dedicated African American women into the fold, whether they are part of our immediate team or vendors and partners we work with for our clients, with the hopes they are able to advance their careers, are empowered to lead a life of their dreams and be exposed to the vase opportunities in the industries we work with.

One of the services we provide at the agency is Influencer Marketing – identifying influencers and content creators to participate in campaigns offered by our clients to help promote their products or services. According to a 2021 study conducted by PR agency MSL and the Influencer League, the pay gap between Black and white content creators was found to be right at 35%. I firmly believe that the creator economy can help individuals build mega businesses and empires, if they lay the proper foundation, however, it’s hard to do that if the playing field is lopsided. I am intentional about advocating for fair pay and opportunities for creators of color. Over the last couple of years, we’ve worked with almost 100 influencers and creators, the majority of them black and brown men and women. While in partnership with many, it’s been my pleasure to educate them on the industry, empower them so that they can negotiate good and fair rates, and expose them to additional partnerships and opportunities.

I hope that when I am no longer in the space, people are positively impacted by my intention of assisting them to advance, feel and be empowered to pursue more and are exposed to opportunities to help them create lives they love to live.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am the founder and chief digital strategist for INKED Digital Marketing Agency, where we help our clients develop permanent relationships with their customers using the ever-evolving social media landscape. We provide our clients with robust and effective social media marketing plans, content strategies, and influencer marketing campaign creation and management. We work with brands in the beauty and lifestyle space; servicing clients such as Super Bowl Gospel Celebration, Flawless by Gabrielle Union, Creme of Nature which is a Revlon brand, and KISS Colors & Care.

I’ve worked in the digital marketing space for more than 15 years. I started my career in digital marketing and had absolutely no clue what I was getting myself into. I landed my first “big girl job” and had an amazing boss, who functioned as a mentor to me, taking me to the side, and sharing the in’s and out’s of how digital marketing worked. For that I am grateful and it certainly helped lay my foundation. After a few corporate positions, I started offering my services as a freelance consultant, and once I realized that I could not only obtain clients, I could also keep them, I decided to embark upon developing the agency.

Inked Digital does great work, superseding the expectations of many of our clients and for that I am extremely proud. But I think bigger than that, I am most proud of the relationships we’ve developed over time, with our clients and agency partners. Our relationships are a major key to our success. One of our guarantees is that we will become an extension of the brand’s marketing department – we become emersed in the products and services being offered and we go above and beyond to make sure our clients are pleased with what we provide.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

It all starts with our mindset.
Early in my agency, I took on a client with an agency partner – we offered social media marketing for this partnership and I was very, very excited about it. However, mentally I was not ready for the opportunity. I wanted it, I knew I could do a good job at it, but it was a BIG partnership – it was my very first corporate client. I remember sitting at my desk, saying to myself, “oh, this is such a big partnership, I am not ready” or “I can’t believe I am doing this, it’s too big.” Well, about 8 months into the project, my thoughts had turned into a reality. Because I hadn’t performed the way I knew I could nor how the brand expected me to, I chose to exit the partnership. There is a quote by Henry Ford that says “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right”. My mindset was fixed on the idea that the partnership was too BIG and that I couldn’t do it. Now I’ve learned that if I am at the table, in partnership with top businesses and brands, I belong there AND my team can meet the expectations!

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

Most of our business has been built from relationships and word of mouth advertising. I think it is important for us to remain connected to current and past clients. I am a firm believer of saying thank you to those who recommend us – by sending small tokens of appreciation and thank you cards. I love to set up coffee and tea meetings with industry colleagues; virtual coffee meet ups are a favorite for those who might not be in the city of Chicago. We send holiday gifts and plan to begin sending birthday cards, because after a certain age – all we receive in the mail are bills – that’s no fun!
We also have a newsletter that we share with clients to keep them in the loop of successes we have at the agency and reiterate how we can provide that level of success to them if they need it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.inkeddigitalagency.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inkeddigitalagy/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inked-digital-marketing-agency
• Other: My personal LinkedIn account is:
  https://www.linkedin.com/in/cleandreahayden/

Image Credits

Imani Modus

Inked Digital Team

Rochelle Mann