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

Alright, Dearra thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

D.W. Digital is a digital marketing consulting firm located in the bustling city of Chicago. As a black and woman-owned business, we specialize in providing customized and strategic marketing plans that are specifically designed to help small businesses from BIPOC communities grow and thrive. Our approach is unique, utilizing consumer data, marketing psychology, and community building to create plans that resonate with both the client and their target audience.

Our primary mission is to create a sense of community within businesses, allowing for more meaningful engagement with their audiences while still maintaining a targeted approach. We strongly believe that a business should be more than just a product or service; it should be an integral part of the community it serves. We employ collective impact principles to help our clients achieve this goal.

During my tenure at a non-profit organization, I learned the importance of collective impact, which refers to a collaborative approach involving community members, organizations, and institutions working together to achieve equitable outcomes through learning, aligning, and integrating their actions.

At D.W. Digital, we have adopted the principles of collective impact to create a collective space where potential customers feel like they are part of the community. By fostering this sense of community, we are able to establish a stronger bond between businesses and their target audience, resulting in more meaningful engagement and ultimately driving sales.

Moreover, we apply collective impact principles in our collaborations with other marketers to overcome marketing challenges and learn from one another. Instead of working in isolation to grow our individual platforms, we collaborate to achieve greater success as a collective whole. This approach not only enhances our marketing expertise but also allows us to support and uplift our fellow marketing professionals.

Dearra, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

The marketing industry was not initially on my radar. I was studying Fashion Merchandising in school, but found that it was more science-focused than I anticipated. As a result, I lost my passion for the industry. However, after taking my first marketing class, I was hooked. The classes were interesting, and I knew that this was the career path for me.

After graduating in 2019 with a marketing degree, I landed a full-time job at a long-term care pharmacy. Despite being overwhelmed with handling all aspects of marketing, I was able to identify my interests and strengths within the field. Unfortunately, I was laid off, but I took the opportunity to work part-time for a non-profit during the pandemic which taught me the importance of community impact.

In 2021, I landed a job at an automotive marketing agency, where I noticed the lack of diversity in the industry. This experience was painful and made me feel undervalued and unseen. However, it led me to create D.W. Digital – a digital marketing consulting firm that specializes in serving BIPOC businesses. My goal was to create tailored marketing plans for a reasonable price and provide opportunities for BIPOC students interested in marketing.

One of the things that I’m most proud of is that I was able to hire interns this year to help with marketing and copywriting work. The majority of my services include strategic planning for businesses, including social media marketing, email marketing, and overall marketing strategy. I also use my background in strategic planning and project management to help clients with organization and priority management.

In addition, I focus on the psychology aspects of marketing to enhance the decision-making processes of consumers and to make our strategies more effective. It’s essential to understand how emotions can influence consumer behavior and connect with audiences on a deeper level. Understanding social influences and group behaviors can also help with persuasion and create better connections with consumers.

Finally, my business is dedicated to building and strengthening communities. By creating a collective space for potential customers to feel part of a community, we can foster meaningful engagement while still targeting a specific audience. In this way, we can achieve population and system-level change by aligning and integrating actions to advance equity.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One lesson that I had to unlearn in my entrepreneurial journey was the idea of throwing ideas/strategies against the wall and seeing what sticks. For a few years, I found myself getting stuck in the planning and thinking phase, rather than taking action and implementing my ideas. This approach caused delays in my progress and missed opportunities that I could have otherwise capitalized on. While it is crucial to plan and strategize, it is also important not to get lost in overthinking and miss out on potential blessings simply because we don’t feel ready or believe things are not perfect enough.

This year, my mantra is to “fail fast and fail forward.” I am committed to putting myself out there, taking risks, and embracing failures as opportunities to learn and grow. By doing so, I believe I will be able to approach things differently and continue to move forward in my entrepreneurial journey.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I made a commitment to grow my business like never before this year, with the goal of expanding brand recognition across the Chicagoland area and growing my community. This resulted in a flood of opportunities coming my way, but with that came an overwhelming amount of work. I found myself working 12+ hour days and my mental health was suffering as a result.

Realizing that I couldn’t continue on this path alone, I reached out to friends within the marketing industry to see if they knew anyone who could help. After about a month, I was able to find interns and an assistant to share the workload. While this helped alleviate some of the stress, I’m now at a point where I need to pivot my business and think bigger than ever before.

In order to sustain this level of growth, I need to ensure that my processes and foundation are stronger than ever. This means that I must be willing to take risks and explore new opportunities to push my business to the next level. I’m excited to see where this pivot takes me and what new heights I can reach with the help of my team.

Contact Info:

• Website: wwwdwdigital.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/d.w.digital/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dearraw/