We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ky Schultz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ky below.
Alright, Ky thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, one thing many business owners consider is donating a percentage of sales or profits to an organization or cause. We’d love to hear your thoughts and the story behind how and why you chose the cause or organization you donate to.
Lure Digital donates our services to various organizations in our local community in Santa Barbara. This year alone we’re collaborating with several nonprofits in the Santa Barbara County: Alzheimer’s Association, American Cancer Society, Storyteller Children’s Center, Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber, Women’s Economic Ventures, and Jodi House.
Since we’re a video marketing agency and production company, what we offer is to film and photograph local charity events as they happens. Priding ourselves on a quick delivery, we share all photography for use on social media, in newsletters, for blogs, etc, immediately — so they get an instant need met for their PR related initiatives. We then take all of the video we filmed and create a short recap for them to share on the same outlets or for internal stakeholders (typically about one minute in length). Finally, we create a :30 second promotional video that can be used prior to the next event to encourage more attendees, donors, and interested parties to attend.
I feel that a lot of nonprofits are so focused on meeting fundraising goals for their cause that they actually miss opportunity to raise money, due to a lack of awareness or proper excitement or buzz about their upcoming event. Generally, a huge marketing budget is not usually something that a lot of these nonprofits have. Since Lure Digital is a video marketing agency and production company that not only produces content but also helps our clients efficiently use that content, I truly feel that our services can generate more revenue for them than if we were to simply donate a dollar amount.
Ky, 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?
Lure Digital is a video marketing agency and we make commercials, corporate videos and social media content. I’m Ky, and I’m the founder of Lure (more on how that happened later).
Lure started as a production company, but we found that we were creating a lot of great quality content for clients who weren’t utilizing it. It hurt me to watch them invest so much into a video for it to receive only 50 views on YouTube—and take their brand nowhere. So, we pivoted to become a video marketing agency. The difference between us and a production company is that we root every part of the creative process in strategy (and we have the ability to make part in every part of the creative process). In concepting and pre production, we start with the objectives for each video campaign and the ultimate platform for distribution. Then, we analyze where the content will be going, consider the best ways to produce content for said platform (whether it’s a broadcast commercial for TV, social media, a digital ad, etc), and consider how this piece of content fit into a brand’s overall marketing strategy and brand story. In production, we really focus on appropriate quality and let ourselves be driven by creativity. Finally, post production, where additional opportunities often present themselves to make a piece of content better (which could mean more entertaining or it could mean we find an opportunity to bring in the brand earlier, or something similar). Then, if we are working with a mid-tier client, we can help manage the content we create on their social media channels. By being more involved and keeping strategy at the forefront, we help our clients get better returns on their investments.
An example of embedded strategy can be seen with some of our large-scale clients (like Energizer Holdings, LLC) where we partner with the brand to test initial concepts, scripts and animated storyboards (called animatics). We analyze these results, and we optimize creative to deliver the best product possible. This helps ensure that we are creating content that connects with a brand’s target audience in the most effective way it can, delivering the return on investment I think brands deserve. Ultimately, we’re connecting audiences with brands (whether it is products, services, software or
anything else you can imagine). That’s why at Lure Digital our tagline is “Creatively connecting people to brands.”
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
Well, it all started on Craigslist… really. I was going to Brooks Institute to become a Director of Photography and I needed to pay my bills throughout my education. I had a few miscellaneous jobs including repairing boilers, assembling skateboards, and even some pet photography, but I didn’t feel those were really helping me towards my career. Since Brooks was based in Santa Barbara and not Los Angeles, it was very hard for me to do the usual film school go-to low wage job of being a production assistant (PA) on larger productions to gain industry experience. Enter Craigslist.
Back then, a lot of small to mid-sized reputable local businesses would post their video production needs on the boards. I responded to a few postings and actually got a few responses and eventually a few jobs. Even though I just wanted to be a cinematographer, I would do everything: pre-produce, produce, direct, DP (finally), and then edit the videos together. Turns out, I really enjoyed the end-to-end process of production, and tried really hard to make it feel like my clients were being taken care of by someone who could do it all. Because of this, these clients began to refer me to other businesses. I eventually built my network of small businesses and I would film all kinds of content for them, all while helping to pay my student loans.
The ideal referral finally came when I responded to an ad for a short film. It was a lot of work with no pay… but it seemed like a good opportunity to get more experience and do something narrative. While going to school full-time, I drove to LA every weekend for a month to complete production. These were 12 hour days with roughly two hours of driving on either end. The director loved my work (and hopefully my work ethic) and referred me to someone who was looking to create a promo for her children’s book. At the end of the children’s book promo video, she told me: “My son owns a company that I think needs video, I’ll refer you to him.”
I didn’t think much of it, since I had gotten this job from a free job prior… but this time was different. I received a call from James Segil, the writer’s son and a serial entrepreneur who owned a company called Edgecast, which (spoiler alert) was eventually acquired by Verizon (yes, that Verizon). I rented gear from school and showed up by myself to film some brand videos and holiday content. Edgecast liked it, James liked it, and we kept working together.
A year or so down the road, Edgecast was then sold to Verizon. All of a sudden, Verizon was my client! Lure began to take full form, and I realized that although I loved being a cinematographer, I had so much more to offer as a business owner. Fast forward to me hiring employees, having Bria Little join as Head of Production (and our now Creative Director) and we filmed our first large scale production featuring 16 carrier pigeons and an ostrich in our new studio for (you guessed it) Verizon Digital Media Services.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
For me, it all boils down to communication, persistence, and dedication. Originally, it was simply work ethic and a desire to succeed, but as time went on I realized how important communication really was.
So, at Lure, our clients value our communication with them. We are fast to respond, and we ensure we speak in a way that the client understands. When I was starting Lure Digital, one of my newly acquired clients simply said that they hired us because we responded in a timely manner to their proposal. Lesson #1 in being timely.
As you can glean from my story, it was 100% persistence and dedication to push through a lot of those low-level jobs with the dreams of building something similar to what I have now. It was long hours, no pay, putting in the extra time just to make the client happy, and a whole lot of driving up and down the California coastline (I spent a LOT of time on the Pacific Coast Highway avoiding traffic on the 101).
We now take these three same elements (communication, persistence and dedication) and multiply them to reach each and every milestone at Lure. But what has changed the most is that I now have a team that I can really trust. The team is incredibly important to me, and it is important that each and every one of them understand how Lure was built, share those same values, and is always willing to go the extra mile for our clients, or for that referral or that one opportunity that will catapult us to the next level.
Contact Info:
- Website: luredigital.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luredigitalofficial/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LureDigital/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/luredigital/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/LureDigital
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgp0gnCJ-48_2W_QE2LddJQ
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lure-digital-los-angeles
Image Credits
Karla Espino, Bria Little