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

Mike, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some the biggest trends emerging in your industry

As far as I can see, we’re about to see a seismic shift in the way content is created, comparable to the final days of the Print industry. We’re not quite at the point where video content is at risk, but we’re close, and written content is certainly up for discussion. The point is to adapt and understand the tools that are being used so that they can facilitate better content and help streamline workflows and make the creative process more efficient. Think of it this way: a calculator is only as good as the information you feed it. AI language models work on prompts and unless you can interact with them intelligently, it’ll spit out a word salad of nonsense.

Another thing I’m seeing is that we’re about to experience a major shift in the way Search Engine Optimization is being approached. Organic SEO is important, but the way information is being searched for is changing and I think Search Box Optimization (SBO) is going to undercut a lot of the SEO industry. We’re actually about to launch something that I believe will turn SEO on its head. Take a look here for more info on that: https://meritusmedia.com/search-box-optimization/

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I came to the US about 25 years ago, and was here as a competitive surfer. Since that line of work has a distinct shelf-life, when I moved away from it I leaned on my Design Degree and started freelancing around at Ad Agencies and picking up whatever work I could. I started Meritus Media with my mom and my brother, who both had a PR background and it seemed like a logical fit to start a digital marketing and PR company with our combined skills.

We focus on SBO, SEO, branding, web development, written content, social media management, PR, reputation management and online brand visibility.

We’re a boutique agency and have a partnership in place with an amazing video content production company as well for all live video, 2D and 3D animation projects, etc. — which as a team makes us a full service, end-to-end creative agency.

Conversations about M&A are often focused on multibillion dollar transactions – but M&A can be an important part of a small or medium business owner’s journey. We’d love to hear about your experience with selling businesses.

We worked with a client recently to help with the purchase of their company. Our role wasn’t to do with the actual sale negotiations, but rather in managing their online presence to put them in the best position for the best possible purchase price. We worked with them for about six months to a year, to clean up any online reputation issues, and build a digital presence that was of the highest quality. This included a major SEO overhaul, social media, content writing, etc. The project was very successful and the company was sold for a higher asking price than they had anticipated. The lesson from this was that any CEO or company looking to enter negotiations for a sale must consider their online presence as part of their assets. If you’re looking to sell a house and the plumbing and electrical doesn’t work and the roof is caving in, you’ll never get your asking price.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

We handled a launch campaign for a new running shoe. Our role was blogger outreach, and we knew from our research that running bloggers were especially loyal to their chosen shoe brands and getting them to switch was a near impossibility. We also needed to get the blogger’s home address and shoe size so we could send them a pair of shoes to test. So it was an uphill battle from the start. But we put together a very smart and creative campaign that ultimately ended up winning us an award.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://meritusmedia.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikefalkow/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MeritusMediaInc
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/meritus-media/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@proactivereport
• Other: https://falkowcreative.com

Image Credits

Ray Kachatorian, Jodi Kassowitz, Stephanie Girard