Interview with Colm MacGowan, Owner & Founder of 80/20 Digital

My name is Colm MacGowan and I am the Owner & Founder of 80/20 Digital, a Melbourne-based digital marketing agency with a 14-year track history and an outstanding reputation for servicing the SMB marketing in Australia. Having graduated with a Master's Degree in Marketing from Dublin City University, Ireland, I discovered my passion for digital marketing when I migrated permanently to Australia in 2002.

Starting off in sales as an appointment setter, I quickly ascended the ranks to become the National Sales Manager of the digital marketing team in one of Australia's largest media organizations. I was lucky to have some excellent mentors who guided me through best practices in Google Ads, SEO, website design, and lead generation.

80/20 Digital was founded in 2010 with a mission to change the way digital marketing is experienced by small to medium businesses in Australia. Having spent 8 years prior working in the digital marketing industry, I felt that there was a gap in the SMB market for an agency that would focus on real results and top-class solutions that would drive revenue and profitability.

Inspired by Richard Koch's bestseller, the 80/20 Rule, which focused on the principles of maximizing effectiveness while minimizing inefficiency, I immediately knew the name for my fledgling agency: 80/20 Digital.

Currently, I oversee business strategy, sales, and finance. I also dedicate a considerable amount of time to training our staff. The key things a professional needs to succeed in digital marketing are great communication, technical know-how, marketing savvy, and the ability to adapt to an ever-changing landscape.

I'm lucky to have a terrific team full of highly talented marketers that 'get' the mission we are on; to raise standards in the industry and help our clients achieve meaningful growth in their businesses. We focus primarily on direct response and lead generation for service-based businesses. We do a lot of great work in the B2B commercial and industrial space but also with professional services clients specializing in financial services, education, real estate, recruitment, legal services, mortgage brokers, education, and more.

It's all about the result. Sure, we talk about clicks, impressions, rankings, and click-through rates just like every other agency but for us, the only thing that really matters is achieving return on investment for our clients. That's the real figure that matters. We've won multiple international awards including NYX, for clients that have achieved a return on investment ranging from 525% to 1,800%.

Working in a team is always fun. I enjoy coaching and get a real kick out of watching my staff grow into their roles, achieve their goals, and become the best they can be.

We start with a marketing and brand audit to first understand the client's brand but also to identify competitors, key growth channels, emerging markets, and trends. Everything we do is underpinned by best practice research to understand who we are up against and how to differentiate our clients' brands.

We are delighted, humbled, and honored to have received not just one but 10 NYX awards for 4 different clients including Betta Fire Protection, PCR Accounting & Advisory, Davidson Property Advocates, and Showfront. Our staff was delighted, of course, but it was fantastic for our clients to get recognized and they were genuinely thrilled to have won the awards with us.

It's made a difference to our marketing, how clients perceive the quality of our work and also given our staff great confidence in knowing that the quality of their work has been recognized on a global scale.

A lot of time and effort goes into submitting for awards. Clients need to supply figures and approve the submissions, and then selecting the correct category is paramount. There's quite a bit of coordination involved but it's worth it! Nothing can wipe the smile off my face when we are in!

Australia has a huge SMB market. It never ceases to inspire me just how enterprising Australians are - they have a terrific get up and go attitude, which is important. You need that to run a successful SMB.

AI is changing the way everyone works and digital marketing is no exception. There have been terrific gains in productivity but what people are starting to figure out is that AI is only as good as the person driving it.

1. Achieving meaningful results for clients.

2. Technology evolves daily, quite literally, and keeping up means it never gets boring

3. Working remotely - our team can literally work from anywhere, all we need is an internet connection. It means we have been able to attract top talent from all over Australia and indeed the Asia-Pacific.

Search Engine Journal, SMK, and Wordstream.

AI will eventually change every medium as we currently know it. It's hard to know exactly what this will look like in 10 years but Google, email marketing, and social media will still be around, just in a slightly different format.

My father. He's the smartest, wisest man I know.

Get advice, learn daily, stick to your values, and build a team. You can't do it on your own.