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Jared Antista

Founder & CEO
Jared launched IOI in December of 2019 and quickly scaled the business to 19 FTEs & 30+ clients. With a focus on the youth sports and hospitality space, his reputation for delivering results sets the tone for the culture of IOI and its employees. As a multi-sport athlete (soccer, baseball, basketball, track), Jared learned to fight for the wins, sacrifice for his teammates, and find the positives from his losses. All this and more has translated into the successful business owner he is. He preaches urgency, attention to detail, & an entrepreneurial mindset and holds the IOI team to these core values. Jared has a wealth of experience leading both sales and marketing arms for brands like IMG Academy, Legacy Global Sports & Go Pro Workouts and continues to push the boundaries in the digital marketing and lead generation space.
Jared's

Superlative

Most likely to overdose on Altoids & Seltzer Water.
Jared's

Motto

"Never stop working hard, complacency leads to replacement."
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Jared

The team Jared puts up with.

Jared
Melanie
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Sofian
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Abby

Articles by Jared

IOI Insider

Where Marketing and Sales Collide

Let’s face it – marketing and sales will always compete for the title of “MVP,” and both can make some pretty strong arguments. We often hear the “without marketing there’s no brand, no following, and no leads!” or the “without sales, there’s no deals, no customers, and no revenue!”  At IOI, we view the two as a kick-ass team, and when in sync, can be a game changer for a growing business.

So – should there really be a “collision” between marketing and sales? The answer in our book is no! 

To know how they sync, let’s break down a few core functions of both sides, that in part, represents the potential customer journey. 

  1. Establishes your brand, communicates your message, and puts your products and services into words. 
  2. Creates engagement and curiosity – generates prospects and builds your ideal audience. 
  3. Nurtures your prospects – warms them, helps identify those who are most interested, etc. 
  4. Learns your customer – asks questions, collects key information, etc. all relevant for the sale. 
  1. Makes it real and authentic for the prospect – people NEED human interaction.
  2. Makes it personal – people need to hear and see how exactly your product/service will solve their problems.
  3. Creates credibility and trust- people need help and guidance. A good salesperson shows why your company are the expert and offers value to your prospects that marketing cannot. 
  4. Qualifies or disqualifies prospects- a good salesperson can quickly determine whether a prospect is qualified or not. The ability to disqualify a lead quickly is invaluable and can save thousands of dollars wasted on selling to the wrong audience. 

Let’s bring it home by using the youth sports industry as an example. Today’s youth sports space is as saturated as it has ever been. The number of leagues, camps, tournaments, pclubs, online programs, etc. seem to increase daily, and many are promoting the same value proposition. Families often research all the options for their kids before even engaging with a salesperson.

An effective marketing strategy (website, digital content, paid ads, email campaigns, etc.) successfully sets your brand at the top of mind of your target audience, clearly differentiating you from the competition. 

Your sales team must come in and be the difference. It’s not enough to just explain your programs and services- everyone does it. You MUST connect with your prospects on an emotional level and earn their trust. Parents need the assurance that you believe in your product, and that you’re going to help them reach their goals. Combine this with the valuable insights gathered by marketing, and you’re set up for success. 

I’m often drawn to this quote that truly sums it up: “Despite the complexity of technology, selling is still relationship management. Buyers may prefer brands, but they reserve loyalty for people.” – Tom Reilly, Sales Expert and Trainer.

Want to sync up your marketing and sales? Let’s get started!

Uncategorized

A 14% Conversion Rate. How About Them Apples…

Tough times these days, eh? COVID-19 is changing the way our clients do things. Their willingness to pivot and take risks is refreshing and shines a positive light on the current situation. Maybe it’s because they have to, not all small businesses are going to survive.

Our role as a marketing partner is to support their vision and use best practices to provide an ROI and roadmap for future endeavors. Here is one client story that unfolded over the past few days that gets a W.

Create & deliver a Virtual Camp to customers. Drive a free experience & push sales during the promotion.

The GTM Plan: The marketing budget was set at $150 dollars and the campaign was to run for 6 days. Daunting task on the surface but what the heck, tough times right? Using a variety of social paid channels, we set the spend.

As for the creative, it’s all about the ad message. Sure it needs to look professional, but if we have one second to get their attention – it better display what we’re offering. The ad was simple: short & sweet text which told the prospect what they needed to know… without reading a word.

Next, we focused on targeting and while we won’t share all the details, spending more than five minutes on targetting is probably a good idea. 😜

We created two ads to run on Facebook & Instagram (see above). The first was the event creation & promotion ad and next a lead generation ad. Once an email address was received we dripped the leads with email content via Active Campaign.

In total, we generated 665 engagements or as we call them leads. Our cost per lead was 22 cents. 🙌By Saturday morning we converted 540 of the 665 to Zoom registrations, that’s 81%. BOOM. Knowing that things come up, we plan that roughly 50% of those who registered will bail when it’s showtime. And as it so happened we saw 280 active participants on the Zoom link. Our job is to drive leads but it is important to note that the deliverable experience is what will provide the true ROI. In this case, we are truly blessed. This client was made for Zoom meetings. Being able to keep 280 youth athletes engaged for 60 minutes is honestly mind-blowing.

What is more interesting is that the program our client delivers is so good that many of these customers become repeat customers. Even more encouraging, we will slow drip the 86% that did not convert in the first hour with future program deals. We know we offer a good product as we also survey all participants and more than 95% loved the content.

Hire us – we deliver.

Bonus: Need a Zoom pro? We can introduce you to one!

Contact IOI Ventures