Why I Love Working at Direct Online Marketing

Before I start, I want to make something clear for everybody.

I volunteered to write this blog post.

Nobody told me, or even specifically asked me to do it.

I saw the opportunity to finally write something like this, and I took it. Why?

Because I genuinely love working here.

Now, if you’re somebody who knows me, you realize what a big deal this is. I am almost famous for being a cynical and grumpy sort. I would never just gush about loving my job without some kind of motive.

Except, that’s exactly what I’m doing right now. I can’t help it.

About two years ago, when I first saw the content specialist job opening for Direct Online Marketing, I was a little stuck on the company’s name. Usually, an agency is either going to have an unusual name like “Purple Immortal Alchemy,” or it’s going to be a list of the founders’ names like Sherman, Sherman, McDoogal & Thromdoodly. But Direct Online Marketing is just so…well, direct.

It’s like calling a sandwich shop “Sandwiches.”

Now, after having been here with the company for more than a year and a half, I don’t even think about the name anymore. I can’t imagine it being called anything else. What I do think about is how crazy it is that I still love my job after all this time.

Below, I’m going to go full TMI and tell you all of the reasons why I love working here, and why chances are good that you would love it too.

People Are Treated Like People Here

Probably the most important thing about working at Direct Online Marketing is that we’re all treated like people. We’re not numbers or employee IDs or productivity machines here. We’re all people.

Even the owner, Justin, treats us like equals. But what exactly does that mean, “being treated like people?” Well, I’m going to do my best to quantify it for you.

DOM Has a Culture of Encouragement (Not Punishment)

A lot of other agencies I’ve worked for had this horrible habit of punishing people for not succeeding. If the boss didn’t like a creative’s ideas, punishment. If an account executive messed something up with a client, they were punished.

When I say “punished,” I mean several things. Sometimes it was public humiliation via dressing the offender down in front of the office, sometimes it was crumpling up ideas and throwing them in the trash. The worst was making employees fear for their jobs.

At Direct Online Marketing, none of these things happen. There is zero punishment. Instead, there’s a culture of encouragement. We’re encouraged to try new things and to be proactive. When we mess up, we’re encouraged that it’s not the end of the world and, instead, it’s a learning opportunity to help us do better next time.

In fact, we have a “culture of failure” here. Basically, if you’re not failing every so often, then you’re not experimenting and thinking outside the box enough.

I can’t really put into words what it’s like to work at a place like this. I’m never afraid for my job, and I feel like I have the total backing of my manager and my coworkers. When somebody says they think I did a great job, they actually mean it. There’s no competitiveness or feeding each other to the sharks.

Talk about a breath of fresh air.

DOM Understands That We All Have Lives

I’ve never applied for a job that didn’t mention “work/life balance,” and, until now, I’ve never had a marketing job that actually attempted to maintain it. There was always a sense that anybody who left the office before 6:30 PM is weak and not committed enough to success.

It’s not like that here at all. I honestly don’t even think anybody made a big deal of it when I was interviewing with Direct Online Marketing. There was no “work/life balance” sales pitch. it’s just the way things are around here.

Everybody knows that everybody else has lives and responsibilities. If your kid is throwing up and you need to take them to the doctor in the middle of the day, just make sure your boss knows and go do what you have to do.

I don’t think I’ve ever done overtime here because I had to. I’ve spent some evenings after-hours doing work because I wanted to, but nobody even knew I was still working. I just wanted to make sure this or that thing turned out especially well, so I put in some extra time to polish my work.

The Managers Here Are Awesome

Managers are technically bosses, but at Direct Online Marketing it doesn’t feel like that at all.

Here’s what I mean: When I’m sitting at my desk, and my boss walks up behind me, I don’t get that prickling sense of fear on the back of my neck. In fact, I don’t get nervous at all. It doesn’t even cross my mind to be worried that my boss is standing behind me.

Chances are that my boss is just there to give me an update on a project, or to ask me if I’ve ever tried pickle flavored potato chips.

The reason for this is because the bosses at DOM are here to actually help us. They want us to succeed. They help us with project management, and they keep us organized and happy. And I’m not being flippant when I use the word “happy” there. The bosses here want us to be happy.

If we’re going through it and really feeling the crunch, this is a place where you can feel 100% comfortable telling your boss that you’re having a rough time. They won’t reprimand you, or humiliate you, or get angry with you. They’ll ask you to talk about it. They’ll try to work with you to figure out what’s holding you back, and then they’ll do what they have to do to fix it. Sometimes that means shifting around work, sometimes that means calling a meeting between yourself and a strategist or somebody else to figure out a better plan of attack.

Managers at DOM are kind of like shepherds for our careers. They’re working on our behalf to make sure we have the easiest time possible getting our tasks done. They’re also having conversations with us about what we want for our careers, and then helping us put together plans to achieve those goals.

This 100% ties back into how DOM treats people like people, and it’s unlike anything I’ve experienced at any other job.

The Company Is Successful and Driven

Direct Online Marketing is a company that’s shooting for the top. I’m not exaggerating. We’re doing everything we can to become the best digital marketing agency on the planet.

And you know what? I think we will probably pull it off.

It feels amazing to be a part of a company where everybody is just so capable at what they do. Everybody who works here is incredibly intelligent and interesting and fun to talk to. Everybody has a sense of humor (especially the people who laugh at my jokes), and everybody is willing to share their knowledge with you to help you become more capable as well.

You know that feeling you get when starting a new job that we call “imposter syndrome?” Well that doesn’t really happen here. From day one, everybody is made to feel welcome and that they belong here.

All of these things end up driving and sustaining our success. In fact, we just got named in the Inc. 5000 as a fastest growing company. We’re shooting for the stars, and nothing can slow us down.

This Place Provides Amazing Job Security

Probably the scariest thing about working in marketing is how things can become disastrous if your company loses one or two major clients. Next thing you know, half the company is being laid off, and it can happen just like that (I snapped my fingers, but you couldn’t hear it).

That’s not really a worry here at Direct Online Marketing. I mean, yeah we want to keep all of our clients. But our leader, Justin Seibert, is a wise and powerful businessman. We just don’t lay people off because we haven’t had to. There’s a security in my life now where I don’t feel like I could find out I don’t have a job all of a sudden.

This makes sense. After all, we’re a digital agency, and the whole world went digital in 2020 and never really looked back. There is a massive demand for our services, and there probably will be for as long as the internet is a thing.

To sum it up, I get a lot of great sleep at night because I know we’re in good shape.

We Excel in a Bunch of Industries

At DOM, we’ve had a lot of success with a lot of clients in a bunch of industries. Our top 6 are:

• SaaS and technology
• Healthcare
• Higher education
• E-commerce
• Manufacturing
• Companies looking to export into new international markets

That’s a pretty eclectic list, which means I never get bored as a content creator. One moment I’m writing a 1000 word blog about how to digitally optimize your retail business, next moment I’m writing about a business-class cybersecurity suite.

We Know Where We’re Going

We’re now growing in the direction of lead generation for B2B and B2C companies, which is exciting in itself. It means that we’re going to be providing more services for more clients. On a more selfish note, it means I’m going to get to work on more cool projects that will let me flex my creative brain muscles.

DOM is a company that is never stagnant. We’re branching out and doing new things, and there’s a plan for how we’re going to get it done.

DOM Provides Opportunities for Growth

When I was interviewing to work at Direct Online Marketing, I was very open and honest about how my writing ability was much more developed than my understanding of SEO. The manager who was interviewing me said something along the lines of “That’s OK. It’s easier to train a strong writer on SEO than it is to train somebody to be a strong writer.” Boy oh boy, they weren’t kidding either.

From basically day one, I was presented with every training opportunity I could hope for. I’ve been trained extensively on a number of subjects, and I’ve grown more, professionally, in my time here than I have probably in the past 10 years combined before I started at DOM.

Everybody who works here is given the same opportunities for growth, and you’ll be surprised where that takes you. If you want to be a manager here, they’ll put you on a path to become one. If you’re an artist who has a secret passion for data analytics, they’ll foster that passion and help you achieve your data-driven dream.

We Work a Hybrid Schedule

I love working at home. I barely even have to make myself look presentable, and I get to spend the day with my myriad cats crawling all over me and being adorably annoying.

Other people prefer working in the office, and I can understand why. It’s just easier to communicate when you can walk over to somebody’s desk and get the information you need. Also, there’s a sense of comradery that simply can’t be properly cultivated in a totally online environment.

Well, whichever you prefer, DOM makes it possible for you to work that way. We are given the choice to work from home a few days a week, but we don’t have to. If we want, we can spend every day in the office.

But again, we don’t have to.

We Don’t Lock Our Clients In

Our clients pay us on a monthly basis. That means they’re never locked into a contract that they don’t want anymore. That kind of contract-based business leads to tension and awkwardness between agency and client, and that’s just never a fun time for anybody.

Instead, our clients are all with us because they want to be. If we don’t help them the way that they want, or they feel like we’ve gotten them to a point where they can handle things on their own, our clients are free to just walk away.

That being said, most clients stick around for the long haul.

This relationship with our clients leads to more collaboration and just an overall better connection between our people. In some cases, it even leads to friendships.

We Have Total Transparency With What’s Happening in the Company

Every two weeks, we have a meeting called State of DOM. In this meeting, Justin addresses the entire company and provides a completely transparent view of things like our pipeline and future plans for DOM.

It’s really an incredible amount of transparency that I’ve never experienced at a company before.

In fact, there was a State of DOM meeting on the day I started. Here I was, fresh faced and still totally blanking on everybody’s name, and I got to experience one of these meetings where everything about the company was just laid bare in front of me. It was sort of mind blowing. In all of my time here since that day, that level of transparency has never waned.

We’re GROWING

I mentioned earlier that we made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies. I actually didn’t need that list to know how incredibly fast we’re growing.

We are constantly getting new employees, and each one is welcomed with open arms and brought into the fold immediately. We all sign a card for each new person that walks through the door, and we have virtual meet and greets and create just the most positive and welcoming environment we can. And none of it is forced. We are all actually excited to bring new people in.

There’s Very Little Turnover

Very few people have left the company since I started, and I very much understand why. People like it here. They don’t want to go anywhere else.

Sure, sometimes opportunities come up that people just can’t ignore. That’s going to happen. When it does, we all celebrate the person’s decision to move on and genuinely wish them the best.

A Google Of Other Things

There are a whole Google of other things that I love about working here at DOM.

For example:

• It’s a casual and chill environment the vast majority of the time.
• We can give each other “Good Onions” for helping out, and when one person gets ten of those they get a gift card. I think I spent my first one on a couple of meals from Five Guys.
• The benefits are great. I have good healthcare, a lot of PTO right out of the gate, a wellness program, annual profit sharing, 401k, etc.
• Everybody has pets, and we all love talking about them and sharing pictures. The Wheeling office is even dog-friendly, and the Pittsburgh office probably will be soon.
• There are a lot of fun team outings to Wild Things games, Top Golf, kick ball, family picnics, etc.
• There’s also a DOM happy hour every two weeks on Thursday if you want to knock a few back and get a little goofy with your work peeps.
• We’re a Premier Google Partner, which means we have an actual working relationship with Google.

You Should Want to Work at DOM

By now, you’re probably thinking something along the lines of “Dang, I really want to work at DOM with Chris.” And that’s exactly what you should be thinking. It’s just so awesome, radical, and tubular here, and I wish I could find a way to say that without sounding like a Ninja Turtle.

Luckily for you, we’re pretty much ALWAYS hiring for some position or another. CSMs (people who work with the clients), campaign strategists, data analysts, sales executives, and more, there’s always one or more job openings.

Here’s what I want you to do now. Go to our Careers page and read through it. If you don’t see an opening that fits your skills, don’t worry. Chances are good that we’ll be hiring for it eventually, so check back frequently.

Trust me, this will almost definitely be the best job you’ve ever had. I wouldn’t be here writing this if it wasn’t.