The Evolution of Marketing & Business Growth with Rick Jaffe, Founder of EPS Communications

What marketing strategies have stood the test of time, and how can businesses adapt to the digital age without losing their foundation?

In this episode of Curve Ahead, host Brian Wiles sits down with Rick Jaffe, founder of EPS Communications, to discuss:

✅ How marketing evolved from direct mail to digital & AI-driven strategies
✅ Why relationship-building & listening are still the key to success
✅ The role of short-form video & social media in modern branding
✅ How technology has changed creativity, advertising, and design
✅ Leadership insights from building & scaling a business over 30+ years

#MarketingStrategy #BusinessGrowth #DigitalMarketing #AIinMarketing

Transcript

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Today on Curve Ahead, I am joined by the founder of EPS Communications, Rick. Rick. Do you mind introducing yourself? Yeah. Hi, I'm Rick Jaffe, president of EPS Communications, and I'm very happy to be part of this podcast with Brian. It's great to have you. So you started EPS quite a while ago. What was the inspiration behind it? And at the end of that school year, the first school year that I was there, parent took me aside and said to me, you know, you've taught and or coached three of my children. I've never met you, but my kids have all positive things to say about you as far as your, the way you talk to students, the way that you interact, the way that, you know, you motivate. I'm actually, I used to be a teacher and I have been asked to help bring a company from the UK over to the United States. And I'd like you to come over for drinks, you know, and talk to you about the opportunity. So I did and we discussed it and within a week I was flown out over to the UK and learned about the direct response world of travel. And that's, you know, how I learned about how important lists, creating lists were names and how to communicate to those names and get them to convert to sales in order to travel throughout the world. I was, it was actually the largest direct response travel company for seniors in the United States. It was called Saga Holidays. And I worked with this CEO, his name was Jerry Foster, and he mentored me. And I learned every facet of the business. And one of the largest facets was how in fact, do you create marketing collateral materials back in those days and invoke an emotion to get them to call an 800 number and book travel? You know, in the 90s, there were only three or four different ways in which you could communicate and motivate people to get to a brand. You could do outdoor, which were billboards, you'd be in the newspaper, you could be on radio, you could be on tv, you could take ads out in certain publications. So, you know, those were the vehicles. Fast forward today. Of course, those vehicles completely altered. They haven't gone away. But more importantly, you've got many other variables that you can market through social media. But let me back up a little bit back to the day. For me, learning the skills of creating marketing materials was invaluable. And the first thing I did, I actually hired an ad agency and came, you know, that those people, they were copywriters, they were designers, and then they worked with lithographers and topographers learned how to work with different printers. So my knowledge grew and throughout my tenure there, technologies, new technologies started to come about. And the first was of course desktop publishing and working with an Apple. And I remember getting the company to say, let's get a Mac 529 and start writing copy using the Mac 529 and outputting RC paper and then laying the, you know, we hired our own creative team internally and we started cutting and laying out pages and you know, saying, okay, here are the photographs we've taken. We're going to put it together. To make a long story short, I learned how to create a catalog. And then the technology got better and better. Well, after, you know, I decided I got recruited to a competitive firm out of New York actually. And from I was the VP of marketing and sales. And what I did was take all of the knowledge that I had and bring all of that creative in house Instead of working with an agency. I helped them get to a point where we sold the company and I took my piece of the pie and I started eps. Along the way, you know, I got involved with the national association of Desktop Publishers which, you know, gave me even the ability to start talking with some very senior people, whether it be with Adobe, whether it be with PageMaker, you know, all of the different softwares back in the, even in the 80s. So when I decided to start EPS stood for electronic Publishing Services. And what I wanted to do was work with really good designers who had no concept of utilizing a Mac and say, okay, you come to us with your creative thoughts. I don't care if you scroll it on a napkin. What we'll do is we'll implement it for you and we will utilize this desktop technology and start creating pages for you. And you could take those pages, output it to a laser printer and a color laser printer and show your client, see if they like it. And then if not, you know, you come back and put the expense and time frame gets smaller. Well, technology even got more powerful as we all know. And you could, instead of going to a 300dpi laser printer, you ended up going to a 1200 point electronic device. You know, from a scanning perspective, instead of using million dollar health scanners, you could scan it on a small drum scanner. So we started buying that equipment. So we became, and instead of, you know, as the company evolved, instead of me working with outside designers who needed those help, that help, and because of my direct response marketing understanding, I started to become my own agency, brought in my own designers and worked directly with clients myself. So I really was the AE and I had a really great team of designers, writers. We ended up getting our own, bringing in our own photographers, getting into digital photography. We were actually the first company to ever work with scitext. Instead of shooting to film, we shot directly to what we call a brick. And then that went directly into the Mac itself. Started using Photoshop and QuarkXPress. So it just, you know, we were a unique agency that grew rapidly because of the use of technology, because of time frames. We, we had different segments of the business where we dealt with retailers, whether they were in the apparel business, footwear business, because that helped them. Companies like Reebok, for instance, you'd send over the shoes, we'd shoot the shoes if they needed to color alter. It was a lot easier than waiting for the shoe to be manufactured and then reshot again. So the time frames to create the collateral materials they needed, you know, sped up and got less expensive to produce. So I, the business got, you know, had a number of segments where we focused on retail, we got into health and wellness, were in travel, leisure. So it just grew rapidly and because of my team of people, and that's really what has always driven the growth of the business is the people that are dry, that are utilizing the technology were very smart. I can share with you one great anecdote because it's 34 years later since I started the firm when I, within the second year of the company, in order for me to outfit the amount of people I had and to have the technology that was needed to utilize and get good collateral materials out the door. I took a million dollar loan out that same company. Today, if I started it with the same amount of people, I could do it for under $25,000. So you know, that's where this company has gone. But you know, in the end, 34 years later, it's still, and I don't care what people talk about what AI could potentially do for you. I still believe it's people like myself who will listen to what the client's needs are and come back with first and foremost the objectives. Here, here is what we heard and here's how we believe we could integrate and partner with you in order to create more sales for you. So that's really been the philosophy of the company. I'm still at it and love it. And you know, for me what has changed is the way we're communicating to one another. Whether it's. You can do virtual business. You know, we could have clients all over the world now, Whereas, you know, 34 years ago, you'd have to. It was a very expensive proposition going coast to coast. Now it's not. So, you know, because I've been around and because we've done really good work over the years, the company is still going. We've. We've existed and we've been very successful. So there's a couple of points in there that I'd love to ask some questions about. First, you had mentioned that you were a teacher and a coach. Has that helped you overall as being a business leader, having the ability to. To teach and to guide people inside and outside of your organization as a teacher and a coach? I believe it's the greatest asset that I have my education. I had one great professor in college, and he was my advisor. He was also a teacher, and he also was one of my coaches. And he always told me, you know, the success that you'll have is be able to look somebody in the eye, shake their hand properly, and be honest with them, and do that on a consistent basis, you'll be successful. And I think, you know, at the end of the day that it has been my greatest asset to be able to listen, communicate. You know, I got to tell you know, I taught chemistry and biology in college. I barely got out of chemistry, you know, so for me, it's a constant education. You're constantly educating yourself. You're constantly wanting to listen to smarter people than yourself in order to get to the best solution. You know, the amount of software and upgrades that we've seen over the years, the technology alterations over the years, the needs of clients, the way that, you know, when you were trying to grow people's lists for them, you know, you spend a lot of money, whether it be in the mail with postcards, you know, getting people to refer friends, you'd rent lists. Now it's, you know, whether it be Google, you know, advertising In Google advertising, YouTube, you know, there's so many different ways in which you can grow people's lists that are more streamlined, more efficient, but at the end of the day, it's still about the messaging. How do you motivate? And as a teacher and a coach, that's was what I was taught, and that's how I go about my day. There's some. I've had a couple of conversations with business leaders who've been in business for quite a while, you being one of them. And it always kind of comes Back to the same thing is that regardless of what it is that you're doing, you're still like, as long as you're B2B, you're still in the people business. So understanding people, listening, being honest, like those core pillars of just being a genuine good human, like, carry you a long way for a long time. So that's kind of like an underlying theme that I've picked up over the course of the past year through these conversations. You know, I've only lost business. Here are the ways I've lost business over the years. Companies get bought, so, you know, that's one way that we lose out. Management changes, so people want to bring in their own teams. I've never been fired because we didn't do a good job. And it's because when you listen to a client's needs, and here's a perfect example, one of the largest, and this is in the late, these early 2000s, one of the largest direct response companies in diabetes had an issue, and their biggest issue was losing clients. You know, you get them to sign up, you start, you get them to go. But for every one client they got new, they were losing a half a client. So the CEO said to me, you know, because we were designing their website, they hadn't even gotten into doing interactive media. He said, rick, you know, how do I not lose people? And I said, you know, I don't know if you remember a guy that was in the clothing business. His name was Sims. And he said, the greatest consumer is the most educated one. I said, so what you need to do is educate these clients on the importance of testing and the importance of doing certain things in order to be a compliant diabetic. He says, well, how do I go about that? I said, well, let's create a magazine. Let's create content that people can enjoy reading, associate themselves with and associate you and your brand with that information. And we ended up creating this publication that became the largest circulated magazine on diabetes in America. And it was a phenomenal opportunity. But, you know, it's because you listened. It's because, you know, you saw that particular need. Getting new leads every day wasn't the issue. It was maintaining those leads, retaining people, customer service. I mean, why, you know, is Amazon so successful? It's because they're service when you put an order and you get it the next day, well, hell, that was pretty easy. Let's continue to do that. So, you know, that's what business is all about. Give people what they need and what they want at a. And you'll become very valuable. So there was going back a little bit. You were talking about how when you first got started, you had to take out a million dollar loan to be able to outfit the people that you hired. And now that same, you know, same equipment for them to support those same individuals would be only 25 grand. Tell me what repercussions there are in the marketplace now because it's such a lower barrier of entry. That's, there's the million dollar question. You know, when you start a business like mine, you know what the competitive landscape is. You know, there are big agencies, you know, multinational agencies, there are mid sized agencies, there are boutique agencies. Day anybody that has a Mac and, or a PC is my competitor who thinks they're creative, who thinks they could put three, you know, lines of text together. So you know that's an issue that, you know, you didn't have to deal with. You also had big, you know, agencies where, you know, creative people said, well, hell, I don't want to be part of a big agency. I'm going to start my own right out of my living room. I know who the clients are and I'll just focus on three or four clients. And you know, the problem in that environment is a simple one is when you're heads down doing the work, what you're not doing is looking for the next job. So you're doing the work, then you gotta collect your funds, you know, and then you gotta hope that there's a renewal coming with that particular client. You know, so one of the things that, you know, has always benefited our firm is that, you know, somebody like myself is always looking for the next opportunity. You know, you look at what transpired go, you know, with the pandemic. How many boutiques and small agencies don't, didn't really survive the situation itself, their clients. You and I both know that one of the first things cut in a corporate budget is marketing. So you know, if you have only one or two clients and you know, their marketing budget gets cut, you're out of a job. So you need to always be looking. I've always said to people, my own kids, while you have a job and if you're unhappy, look for a job while you have a job, while you're working on a job, you need to be out there scouting for the next opportunity as well. So that's something, that's a philosophy that I've always had. I love that. Right. Like for me, I was actually at one of those large multinational agencies during the pandemic. Pandemic. So that was kind of a, it was interesting, right, because some organizations definitely pulled their funding because they weren't, they were very uncertain about what the future looked like. But other organizations just, they leaned in. They, they, and it's interesting the results that they saw because since they able to advertise in a space that was cheaper, they saw more bang for their buck. And then they continued to grow through the pandemic. So it was, it was interesting who decided to move in with marketing and who pulled out. It was, and you had to look at, you know, what you were selling, you know, what could, like travel and leisure was a very difficult vertical to be in during that particular situation. But the companies that were able to continue to keep their brand out there when it was ready for people to travel, they, their sale, you know, they went in 2019, they were here. Then it went like this. But then coming back, going down, then coming back into 20, 23, you know, numbers started to rise and 24 and 20 and going into 25 looks absolutely spectacular. There was pent up need, desire, pent up want. You know, the markets all went up financially, opportunities existed for people to want. But if you hadn't marketed during that time frame, your brand, you wouldn't have survived, you would not have continued the efforts. Now agencies like myself, who represented a number of those folks, had to make a decision. And that was because, you know, there was really no income into those corporations, but they wanted to continue their efforts. You had to reduce your fees in order to, you know, maintain the relationship. And that's what we did. And I think that, you know, that helped tremendously. You know, on the other side of it that people said, wow, that was really generous of you. Now you've got them for the future. But knowing kind of that you focused on retail, health and wellness, travel and leisure. Do you not seek travel and leisure? Kind of fell off. But health and wellness, did that pick up in that same time frame for you guys? Yes, yes. You know, illnesses never go away. I don't care what you know. So we, you know, were very fortunate. One of the other verticals, which I didn't make mention, which was a huge vertical for us was higher education. We represented a number of major league schools from mit, bu, bc, where were focusing on driving folks to their master's programs and that whole vertical fell apart going into the pandemic. You know, people just A, didn't have the income and. Or B, you know, schools weren't even taking on the enrollment during that time. So that's kind of funny because my personal story is like, when Covid hit, that's when I went back and actually got my master's. I was like, well, you know, I've got the time now. Like, I can't go out to dinner. I can't like, do all these other things. I guess I'll start my master's degree. And that's when I ended up getting my mba was during COVID When Covid hit. I entered my degree August 2020. Good for you. Congratulations. Thank you. All right, so what else can I help you with? Me with? I'm not sure. Well, you're a marketing guy, you're an agency guy. Tell me what you think the trends are. Ooh, okay. I'm on the other side of this now, huh? Some of the trends I think that we're going to see. The biggest trend that I'm seeing, people really want to start leaning into is short form video. And that's one of the reasons that I do these meetings, right? Is that I have long form content that can be cut down into short term short form video. And I think more and more people, as we see platforms like LinkedIn start learning leaning into short form video, we're going to see more and more video and have LinkedIn become more social, but also have the same credibility for like the buying cycle. So because it is more of a professional network, I think it's something like 70% of people are like considered qualified buyers for most B2B applications. Being able to lean into short form video on LinkedIn is going to be a big thing in the next year and a half. I agree wholeheartedly. I actually been pitching that for quite some time. I believe short form video, you know, people's attention spans, you know, 30 seconds to a minute and a half at most lately. And I think that's the great. It's, it's, look at TV ads, if you remember, they're 15 seconds, 30 seconds and one minute at, you know, cost. So sure, why not do the same thing on these platforms? I mean, look at what Instagram is, You know, people get sucked into and TikTok gets sucked into these. Why not get it on a professional basis? Yeah, I completely agree. And as long as the content is relevant, right, so it's about creating relevant content to that application. This does fine on unreals and on TikTok, but I think really the audience will see the largest engagement through LinkedIn because this is more of a professional based conversation. I agree with you. Hey Brian, what's your thought of where AI fits into our world? That's a great question. So AI is a fantastic tool and it's just that it is a tool. It needs humans on the input side and on the output side. So like use it quite a bit for coming up with content ideas, but it's really on me to vet the ideas, to execute the ideas. It's not like I can't just put a prompt into AI and come out with something that's so brilliant that I have to use it right there and then how it sits. Like it takes some finessing from myself or my team to be able to make sure that the tool's output is usable in an everyday application. I love it as a tool, but it's really just as good as the person who's using it. So I've spent the last year or so playing with AI, creating different prompts. I've got a prompt library out there that's publicly available for anybody who's looking to kind of get started and having a starting point when it comes to business and marketing and contract creation. Like, I've run AI through the paces, but it takes a lot of time of back and forth to be able to get output. On the other side of that, there's a lot of tools that have been coming out recently to support like development and I think that those tools are great also for people like myself who I would consider myself semi technical. I know enough to be able to get myself into trouble, but I'm not like a full blown coder that I can go in and start prompting AI to be able to generate enough code that I can put it in a compiler, start debugging it and going back and forth with AI applications to be able to execute on the code that I'm looking for. So I think that the tools are rapidly evolving. I think right now we're starting to see kind of this wild west. We're seeing more and more tools come out. I think in the next three to five years we're going to see major players come out and it's only going to be those major players that kind of stick around long term. But I also think that there's a. Another part to AI is that there's so many organizations that are coming out and saying that they're doing something with AI and it's really just kind of like a chat GPT wrapper that they haven't put a lot of thought into, that they're really not doing anything new with their own technology. They're leveraging something that's commercially available. In my mind, I think that's, this is going to be controversial. It's kind of cheating, well, the way of the world. I agree wholeheartedly your commentary, you know, if I have voiced the same mindset as far as AI is concerned and it's still, it still is somebody who's thinking, who understands what the need is and in order to feed the information and it's a tool and what you get back out of it, you can, you know, you can utilize some of it, all of it, none of it, but it's just another checkpoint, another good tool at this particular time. So I'm on your same page and. I mean with all of that said, right. I think that if people aren't taking the time to learn how to prompts for AI in three years, they're going to be left behind. Yes, I agree with you. Yeah, well, it's no different. You know, when desktop publishing started, if you didn't, you know, when you went to school back in the 90s, there was nothing that you could learn. You couldn't learn software, you know, in school, which, you know, now you can go to college and become a graphic designer utilizing, you know, the tools that were created 25 years ago. So, you know, time changes. The same thing will change with AI. You know, I've got grandchildren who are 10 times more technically astute than I am at this moment because they're grown up with this technology. So, and that's, you know, people's mindsets on what they will use in order to get through their day has changed dramatically. You know, we don't watch TV the same way. I mean regular TV is not watched. You know, you don't. The advertising that you see is very, whoever spends the money on TV ads buying in time frames with, it's usually around sports, so is where most of those ads are running. But you know, we're streaming now. We, we don't want to spend the time looking at advertising, 15 second spots, 30 second spots, you know, even watching the news. Now if that happens, you go to the next, you know, news program. So from our marketing perspective, you've got to be far more innovative in the way that you're going to try to capture people's attention. And I, you know, go back to what you just said about short form video. I think it's, it's the way to go. It's going to be the next thing, you know, creating a good video is not an easy task. That's where you run into certain issues as well, is the professionalism of getting things done are going to fluctuate. People just using their iPhone is, you know, not the way to create good video. You can get it done, but it's still, you still need that professional messaging. Yeah. I mean, that kind of goes back further in our conversation of lower barriers of entry. Yeah, right. Like the, if you would have thought in the 90s that you had a tool that you could carry around in your pocket that pretty much can do anything that, you know, a calculator, a camcorder, an editor, like a camera, like you would have been like, no, it's not possible. Let me tell you, in the 90s, you know, a fax machine was the most brilliant thing we ever had. I can remember my first cell phone was this brick, this huge thing, you know, and the installation in your car, you know, you had it, you had to go and get it installed properly and have antenna. So, you know, yes, things are different, you know, in the way they, things are produced and in a smaller scale. But at the end of the day, it's still, there are two things that are important. You gotta listen and listen well. And then, you know, you've got to transcribe that listening into a, a great objective. And if you can pull those two things off, you'll be successful. And then you've got to have a team of people that can implement that really well and create good quality material. Love that. So, Rick, I appreciate your time today. At the end of each one of my podcasts, I give my guests opportunity to pitch anything that they're passionate about. So in your case, you can plug EPS or a charity or mentorship or coaching or whatever. But without further ado, the next 90 seconds belong to you. Here's my preaching as far as EPS is concerned. I've always believed it's a family business and I believe family comes first, whether it's your own, your wife, your kids, your grandkids. And you treat your staff as you would want to be treated by them. And that's what's important as far as pitching EPS to other clients. People will find us because of our reputation and because of the way that we communicate to them and the way they communicate to us. And I'm happy, you know, be getting up and being happy will usually create, you know, you to becoming a very successful individual. So my last comment is get up in the morning, tie your shoes, go out for a run, get some exercise and come back and think well and you'll do well. Rick, I really appreciate your time today. Thanks again, Ryan. Thank you.