BigTree: Ad agency attracts clients from all over

Ti Liptak is focused on Conversion Rate Optimization, turning a visitor into a customer on your website.

David Sinton is focused on Traffic Generation, driving the right visitors to your website. Wendi Dixon is focused on Business Strategy and Development

The approach of the entire Big Tree team takes a holistic look at a business's website to help them navigate the complex ecosystem of online marketing.

About a year ago, it just exploded. Big Tree Marketing co-founders and owners David Sinton and Ti Liptak worked for three years implementing digital growth strategies for successful businesses. It's going so well they find it's a good yet awkward turning point. They now have a backlog of new clients from across the nation so this means they need to extend their staff base, do more recruiting, and let people know that Big Tree is growing.

The partners would love to talk to interested young, smart people who have a love for Fairfield and want to work with a creative team in the stable and dynamic job offerings posted on their website. No experience in this market is necessary to apply.

Joint project

Sinton and Liptak had been developing their own unique skillsets over a decade and it was a joint project for Overland Sheepskin Company which first tested their working partnership. The results produced for Overland were astonishingly successful and inspired them to build Big Tree. They realized they were the exact pairing of pieces that fit together like a puzzle. It is to this synergistic creative outflow they credit the business explosion because it is greater than the individual components.

'For me, creativity is tapping into something deeper than your surface level thinking. It is not like solving a problem by banging on the problem,” Sinton says as he taps his forehead. 'It's like finding some deeper inspiration as a way to solve that problem. So creativity could be a new way to present knowledge so people are able to understand it. Creativity could be a beautiful design for a web page, how you use color, motion, plots, and typography. It's like tapping into that fluid state where things just come out of nowhere. Creativity makes this work fun and dynamic. There is a lot of laughter in the office; it is very interactive.”

Liptak says, 'Creativity is coming up with elegant solutions to challenging problems. I feel in this area particularly there's so many potential solutions, very out-of-the-box creativity. So our clients are coming in with these goals and there's a million different paths in order to achieve them. What is the most effective and efficient way we can come up with given the skillsets of the people we have on the team? As those skillsets grow, as we have more team members, then that repertoire expands. It could be marketing, design, or the relationship side of how we communicate what we are doing so that our clients understand. They can communicate it to someone on their executive team making it tangible and acceptable for everybody. These opportunities to be creative in how we approach solving all of those challenges is fun and I love it.”

Ad agency

Within the developing industry of digital technology, this fresh Sinton-Liptak partnership describe themselves as a high level digital ad agency which works with clients' well established brands to implement digital growth strategies. Sinton's expertise is using digital technology to target the right brand message to the right audience who become visitors to a client's website. Liptak's strength is using digital technology to turn a visitor into a customer which they call conversion rate optimization, efficiently connecting the right audience at scale and then to continue to grow that relationship year after year. The final component is lead-nurturing, meaning using analytics and measurement to ensure leads become customers and lifetime customers.

On Big Tree's website are the names of some companies which have benefited from the synergy of this creative working relationship, such as Thor Industries, Green Building Supply, MarathonFoto, Aerion Supersonic, Netstock, Sea to Summit, Natural Gear, The Search Monitor, and Cornerstone Academy. The diversity of these companies exemplifies the ability of Big Tree Marketing to create a unique working relationship with each company it assists.

Balance

Since digital never sleeps, how do these focused partners find the balance between the constant call of the technology and their family life? Sinton says after seeing Silicon Valley tech companies realize how dangerous burn out was to their productivity, Big Tree developed balances of work/life components as an important part of their company culture. They were personally inspired to set boundaries and not let work completely take over.

So what is it that keeps these innovators in Fairfield and the region?

'The quality of life here is really high,” Sinton said. 'We do a lot of business travel and it's like wrestling with your environment; all the traffic and all the people. It is nice to come back to the quiet. You can walk or ride your bike to work with little traffic. It is the slow pace of life which allows us to be super effective at what we do. It is important to us there is a lot of clarity that comes in a little, quiet, peaceful town.”

Benefits

Wendi Dixon said she thinks it is remarkable these two young gentlemen have focused upon making career paths and a high quality of life for other people who come to be a part of their team. When hires come onboard there is a career path lined up, training as the work progresses, and paying people as they ramp up. Big Tree offers a full range of benefits which includes health benefits at a very affordable rate, retirement benefits, and a gym membership.

'They have made a unique place here: hard working, smart, determined people who deliver to their clients but they want people working in their company to have an excellent life,” Dixson said. Sinton is known for riding his bicycle to work and back home to eat lunch with his wife and child. After mentally pressing heavy analytics at work, Liptack said his balance happens through physical weight training at a local gym he and his wife started about eight years ago. Dixson admitted that occasionally there are emergencies that keep people late, so by way of thanks the partners took the whole team on a trip to Montana Glacier National Park in early July. 'Yeah,” Liptack quipped, 'no cell phone service.”

Could that be us?

Then he exhibits the deep questioning nature he has fostered, as he ponders aloud: 'We both grew up here. We saw a whole progression of business in Fairfield, like Telegroup, Books Are Fun, MarathonFoto, and now Cambridge. We have been thinking, ‘What is the next business type in Fairfield? Who is going to create that? Who is going to sustain the economy here? Who is going to bring outside money in? Who is going to hire a substantial work force? Could that be us?' Basically what we decided in the spring of last year was – yes. From a product standpoint, the offer could definitely be that. Are we going to actually be able to build a team in Fairfield and scale to that level of business? We didn't know then but it is starting to happen now. It feels like we're more confident. Our generation needs to step up and actually create some of these businesses in Fairfield.”

They believe they can do it after seeing Overland hiring to keep up with all the growth it is experiencing. The partners say it is super rewarding to know their creativity affects Fairfield. There are a lot of smart, talented people and Big Tree has been fortunate to grab some of them – hopefully they get more. As they go after bigger clients and international clients, it surprises these guests what the Midwest is developing here. As Sinton now targets young visitors with the right message to draw them to Big Tree in Fairfield, Liptak optimizes the turn of visitors into new team members, together these partners will nurture the creative flow in each one hired which will develop the skillsets of lifetime leaders for tomorrow's businesses here and around the world.