Spotlight: Debbie Kiederer

Digital Mindshare Spotlight: Debbie Kiederer, founder of ChalkDust Consulting/Co-Author of Beauty Pearls for Chemo Girls (Kensington Publishing, Sept 2009)

Debbie Kiederer has enjoyed an impressive career in creative marketing. In 2001 after many years spent in the retail cosmetics industry, creatively marketing luxury goods and premium consumer brands on a global scale, Debbie founded ChalkDust Consulting, a strategic online marketing and consulting practice. Her client list includes several Fortune 100 companies, wellness studios, promotional companies, marketing and advertising agencies, not-for-profits, music artists, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, including The Estée Lauder Companies, HBO, BBC, Autism Speaks, Karith Foster, and Grey Healthcare.

In addition to running her business and being active in civic and community activities, Debbie has co-authored the upcoming book, Beauty Pearls for Chemo Girls, with Marybeth Maida.

We were able to catch Debbie in the middle of a very active and productive day, and it was a pleasure to be able to interview her for the first Digital Mindshare Spotlight feature.

DM: In what ways has your business changed since you first started ChalkDust Consulting in 2001?

DK: It’s changed in so many ways. We are a web development company. I started ChalkDust as a maintenance company, strategizing how best to work with International markets, maintaining and modifying existing websites.  Then we transitioned into more strategy and development, and now we engage in strategy, development and maintenance. It’s really come full circle. Throughout 2007 and 2008, we secured a number of client partnering and strategy projects.

DM: How will the digital space be changing in the next 5-10 years?

DK: I have been in this space since 1996 – and of course have seen a lot of changes. I think there will continue to be such an evolution and no one can truly predict where it will be in the next decade. Even now it is on many levels much further ahead of where we all thought it would be just a few years ago.

Mobile is growing rapidly, and as it continues to develop, will certainly affect how people interact with websites. In fact, there should be such a switch — mobile is the first consideration, with the larger screen browsers as the “backup.” The push is on for technology to become even more transportable, and there will continue to be more innovations in the space to accommodate that demand.  How all this is marketed will affect its success.

I think changes will be twice as fast in the next five years as compared to the past five.

DM: One of the biggest changes to the digital space in recent years is the explosion of social media tools and user-generated content. You have a lot of corporate clients. Do they want to use social media tools, including blogging, to reach their client base?

DK: Actually, from my experience, blogging is not what they prefer to focus on. From what I have seen, corporate clients are not necessarily embracing the social media aspect of their web presence. They may do some blogging, and have a Facebook page, but they’re not adopting it as voraciously as the smaller brands and start ups.

DM: That’s surprising, since “social media” is such a buzz topic these days.

DK: I believe corporations are showing caution about blogging because the focus of their sites is a clean shopping experience and not a customer feedback environment.  A part of my client base is retail and the not-for-profit sector, and from my experience, social networking on their e-commerce or donation sites does not always fit with their strategy.

DM: So it’s as we have suspected, social media is a wonderful tool for smaller businesses, because it allows them to reach audiences they would never have the budget to reach via the more “traditional” media outlets due to budget constraints, but corporations don’t have this concern, and will wade into this territory with much more caution?

DK: Yes, that’s correct. The smaller brands are taking a much more aggressive approach to social media and networking on their sites, while the larger brands are communicating more on “outside” social networking sites and more traditional methods.

DM: Tell us about the digital strategy for your new book, Beauty Pearls for Chemo Girls.

DK: My co-author Marybeth Maida and I decided that there was no one true resource for wellness and beauty for women going through chemo. So we put together this book with 42 experts giving advice to the 650,000+ women diagnosed with cancer each year, plus their family and friends.

Right now we are embarking on the pre-launch publicity. The book will be published in late summer, and we are engaging in a viral approach to get the word out. We are planning to launch our pre-book-sale website and blog in mid-June, where you can get excerpts of the book, meet the authors, learn about upcoming events and appearances. Visitors can view an inspirational video similar to a movie “trailer” for the book itself. We have some very unique ways of selling, but we’re keeping that a surprise until the site launch in early September.

DM: So you’re really taking the “social media” approach to promoting your book.

DK: Yes we are – we are one of those “smaller brands” for which social media works so well!  We are setting up an online community for women going through chemo, complete with an expert section, and forums where members can share their stories and advice. We’re really hoping to embrace the chemo community.

We’ll be blogging, hiring interns for viral media, and doing all the usual things, including Facebook, Twitter, etc. The publisher allowed us to highlight our website on the inside back cover the book, giving us another great promotional vehicle, which is more like a “big company” strategy. This will drive additional traffic to the site, and build community membership. Our initial publicity strategy also includes more “traditional” approaches – a book tour, promotions in hospitals and spas, and radio appearances.

DM: What advice can you give to women who want to start their own business in the digital space?

DK: I’ll say this: I am 98% owner in my company, but I have never really thought being a woman as a CEO or President was unusual in any way. I came out of the cosmetics industry (I was Executive Director of Worldwide Creative Operations for Clinique Laboratories, Inc.), where there were mostly women presidents, high-level executives, etc. So basically all my role models were women, and the concept of women vs. men in business never even crossed my mind. Maybe I was lucky!

As far as starting a web development company, I had 15 years of corporate experience with a passion for technology, and ran a design studio for my employers with multi-million dollar budgets, so for me, starting a digital business was a comfortable space.

Interestingly, apart from my company and book, I am also looking to start a small business for women re-entering the workforce, possibly becoming presidents of their own firm. But I really feel that it doesn’t matter about being a woman or man – it’s where you are come from and what you can do with what you’ve learned.

One thing that I feel really helped my company initially was my network of successful executives who knew my work and ability, and were comfortable giving their business to me. For my company to be successful I had to have that network.

More importantly, I believe you should not start your own business unless you have a client you can engage right from the beginning. It is very, very hard trying to start a business and pound the pavement looking for that first client.

And during the course of your business, you also need to ask yourself, “What can I do in my business to remain competitive?” In my case, I discovered an untapped niche in the market so began doing maintenance of existing sites. That was considered the bottom of the web design industry – the dungeon of digital – but I knew that I could have clients right away by offering that. I was able to start with a constant, reliable monthly retainer income. Then I could move to development projects – because I had the cash flow to do it.

But to get back to the question – it’s really more about people than being a woman or a man.  I’ve rarely seen men only in the digital industry, and the reason for that is that there really are three aspects to the digital space: Strategic, creative, and technical. Tech is only one aspect of the digital space, which may still be considered predominantly male. The best work is done when all three elements are brought into the project. I came from the creative side, and I could always build a team that could pull together a robust, functional, beautiful piece of work…a site that would have shelf life.

DM: So, networking is truly the key to being successful here?

DK: Networking is definitely the key! And the networking aspect goes both ways – you need to have a network of people from which to find clients, but you also need to have an equally strong network of vendors, consultants, and employees so you can always put together – quickly and easily – the right team for each project that comes across the desk.