If you’ve spent any time at Yalo, you’ll know that diversity is more than just one of our buzzwords—it’s a commitment to how we hire and how we work. That’s why we’re proud to announce that we’ve earned a Certification of Minority-Owned Business from the National Minority Supplier Development Council’s Georgia Division.

As an Atlanta-based marketing agency, Yalo is 100% minority-owned, with 45% female and 22% minority employees, including African American, Asian, Latino and LGBTQ.

As Georgia’s leading advocacy organization for small business development and supplier diversity, the Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council (GMSDC) certifies Minority Business Enterprise firms, assists them in preparing to engage global supply chains, and supports partnerships with corporations and governments in need of their goods and services.  

We firmly believe that diversity fosters creativity, innovation, and better problem-solving, and are dedicated to maintaining a workforce that reflects the communities we serve. This certification will allow us to help corporations with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives to meet their supplier goals and metrics. We’re excited about these new opportunities to expand delivery of our award-winning marketing and advertising capabilities to a broader and more diverse client base.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council and their efforts to support minority-owned businesses, check out their website at nmsdc.org.

If you’re interested in learning more about Yalo, you can meet our wildly creative (and diverse) team of writers, strategists, designers, developers, tech gurus, managers and leaders on our Tribe page right here. For more about us or to engage with Yalo for a project to enhance your business brand, please scroll down below to access the Contact button.

A popular host has created some calm, and some serious hope, in this crazy economic climate. Dave Portnoy, founder of the media company Barstool Sports, launched a fundraising effort for small businesses affected by COVID-19. See the quick hits of his approach that raised over $16M.

The Yalo team salutes Mr. Portnoy for his humanitarian business efforts!

Well, what can I say about 2020, other than this year has been one wild ride on a crazy roller coaster (queue RHCP “Love Roller Coaster”)? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and then it was the best of times, again (queue Styx “The Best of Times”).

Our 2020 started out like gangbusters. We were on a rocket ride (queue KISS “Rocket Ride”) for the first 10 weeks, signing 2 contracts per week. Then the pandemic hit, with the shelter in place orders starting on March 16^th. The next 10 weeks, we didn’t sign a single contract. Someone/ something basically drained the rocket fuel right out of our rocket ride, and the free fall started.

And for our clients, I have described the pandemic as a see saw. Some of our clients were hit hard by the pandemic (i.e., the end of the see saw hitting the ground with a thud) while other clients had their best years ever (the other end of the see saw shooting into the air). We had a client’s CEO on Jim Kramer (that Wall Street guy on that TV show “Mad Money”) state that their company just “had the greatest sales week in the company’s history.” We here at Yalo felt both ends of that see saw in our clients. The impacts on our Q2 were like many others, a significant downturn in our billings.

So, what did the Tribe do? The Tribe did what the Tribe has always done. We woke up on March 16^th, went to work on behalf of our clients like it was just any other day. We didn’t even have an internal meeting to discuss how we were going to do things differently due to this pandemic. That’s because we have always worked in a distributed model. Working from home, not in an office, not in-person with our colleagues is just everyday practice for us. We had the teamwork, the trust, the communication, and all the technology in place to carry on with zero disruption in our ability to serve our clients with the same high quality and efficiency as they are accustomed to from our Tribe. So, the Tribe put our heads down, charged ahead, and supported our clients through some of their darkest days, helping them to pivot, stay agile, and communicate with their audience, swiftly and successfully. I believe through these trying times, that our relationships with our clients have grown even stronger.

Now, don’t get me wrong. We took our share of lumps in Q2. Projects not started. Canceled projects. Projects put on hold. We were down 40% in billings (QoQ). But in addition to our continued support of our clients, internally we did 3 key things.

1. Our BD team went aggressively into the market to find new brands that we could help, reaching out to 5000+ new targets per month. Through this effort, we met with nearly 200 new prospects in Q2 alone, putting our brand in front of new potential clients.
2. We created new service offerings to help our clients. We rolled out a new Virtual Event as a Service, created a new Design System Manager (DSM) solution via a partnership with InVision, offered UX/UI strategy via a partnership with FullStory, and built a Social Media Sentiment analytics program using the VADER engine (developed at Georgia Tech). This has grown the Yalo arsenal of capabilities that we can offer to our clients, helping them in more ways, and creating more projects for the Tribe.
3. Lastly, we really amped up our own brand presence with a shiny, new website and stepped up our communication game via social and email. Our brand presence has been in full gear ever since the summer. On LinkedIn, our organic impressions increased by 6000%, on Facebook by 3500% (YoY). Our number of LinkedIn followers doubled. Our website traffic hit a new gear, achieving a 100% increase in sessions AND in new users and a 70% increase in pageviews (YoY). Our email program (which goes out to 40,000 subscribers) is averaging 12% in open rates and 45% in CTR. We have put a tremendous amount of new eyeballs on our brand in 2020, and we are confident that this will pay dividends in 2021.

The Tribe’s sweat and hard work paid off in the second half of 2020. In Q3, we grew our billings by +42% (QoQ) and signed our largest deal of the year. In Q4, we grew our billings again by +55% (QoQ), and we had our largest billings month and quarter in our agency’s history, by a country mile. By the end of 2020, we will have a +25% increase in billings and a +24% increase in contracts signed. Oh, and we signed our 100^th client in Q4.

I couldn’t be prouder of the team we’ve built here at Yalo, the culture we foster, and the grit+attitude that our Tribe brings to the dance every day for our clients, for our teammates, and for themselves/ourselves. We eagerly look forward to 2021 with hurricane force tailwinds at our back, propelling us forward into the new year. We will continue to be aggressive, looking for new relationships, new clients, new projects, new partners, and new solutions. It’s time to “Rock the Casbah” in 2021. Are you with us?

There are a lot of ways to express ‘100.’ A few that come to mind are “Benjamins,” “Perfect score,” “Hundo,” “Aces.”

But the best way I can express the pride and satisfaction that comes with having signed our 100^th client with our agency is “WHOA!”

Through our eight-year journey, from a one-man shop to our 100^th client as a growing creative agency in Atlanta & Cleveland, we’ve had some great moments. Some twists and turns in the road. But, always moving forward, onward, and ahead.

This blog is my dedication of our gratitude and gratefulness to all who have contributed to Yalo along this amazing journey.

First off, you can’t get to 100 without a few firsts. A big bear hug goes out to the firsts.

• Our first client was Novelis, an aluminum manufacturer. Thank you to the team for their trust and confidence in getting us started.
• Our first team member was Denise Cowden, as a contractor, who by the way is still with us! Incredibly thankful and grateful to have Denise still with Yalo.
• Our first full time employee was and is Anne Dawson, who again, is still with us! Anne is our equivalent of Renee Zellweger when she leaves her big office job to join Tom Cruise in, Jerry Maguire.
• Our first acquisition happened this year when we acquired Ninja Multimedia, a dev agency adding new chops, clients, and team members to our team.

Eight years seems like a long time. You can’t be in business this long without some long relationships. A high five goes out to our long-term clients.

• We enjoyed a more than three-year partnership with Jabil Circuits where we did everything you can imagine under the sun for marketing, lead gen, engagement, experiential, and innovation projects.
• Star2Star has been with us for seven years, and I am proud to say, still a client of ours. We have enjoyed a great working partnership with the whole team at Star2Star over the years covering all variations of marketing and sales assets, content, and collateral including web, video, mailers, strategy, and more.
• We were the small fish in the big pond that Primrose Schools believed in three years ago when we won the RFP to take over the UI/UX and development of their website. It is awesome to reflect on all the joint successes in three years.
• Another client that took a chance in selecting a small agency over the other options is Plante Moran, a top 20 CPA firm in the US, to help support and maintain their website over three years.
• Once again, we threw our hat in the ring for another RFP and came out on top at JacksonEMC to design and produce their monthly printed newsletter. It has been a great relationship and partnership for five years now.
• One of the most fun and willing clients was Hissho Sushi. We worked productively together for almost four years until Covid hit. We loved working on everything from branding, naming, focus groups, website, store openings, menus, packaging, and much more. Such a wonderful team and client.
• Our two-year partnership with M&T Bank is so multi-faceted, I can’t even begin to describe it. But at the core, we support M&T’s business units in all things digital design, helping them extend and expand their relationships in the market, including website, emails, ads, and videos. 

People will tell you that you should do what you love. Well, who doesn’t love doing kick a$$ projects? We are always looking to push the envelope with our clients on how they can differentiate and connect better with their targets. A ‘giddy up’ goes out to those that were willing to go to the edge and do something truly unique. Here are some of the most creatively fun projects we have done, which also produced amazing results.

• We created a three-dimensional hologram video for Jabil Circuits. Script, storyboard, 3D graphics, animation, to production, it was a complete success. Run time was seven minutes, generating awe in their customers that visited their customer experience center in San Jose, CA.
• StruXure wanted to put their customer ‘inside the product’ to generate sales. The CEO even coined the phrase ‘just go Yalo-fy it.’ So, we redesigned their website that included an embedded VR patio that customers could ‘sit in.’ Spoiler alert, we won an award for it noted below.
• When Covid hit, companies were looking for a new way to connect with their customer base. We delivered a virtual event for Imperial Distributors where their customers could browse, shop, and purchase all through a digital event experience.
• When Microsoft came to Atlanta, so did many of their technology partners. One of those partners wanted to tap into the 25,000 attendees. So, we created MetaFest for Metalogix. We shut down a main artery of downtown Atlanta for a little shindig of 3,000 people from 5pm to 10pm. We flew in four bands from around the world and had an award-winning comedian MC the event.
• Mailers can be blah, but not if you make them something people don’t expect. For Star2Star, we concepted, developed, and delivered a dimensional mailer that engaged and incented both customer and sales reps to actually meet in person. We shipped 220 packages and scored 210 in person meetings which amounted to over a 95% success rate. Needless to say, the CMO was jazzed.

Along this journey and leading up to 100 clients, we have had our share of recognition because the work we have done for our clients does truly make a difference.

• We were recognized as the Technology Association of Georgia 2018 and 2020 Agency of the Year in Georgia.
• We won the Horizon Awards Best in Category for B2B websites for our work on StruXure (noted above). It was ONE website out of 350 other websites to receive that honor.
• Our work on the Jackson EMC Newsletter received a silver award in the best external news publication category for JEMCO News.

As you can tell from the stories above, we creatively deliver a wide range of products for our clients. I half-joke that the only consistency in our work is the inconsistency of what we get asked to create for our clients. That means every day is a new day, and with it comes new challenges, new adventures, and new opportunities to produce something great for our clients. We take pride in delivering the impossible for our clients and seeing the joy in their faces when we outpace their expectations. 

So, you might ask, who is our 100^th client?

Our 100^th client is Bridge House Advisors, an environmental governance professional services company. We are rolling up our sleeves, getting to know their business inside and out, to help them better position their brand to their target market while improving overall lead generation. Just like we have done for our previous 99 clients.

It has been an exciting path throughout these eight years. We have had fun and enjoyed ourselves and the work along the way. But, most importantly, we didn’t get here without the trust and commitment from our clients. Thank you, thank you, thank you to our first 100, and we are looking forward to the next 100. You, new reader, might be in that next 100! Take a look at what we have to offer in terms of our creative services. And meet the rocking Yalo team while you’re here.

In these challenging times, we could all use some good news. Luckily, illustrator Mauro Gatti has us covered. For years, he has been chronicling the positive side of humanity through his popular Instagram account The Happy Broadcast. Each post features a charming digital drawing with a sentence or two about something good that is happening in the world.

Digital Yalo was recently selected as a featured Small Business by Hometeam & Hamilton. Sharing Yalo’s passion for sports, co-host Brandon Leak is a staple in Atlanta sports media. A member of the Hawks in-house media team, he has one of the most recognizable voices in sports talk radio. Joseph Fitzgerald Hamilton is an award-winning, former American college, and professional football player. A quarterback for three different professional leagues in his past life, he also played for Georgia Tech’s Yellowjackets.  

The interview aired live on Atlanta’s 680 The Fan and Xtra 106.3. Yalo CEO, Arnold Huffman, talks shop, services, and how we navigated 2020. Click the audio link below to listen.

That feeling you have at a live concert or solo performance never fully translates through your phone speaker or earbuds. With concerts and live events gone for the foreseeable future, there has been a sense of loss and emotional disconnection for fans (like us) of music. Luckily, this groundbreaking new app is giving us the chance to relive the joy and excitement of concerts like never before!

Many small businesses have been hit hard by the global pandemic, but for some, there is an opportunity to benefit from the growing importance of local neighborhoods and social networks. A recent article from McKinsey sites the increasing appeal of localized experiences: “supporting familiar, local businesses have become important to many US communities, driven in part by greater confidence in their quality and safety.”

Yalo client M&T Bank is a regional bank with a strong commitment to supporting local businesses throughout its branch footprint. During the Summer of 2019, M&T sponsored a Spotlight Shop in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, giving one local business per week the opportunity to showcase itself. The effort was a success for the Spotlight Shop businesses, for M&T Bank, and for local shoppers spending time (and money) in the harbor.

Now, more than ever, local small businesses need help. But setting up shop in a busy part of town isn’t in fashion. So, M&T Bank worked with Yalo to relaunch the experience as a Virtual Spotlight Shop. Local vendors from the Baltimore area will be promoted on M&T’s Virtual Spotlight Shop, encouraging shoppers to consider these small businesses, and buy from them online. Each week a different business will be featured.

Since the start of the pandemic, M&T Bank has been committed to being a reliable resource for its small business customers. From business counseling to facilitating two rounds of the paycheck Protection Program, M&T relationship managers have worked hard to support their customers during tough times.

M&T Bank hopes to expand the Virtual Spotlight Shop to include additional cities in its footprint, based on the benefit to the businesses featured in Baltimore. For now, we’re eyeing up some interesting choices from Boordy Vineyards, this week’s featured small business.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” This quote of indeterminate origin and incorrectly attributed to but made famous by Mark Twain, came to mind when I received questions from friends and associates about an opinion piece recently published in the New York Times.  The questions raised from Just Because You Test Positive for Antibodies Doesn’t Mean You Have Them, included:

• Does this mean that 70% of the people tested will test positive for COVID-19 antibodies?

• Do you believe these numbers are correct?

My response was no and no.

Reporting just on a parameter estimate to an average audience can generate confusion. This is confirmed by the questions above. The article concept is correct that a base rate of a population will impact the outcome of a testing effort.  Applying a statistical tool (Bayes Theorem) and considering the base rate of the population of having COVID-19 antibodies, determines what the effect is. One of the testing results is a false positive, meaning of the people tested, who tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies, will not have COVID-19 antibodies. NOT, that 70% of the people tested will have Covid-19 antibodies.

With the information provided, I cannot reproduce the numbers indicated in the article, specifically –

“An antibody test with 90 percent accuracy could be as low as 32 percent if the base rate of infection in the population is 5 percent. Put another way, there is an almost 70 percent probability in that case that the test will falsely indicate a person has antibodies.”

Taking the high ground, I will assume Hanlon’s razor, or that adjustments to the numbers were made for journalistic effect. Applying Bayes’ Theorem, below I share my calculations. I do this only to show my approach if this makes your head hurt, jump down to the next paragraph.

This means of the people who test positive for having COVID-19 antibodies 34% (rounded) tested will have COVID-19 antibodies and about 66% (rounded) will not have COVID-19 antibodies. Few people, except practitioners of data analytics, will go through this effort to complete this analysis and understand what the statistic (false positive) and the formula calculation mean.

Rather than just communicating 34% or 66% a thought experiment resulting in an example is more effective in conveying the testing outcome of a 90% accurate test with 5% of the population having COVID-19 antibodies.  What would happen if 1,000 people were tested in this situation? Applying the same approach, we get the following results:

This is example allows a clearer explanation:

• 855 tested having no COVID-19 antibodies

• 145 tested positive for having COVID-19 antibodies

• 95 of the 145 who tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies, DO NOT HAVE THEM

• Not possible to know of those who tested testing positive for COVID-19 antibodies (95 out of the 145) do not have COVID-19 antibodies.

What is the advantage? Simply reporting a statistical parameter runs the risk of generating responses spanning from confusion to panic. Except for the data analytic practitioners, formulas and parameters are not good input for what relevant action should be taken. What could be actions that could be taken from the table above?

• 855 tested should be notified that they do not have COVID-19 antibodies and should continue safe practices and be candidates for a vaccine when it becomes available.

• 145 should be notified that they tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies but should be retested to confirm the findings.

The key learnings here are to recognize as a data scientist: it is not about a parameter that many will not understand or a calculation that they could care less about, it is about giving a business outcome that management can relate to and act on.

As the nation clamped down with stay-at-home orders and started spending more of their lives online, Tiger Pistol, the world’s #1 Social Advertising Automation Platform for Local, saw the opportunity to expand its operations and capabilities outside of its headquarters in Austin, Texas. 

While in the process of repositioning its offerings and considering locations throughout the Midwest, Tiger Pistol leveraged the expertise of Cleveland marketing agency, Digital Yalo, to help them determine how to best highlight their capabilities and strengths in order to target the right kind of customers and accelerate growth. In May, Digital Yalo delivered a new website that eliminates superfluous bells and whistles, quickly gets visitors to the info that speaks to them, and makes the value of the company’s unique offerings crystal clear.

In many ways, Tiger Pistol represents a bright, optimistic side of the COVID-19 crisis, which has seen millions of employees lose their jobs, restaurants, and shops close their doors, and companies file for bankruptcy. With their expansion in Northeast Ohio, Tiger Pistol will be able to not only provide at least 25 new jobs in Cleveland but also accelerate their innovation roadmap for tools to help global brands, agencies, and resellers capitalize on the benefits of Facebook and Instagram advertising. 

As Tiger Pistol CEO Paul Elliot emphasizes, “Cleveland’s world-class marketing and technology talent and their amazing work ethic is a competitive advantage when building and scaling a business. Our Cleveland expansion will help further strengthen our social advertising offering, which is already the dominant solution for multi-location marketers.” 

The new office proves that success is possible during this uncertain time. Companies that pivot operations, and invest in new technologies and markets are able to not only survive but thrive. 

If Tiger Pistol’s courage and vision makes sense to you, we’d love to have a conversation. Yalo is a Cleveland marketing & design agency that also operates in Atlanta, Georgia. Motivated by Film, Art, Sports & Music, we use our creative and managerial talents to assist our clients with everything from virtual events and design system managers to experiential marketing and branding strategies that help you to shine. Our team wants to meet you – reach out to us and let’s make something special happen for your business this year.

How often has someone asked you the question, “what was the scariest, course you took, where all you wanted was to pass?” More often than not, the two responses are accounting and probability/statistics!

Now more than ever, our environment is rife with uncertainty. COVID-19 has exponentially increased uncertainty and probabilities on actions that we should or should not take.

Even before COVID-19, probabilities were lurking in the shadows for everything from the weather to elections to financial decisions. Fearing probabilities results in seeking ways to simplify what is being shared. With COVID-19, it can devolve into the extreme choices of either, “it won’t happen to me,” or “we need to start hoarding toilet paper.”  Based on Daniel Kahneman’s work, this is System 1 trying to use intuition to simplify the situation with overconfidence and come to a quick conclusion. As opposed to System 2 in which you take time for deeper thought, applying mental models, and concluding. In turbulent times it is even easier to let System 1 take control, but how do we ensure that we consider the probabilities and the experts in engaging System 2?

It is necessary to have an approach attractive to Self 1 but gains enough attention to engage System 2. Professions such as Sports Coaching and Executive Leadership use storytelling to share knowledge. It entertains System 1 and encourages System 2 thinking. The story can present scenarios depicting alternative paths and actions which will impact each path’s outcome. The richness of these alternative paths is the vehicle for sharing concepts which would otherwise be ignored because alone they may be too difficult to absorb.

But back to the top at hand: COVID-19. A story or scenario can be used to address questions like: “What are my chances of getting the virus” or “What are the factors in deciding how fast we move to the ‘new normal’?” For instance, Washington’s governor, Jay Inslee, responded to a question on what should be the motivation for compliance to his COVID-19 safety guidelines, “This is not a time to go out in public and close contact, It’s too dangerous, you might be killing your granddad if you don’t do it, [Comply with the guidelines]. I am serious about this.”

We don’t all have the same stake in the pandemic, and it’s important to recognize the vulnerable groups who will be hit hardest (i.e. Older adults, those with medical conditions and are immunocompromised, and people experiencing homelessness, etc.). Though some people are going to ride through this period of crisis just fine, there’s some people who are going to be devastated. 

With social media constantly bombarding the public with quick snapshots of COVID-19 data that is poorly understood by the public, many people’s attitudes and policy preferences towards the pandemic become skewed or misinterpreted. They let System 1s fast, instinctive and emotional response take control and make decisions for them instead of using System 2s slower, more deliberative, and more logical response. To overcome this pandemic, it will take everyone to engage in System 2 thinking when applying the safety recommendations provided by the World Health Organization (WHO).

As Malcom Gladwell states, this pandemic could be the “shock to the system that we need in terms of that kind of long-term reorganization of our priorities.” Sometimes all it takes is a powerful COVID-19 story to shock Self 1 into the right response and advance to System 2 thinking. Bottom line frequent hand washing, physical distancing, and wearing a mask requires going beyond System 1 and using System 2 to engage in these behaviors for the wellbeing of everyone.

If you want to engage System 2 consider the Wall Street Journal article that motivated this blog and become more thoughtful in System 1 and System 2 with a quick read on these concepts is this summary of Thinking Fast and Slow by Danial Kahneman.

Stay Safe! Stay Healthy! 

Turns out you don’t have to Van Gogh anywhere to experience your favorite artists. A new list revealed by Forbes maps out the galleries who are virtually opening their doors to visitors. Sit back, pour a glass and let your imagination run wild. 

While some of us are rushing to the grocery store to stock up on canned goods and toilet paper, there are those who are making other lists to survive the mandated closures. What to watch, listen to, and even new recipes to try during self quarantine. Netflix, Hulu, Disney + are just a few channels on my list to offset the feeling of isolation. For a robust list that spans age and interests, here is the latest New York Times article that details What to watch, Listen to and Cook During Your Coronavirus Self-Quarantine. 

Never has distraction been more enticing. A pretty ad, the ping of a message, an unexpected social tag. Before you realize it, 30 minutes of [insert whatever digital black hole you slipped down] have sucked away your time. As procrastination becomes more prevalent than ever before, here’s a look at four strategies to curb digital distractions. 

When members of the C-suite take the time to establish an active social media presence, the benefits can expand far beyond personal branding. Here are six social media strategies that actually work, and will help to expand your brand’s overall digital presence.

Want more people to connect with your brand? It’s time to get more emotional. A new study by the Harvard Business Review shares the keys to creating emotional motivators. Start creating value with AdAge’s top ten most important themes that resonate with your followers.

Valentine’s Day is on the horizon. Whether you are an A+ romance guru or just checking the box to stay out of trouble, you’ve got a few shopping days left to get it right. With this in mind, we found the list of 26 must-have that not only show your love but can make life easier. Click here to grab the list.

Want a productive new year? You may want to scrap the list of resolutions. Because according to Fast Company, kicking off the beginning of the year with a list of changes isn’t a structure for success. Click to read their top three reasons why you shouldn’t bother making resolutions in January.

Surely, you’ve heard the song Video Killed the Radio Star. Well now we have Glitter Pissed Off the Package Thief. Impetus for ingenuity has lead to some of the greatest inventions in history. Behold the Glitter Bomb Box, built by a NASA space engineer, no less. This is one of the smartest AND funniest things we have seen all year. Thanks for the laughs Mr. NASA guy. ENJOY!

Which social network works best for generating leads for your business? The answer can vary depending on your industry and tactics, but a new survey shows that Facebook brings, by far, the biggest results. Check out the all the results and learn why some may be more effective than others.