Camden Francis’ Journey through Nonprofit, Tech, and E-Commerce

Welcome to Marketer Interview, where we bring exclusive insights from some of the most intriguing minds in the marketing world.

In this edition, we have the privilege of speaking with Camden Francis, a remarkable young entrepreneur who has already made significant strides in multiple industries.

From founding a charity organization to running a tech company and an e-commerce venture, Camden’s expertise spans diverse skill sets.

Camden’s journey into marketing began with his nonprofit organization, Beyond the Crisis, which taught him valuable marketing, fundraising, and networking lessons.

He then ventured into the tech world, founding Univerze LLC, a cutting-edge networking platform for Gen Z users that leverages UI/UX, coding, and artificial intelligence.

In this interview, we’ll explore Camden’s experiences, strategies, and insights, exploring how he navigated the marketing landscape across different industries.

Can you tell us about your marketing journey and how your experiences with Beyond the Crisis, Univerze LLC, and Commerce Fox have shaped your understanding of the field?

My journey in building multiple companies and organizations has shaped my understanding and experience in marketing for the better.

Marketing creates and exchanges values with customers to strengthen brand loyalty and increase sales.

One of the common focuses between all of my companies and organizations is that they all focus on increasing brand awareness, generating traffic, and growing revenue – all critical parts of marketing. Raising brand awareness helps people get acquainted with the brand and the products and services you provide, allowing for cultivating more long-lasting client relationships. All of the enterprises I lead, utilize SEO have landing pages and supporting articles, and some even have mobile applications, allowing us to create platforms that attract qualified leads.

Some marketing strategies I use across all my businesses and organizations are digital advertisements, email newsletters, media appearances, and influencer promotions. It is crucial to have strong marketing, especially in the saturated businesses I am in, “E-Commerce” and “Tech,” as there is very high market competition.

Another principle that ultimately leads to revenue growth is focusing on customer experience. Our staffing frequently creates customer surveys, invites customers to subscribe to mailing lists, and asks customers for insight on our service performance – keeping our customers involved and feeling a part of what we are building – in the case of the charity, the community impact we are making is quintessential to our success.

Delivering value for our customers also creates value for us. Think of it as a positive feedback loop. An impactful customer experience can expand our customer base through word of mouth. If done correctly, these positive comments can multiply our revenue.

What key marketing strategies did you employ while building your nonprofit organization, Beyond the Crisis? How did fundraising and networking play a role in its growth?

Some key marketing strategies we employed when building Beyond the Crisis were email marketing, social media, and media interviews.

Beyond the Crisis is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. During the start of founding this organization, we had a small organizational budget so we had to find creative and effective ways to get our charities mission across. This allowed us to create relationships with many customers over time, promote our content, and mainstream our brand identity.

Once Beyond the Crisis got in one article, another one soon followed, and over time, we found this to pay off. The first article Beyond the Crisis got into was MetroWest Daily News, a small local newspaper. We were on CBS, PBS, NPR, and Bloomberg three years later.

As the founder of Univerze LLC, a networking platform for Gen Z users, how did you approach marketing to engage and attract your target audience?

While I can’t disclose entirely what Univerze does, I can mention that Univerze’s UI/UX helps complement our software with the specific goal of making networking easier for individuals in high school and college looking to find jobs and internships.

We do a lot of social media marketing and market through word of mouth. One platform we leverage is TikTok because of its ability to allow users to make viral content.

With your e-commerce company, Commerce Fox LLC, what unique marketing challenges did you face regarding product distribution, team-building, and software analysis?

E-commerce marketing fundamentally drives awareness and action toward your desired product or service.

Our Ecommerce business, however, does B2C sales on online marketplaces, mainly Amazon FBA, a service that allows you to outsource your fulfillment to Amazon. We buy in-demand from wholesalers overseas and sell them on Amazon marketplaces at a markup.

Thus, most of the marketing of these products is review oriented, and the marketing of the products we sell is done mainly by the brands themselves. Our company simply does the reselling and distribution to Amazon warehouses. However, with that being said, the brands we sell heavily rely on paid advertisements.

You’ve had the opportunity to be a guest on various podcasts and media outlets. How have these experiences contributed to your brand and your businesses?

Gary Vaynerchuk, a well-known entrepreneur, author, and public speaker, said,” Your brand is your reputation. And your reputation in perpetuity is the foundation of your career.”

Being on various podcasts and media outlets has allowed me to cultivate a personal brand that allows people to know my accomplishments and values. Having a personal brand makes it easier for me to find other like-minded individuals and even accomplished mentors. Thus, I can leverage my network for business and charitable purposes.

For instance, I could contact Drew Barrymore’s team and be a guest speaker on the Drew Barrymore Show. Her show aired on CBS, and her supporters donated time and resources that benefited my charity. These media experiences helped grow my brand by giving me the authority to convey my business and charitable missions publicly.

Young men should work on themselves before they start making money, develop a strong mindset, physique, and high-value skill set and find like-minded individuals to aid them in this process. You can then utilize your cultivated skills to create income streams and your peer group as a foundation for a strong network you can personally brand.

What are some of the most effective digital marketing strategies you’ve implemented across your ventures? Are there any specific channels or tactics that have yielded exceptional results for you?

We utilize various digital marketing strategies which effectively allow us to establish an internet presence.

One of the strategies I use across all of my business venture websites’ is Search Engine Optimization or “SEO.” Our content marketing managers create extensive backlinks to improve the quality and quantity of our website traffic.

Another digital marketing strategy is email marketing – we use Mailchimp. This reliable email marketing platform has been around for over two decades. Mailchimp allows us to create email marketing campaigns, manage subscription lists, and track analytics.

Across all of my business and organizational ventures, we allocate a large portion of our marketing budget to paid advertising on social media platforms, as this allows us to access a wider audience and have high customer conversion rates. We do this in addition to organic social media engagement.

We also frequently set up interviews and attend various media engagements such as black tie events.

Furthermore, I do influencer marketing here and there. My nonprofit primarily utilizes this technique – Lady Gaga serves as our goodwill ambassador. Lastly, after any marketing campaign, we analyze specific data to ensure that our marketing campaign went successfully and see if we have any areas for improvement.

How do you stay updated with the latest marketing trends and technologies? Are there any particular resources or communities you rely on for continuous learning in the field?

We stay current with the latest marketing trends and technologies by investing in powerful marketing tools and extensively researching effective marketing techniques.

Some of the marketing tools we use besides Mailchimp are Taboola, HubSpot, AdStage, AdRoll, SEMrush, Hotjar, Creatopy, and Canva. We have marketing teams do copious amounts of research, some guided by the help of AI and others by manually perusing large databases.

Please share some insights into your approach to team-building within your ventures. How do you ensure alignment and effective collaboration among your team members?

I spent lots of time strategically hiring the right people to succeed in my business endeavors. It is the people who collaboratively make up these ventures as a whole that are the ones who are responsible for my enterprises’ continued successes.

With that being said, I work tirelessly behind the scenes. To me, the right employees aren’t just the ones who can do the work but have qualities of trustworthiness and likeability, which add positive value to the work environment. I believe it is important to prioritize a healthy company culture and a work environment that allows for staffing to thrive cohesively.

One of my abilities that helps me as a founder and entrepreneur is my ability to recognize hidden talents in people that sometimes they never even knew existed and leverage these talents for my employees’ gain and the development and success of the ventures.

What are the essential skills and qualities every marketer should possess in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape?

There are many essential skills and qualities that every marketer should possess in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Marketing is getting potential clients or customers interested in your products and services; the keyword is “process,” which happens over time. Marketing involves researching, managing projects, promoting, selling, analyzing, and distributing your products or services.

Marketers should possess curiosity – they should be curious about the market, customers, competitors, and trends. Marketers should have strong communication skills and attentiveness – they should be willing to collaborate and learn from others’ ideas.

They should have good observation and critical thinking skills, readily analyzing and interpreting data and information and turning them into genuine stories that shape a brand’s identity or values.

Marketers should possess keen attention to detail – as a marketer, your work will be seen by many eyes, whether it’s a blog post, a social media graphic, or printed promotional material.

Moreover, marketers should be innovative. They should come up with new ideas and solutions. Lastly, they must be consumer-centric and adapt to consumers’ wants and needs.

As a tech entrepreneur, what tools and software do you find indispensable for your marketing efforts?

As a tech entrepreneur, I want to share tools and software to help other ambitious entrepreneurs: Trello, Fiver, and AdSense.

Trello is a project management tool for collaboration and working with larger marketing teams.

Furthermore, I also highly utilize Fiverr, an online global marketplace that connects freelancers to businesses, to help supplement my team and do specific marketing tasks such as digital video creation for ads. Our platform also uses paid advertisements on various social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.