Snyder Group is focused on fine-tuning every part of the marketing and sales funnel for their clients. They believe in the complete integration of marketing, sales, and technology teams. The group is made up of strategists, designers, copywriters and coders who share an interdisciplinary approach to achieving objectives.

President & Creative Director David Snyder talks about embracing the challenges, opportunities and rewards of building a digital agency in a virtual space.

“I lived and worked in New York City for a number of years before I took a job as a managing director at a branding firm in Stamford. Then, I opened my own business in Norwalk in 1996. When COVID hit in 2020, we basically went to a virtual model. Two years later, we were still working primarily virtually. And we are in the digital marketing space. So, it really made a lot of sense for us to go to a non-brick-and-mortar environment and it’s really working wonderfully.”

“Our entire office is virtual at this point. We have folks who live in Norwalk. We have folks who live in Stamford. We have folks who live in Bridgeport. We now have folks who live in the Midwest and out west. So, we also expanded where we can hire from. The virtual work environment for us has been a real win.”

“We’re a boutique agency by design. Just by virtue of living, working and playing in the area, we’ve had the opportunity to work with – and still work with – a lot of Norwalk-based companies. Our client mix is primarily business-to-business, encompassing manufacturing technology, life sciences among other things. Education is also a vertical of ours. Many of our clients are headquartered here or regionally but they’re selling nationally and internationally.”

“When COVID hit, it supercharged everything that can happen online. Whether it’s a Zoom meeting or anything else, we had been doing it for quite some time prior. What it did for our clients is that a lot of the spend in advertising budgets that would typically be put towards things like trade shows  and traditional media moved to digital.  A lot of companies got very innovative with how they were going to market and we got busier and busier. We were a little frightened at first like everybody was when COVID first hit but it turned out there were silver linings. What happened was a terrible thing but it did push some innovation and different ways of thinking about not just marketing but work and life in general.”

“We’ve always been a marketing company, first and foremost, leveraging all mediums and media that work best for specific objectives. When marketing automation first came into play, our B2B clients focusing on lead generation were the first to use it. We realized that the overall marketing trend was moving that way and got more involved with data-driven marketing applications.”

“Being a data-driven marketing company means more accountability. The types of media we engage in have clear performance indicators from data points attached. In driving awareness and brand through impressions where you’re working at the top of the funnel, we want to know what those numbers are and what sources are getting us the best traction for those goals. If it’s about getting people to the consideration point, we need to know what data points are supporting getting more contacts in the database, creating more engagement with email campaigns and things like that. Ultimately for businesses, it’s about where marketing dollars are actually converting into sales. Once you put that model in place, you really have successful marketing in play.”

“We can all talk about the numbers but at the end of the day, we’re a people business. Understanding communications, having the ability to listen and then obviously to deliver to goals. But the difference in our company is in our culture. Our retention is good internally and our client base is the same way. It’s transparency. It’s honesty. What you see is what you get.”

“We work with some really large Fortune 500 companies and I believe that smaller agencies like ours are now able to do a lot more than we used to. I worked at big agencies before, however, I enjoy where we’re at right now. We’re a lot more flexible, and agile, we can facilitate things faster.”

“Working in Norwalk and being part of the community, we’ve always had close ties to City Hall, and we’ve done a lot of work with the municipality over the years. We also have a list of Norwalk nonprofits that we’ve partnered with. We continue to have a real connection to the community.”

“In terms of our company culture, we try to get together once or twice a month in person with the team. We have to sometimes either bus or fly our folks in to take advantage of that. We make a point of doing that to get some synergy and mentoring opportunities going on with the team. It often happens in Norwalk because there are plenty of great venues. So, we take full advantage of what Norwalk has to offer. Like I said, I’ve lived, worked and still do play in Norwalk. This entire area is a great place to be and I think Norwalk is probably the shining example.”