Local media company evolves with popular text messaging service

Jodi Schwan

March 17, 2021

This paid piece is sponsored by AGE Media.

Sitting among more than 60,000 fans at a Minnesota Vikings game, inspiration struck for Garrett Gross.

As Gross, co-founder and owner of AGE Media, sat at U.S. Bank Stadium with two of his daughters in late 2017, he realized nearly every single person around them had one thing in common: a smartphone in their pocket.

Garrett and his wife, Mindy, founded AGE Media in January 2014. Until that point, it had focused on targeted print publications for various communities and organizations. The approach worked well for them; however, they knew if they wanted to grow in an evolving media landscape, they needed a novel product in the mobile sector.

So, Garrett and Mindy started looking for a unique media product or service in the mobile space they could sell to their existing customers and offer fellow friends who owned businesses in the area.  They started as a licensee for a company that developed a mobile app geared toward building community at a city level. This app allowed for various forms of communication, including push notifications and a rudimentary SMS, or text messaging, function.

“The app itself never really performed properly, but the SMS component was something that was of interest, especially to me,” Mindy said.

Text messaging is unique in the world of direct-to-consumer marketing, or DTC, as it immediately reaches a target audience with the highest open rates and views of any type of DTC product.

“Direct mail and email marketing both have been shown to be effective and have their place, but neither can claim 98 percent open rates or more than 90 percent viewership within one minute of the message being sent,” Mindy said.

Mindy started researching and learning more about the SMS market, eventually connecting with another South Dakota-based company in this space. This SMS service provider originally was located in the Denver area with a strong customer base on the West Coast. AGE Media became a licensee of this company, and Garrett started to sell the service to businesses in the area.

“At the time, there really was not a local Sioux Falls company that offered an SMS platform. Nationally, companies like Twilio, EZ-Texting, Tatango and many others offer SMS-related products and services, but no companies based in the immediate area,” Garrett said.

“The more we spread the word that AGE Media had an SMS platform, the more customers called asking questions and inquiring about custom applications using SMS to connect with their customers.”

A majority of AGE Media’s SMS customers are in the Sioux Falls area, but word has spread to customers as far as California and Missouri. Locally, restaurants such as Boss’ Pizza & Chicken, C-stores like Get-N-Go, Breadsmith bread stores and several boutiques use the service to communicate with customers as well as potential employees.

A Twin Cities-area grocery delivery company uses AGE Media’s text services to send reminders to place orders or update recurring orders.

Since the inception of offering the service, Mindy has worked closely with the programming team to develop two new text messaging products.

First is a “lead generation tool,” which is helpful in acquiring new candidates for employers to quickly get prospective candidates into their hiring pipeline, she said.

“In a competitive labor market like Sioux Falls, finding great candidates quickly is essential,” Mindy said. “Local auto and home insurance agencies have been using this tool to give quotes on insurance rates and to meet new potential customers.”

To see an example of this product in action, text “AGE” to 72727.

For its second product, AGE has expanded into the MMS, or text messaging of images and GIFs.

“For businesses in retail, food and beverage, purchasing decisions are often driven by imagery of the product,” Mindy said.

“SMS allows for sending only words and URLs, whereas MMS can include an animation or eye-catching images and photos. Both options achieve the marketing goal, but clients appreciate having the option to attach images to their messages.”

AGE Media is now entering its eighth year in business, and Garrett and Mindy plan to continue to grow their company. They have partnerships with the South Dakota Soybean Association, city of Harrisburg/Harrisburg public schools/Harrisburg Chamber of Commerce, the Hartford Chamber/Hartford Area Development Foundation and the city of Hawarden and produce custom publications for these organizations and cities. Currently, they produce over 25,000 issues per month of their Farming Families publications and these collaborative products.

“I think people are most surprised by the range of services and products we offer,” Mindy said. “We believe marketing requires a blend of art and science. So the fact that we can produce a custom magazine for a business — whether a branded publication or a catalog — and help them stay engaged with their audience via text message marketing is something we’re excited about; we love that we can offer that mix of products.”

In an always-evolving media space, AGE Media is positioned well to continue to grow with its AGE SMS/MMS product line that complements its custom publications. If you’d like to learn more about AGE Media, go to agemedia.pub to learn more or contact the firm to request a meeting or demo.

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