Meet Alexa Ellis: Co-Founder, SVP of Marketing and Implementation at the Swarm Agency

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alexa Ellis and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alexa, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
The Swarm Agency was started somewhat by accident in 2009 during the Great Recession when I was laid off from my position as a Marketing Director of a small technology publication. A number of professional contacts reached out about contract digital marketing and web development services after I was laid off, and my husband and I parlayed that work into founding the agency. We were primarily digital-first marketers, and we didn’t see a lot of “digital-first” marketing agencies in 2009. There were a lot of traditional agencies trying to go digital. Instead of pitching big, traditional creative campaigns that didn’t impact our clients’ bottom lines, we wanted to focus on easier-to-measure digital marketing strategies to provide a consistently positive ROI for our clients. 

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Aside from being “digital-first,” Swarm is different from other marketing agencies mainly because of the relationship we have with our clients. We believe the best agency-client relationship is a true partnership relationship, and we believe in total transparency. It’s not uncommon for clients to have Slack channels with our employees so that they can ask subject matter experts questions directly whenever they need to. Before we get to work on a new account, we learn what our clients’ organizational goals are, and we take being good stewards of marketing and IT budgets very seriously. We’re never afraid to tell a client when we don’t think something is a good investment, even if it means we make less money. There are still a lot of organizations that just want agency “do-ers” who don’t push back, or agencies with big, creative ideas that don’t necessarily translate to a positive ROI. Frankly, those are relationships that don’t work out well for us, and we’re okay with that. Starting a business is very challenging, and there is no sugar-coating it. My husband and I once worked for 72 hours straight without sleep to launch a website on time in our first year of business. We didn’t want to take investment dollars in our early days and lose control of the company, so we built it with “sweat equity.” One of our biggest lessons learned is that you are only as strong as your weakest player. We now view hiring and recruiting as one of the most important job functions at Swarm.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I love running, so every time family or friends visit Atlanta we inevitably end up on a trail. It can be the Silver Comet, the Beltline, Kennesaw Mountain, Sweetwater Creek, or just the golf cart paths around Peachtree City near our home. My family loves going to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens when they visit and then dining at Longleaf afterwards. Other favorite restaurants include Bocca Lupo (shoutout to my nephew who works in the kitchen), Kimball House, Marcel, and Little Alley. Other favorites include shopping at Ponce City Market and eating brunch at R. Thomas Deluxe.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I was tremendously lucky to have a number of amazing mentors who encouraged me to work hard and take risks. My mother founded an early DotCom in the 90s, which she later sold for $13M. She had tried and failed at other business ventures prior to finding success, but she always maintained a positive attitude and never gave up. My step-father was a Senior Partner at Troutman Sanders in Richmond, and he gave me the valuable advice that while there might always be others who were smarter or more naturally talented in certain areas, that I had the ability out-learn and out-work the rest of the pack. My husband has probably deserves the most credit for founding Swarm. He encouraged me to learn graphic design, CSS, HTML, and SEO when I graduated from UGA. He later pushed me to start the agency and convinced me that owning our own business was more secure than working as an employee somewhere else. He was 100% right. We still constantly push eachother to be better both personally and professionally. We have read too many books to count and refer to reading as our “continued MBA program.”

Website: www.swarmagency.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/swarmagency
Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/alexaellis
Twitter: www.twitter.com/swarmagency
Facebook: www.facebook.com/swarmagency

Image Credits
Photos provided by the Swarm Agency