Torchlite: Digital Marketing with a Collaborative Economy Solution
By now, you’ve probably come across this quote from Tom Goodwin, senior vice president of strategy and innovation at Havas Media:
Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.
There are now 17 billion-dollar companies in the so-called collaborative economy. These companies have experienced massive success not by inventing a new product, but by reorienting their approach to one that creates value by matching people who need things with individuals who have things to offer. If it sounds simple, well, that’s because it is. Sometimes genius simply means grasping the obvious.
To Susan Marshall, a veteran marketer, it became clear that this type of thinking—creating perfectly matched connections—wouldn’t just be useful in the marketing industry, it would be necessary.
Marketers have gotten used to saying that technology has leveled the playing field; that small and mid-sized business now have the tools to compete with the juggernauts. In practice, it’s not that simple. Although digital marketing tools are better and more widely available than ever before, companies still need experts who know how to use those tools to get the best results. We’ve reached a point where marketing generalists can no longer keep pace with the ever-changing digital landscape. It takes specialists, and for most businesses, those specialists can be all but impossible to find.
To better match businesses seeking marketing expertise with the specialists they need, Marshall created Torchlite — a collaborative economy solution that gives any business the ability to build a specialized marketing team. In its anti-agency approach, Torchlite provides businesses an on-demand marketplace that enables them to tap a vast network of individual marketing specialists to plan and execute digital campaigns.
Each specialist, or Torchliter, is selected based on the businesses specific needs. Looking to drive more traffic to your website? Torchlite will match you with an SEO specialist with experience in your industry to ensure your site is optimized and your customers can find you.
Torchlite offers businesses an alternative to hiring additional in-house staff or outside agencies. Compare their pricing to the hourly rate of an agency or the cost to hire in-house specialists ($50,000 for a social media manager, $85,000 for an email marketer, $65,000 for an SEO/Web specialist), and you can see how there can be financial advantages.
Torchlite also enables businesses to keep their existing marketing technology stack. Having access to an entire marketplace of specialists with expertise using practically every digital marketing tool means businesses don’t have to rip and replace their existing technology.
Businesses using Torchlite also have the option to turn on, turn up or turn off specific online marketing tactics or programs at any time. If email marketing, for example, proves to be the best for driving conversions while other tactics are less efficient, businesses are free to shift their focus and easily reallocate their resources. Torchlite manages this entire process from start to finish, meaning business owners never have to worry about hiring, managing or outsourcing additional talent.
To help business owners keep track of what their Torchliters are working on, Torchlite gives every client a dedicated account manager as well as access to an online dashboard. Through the Torchlite dashboard, clients have complete visibility to monitor progress, view scheduled tasks, approve content and track how close they are to reaching their marketing goals.
Interested in trying Torchlite?
Sign up for a demo of the early release Torchlite platform today!