This month for our Ring True Spotlight series, we’re featuring Tim Karlberg, who is the director of Digital Marketing at DKY. For eight years, Tim has been helping clients develop and implement strategies to advance their digital properties and capabilities whether it’s through their anchor website, email marketing communications or digital adverting campaigns. Learn more about Tim below:
How does your role help support clients?
I serve and support our clients in four primary ways:
+ Help identify goals and design a plan for digital success
+ Select the right strategies and tools for the work
+ Build a measurement plan to track, analyze and report on progress
+ Leverage data and user input to make iterative improvements (the upward spiral)
What is your favorite aspect of working at DKY?
In addition to working with a great team, I appreciate the freedom to bring in new methods, tools and technologies for our clients. Being able to experiment and work with clients who see the value in taking some calculated risks means more opportunities to outperform the competition.
What has been your most memorable project at DKY?
Our agency’s partnership with ADM’s Grain team over the past five or so years has been my favorite. We’ve transformed the ADM Farmer Services website into a digital marketing hub. Our clients are smart, collaborative, trusting and have an appetite for developing the digital part of their business.
What trends or changes are you seeing in the marketing industry?
The field of marketing technology has exploded with options. A few years ago, there were more than 3,800 software platforms spanning social media marketing, digital advertising, campaign and lead management, sales automation and content marketing.
But it’s not just about tools. Digital marketing strategies and best practices are equally varied—there are at least as many different ways to approach digital marketing as there are unique personas and goals. For today’s directors of marketing, there’s a lot to unpack and we can help.
DKY has six core values. Which one is your favorite? 1) Step Up, 2) Deliver Excellence, 3) Be Trustworthy, 4) Serve People, 5) Work Generously, 6) Spread Joy.
My favorite DKY value is “delivering excellence.” All six are hugely important, but this one in particular resonates with how I’m wired. It’s one of the ways a partner like DKY can demonstrate our substance. The stronger we are at delivering excellence, the more our clients get to see all of our core values in action.
How do you live out DKY’s mission: “We help good people build brands of great impact”?
In my corner of the world—digital marketing—just about everything I oversee can be measured, inspected and analyzed with a high level of clarity. That extra layer of accountability and “evidence” helps our clients see the real value of this work. When we’re successful, it’s exciting to show that proof and celebrate the wins. Conversely, even when we experiment with something and it doesn’t perform as we’d hoped, we’re able to learn from those results and pivot accordingly.
What is one fun fact about yourself?
I run every morning (outdoors) regardless of the weather. In 2022, I set a personal best of 3,000 miles in a year. Even with our weather extremes, I’ve discovered that going outside year-round is one of the secrets to loving Minnesota.
What is your dream vacation?
We lucked out with a great view and neighborhood. So my favorite place to spend time off is usually at home—working in the yard, tinkering with something in the garage, and sitting in front of a fire watching our little lake.
Learn more about our team.