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December 11, 2006

Mixed media | A chat with Angie Helton, founder of Northeast Media Associates in South Portland.

By Erview By Kerry Elson
Founded: May 2006
Employees: One, plus one freelancer
Startup costs: $10,000-$15,000
Revenue, year to date: $100,000
Projected revenue, year one: $200,000
Contact: 653-0365
141 Brigham St., South Portland 04106
www.northeastmediaassociates.com

What kind of services do you offer?
Northeast Media Associates is a multimedia storytelling service in that we do traditional public relations ˆ— where we can send out press releases ˆ— but we also produce Web videos and other corporate videos to help our clients tell their story. So my videographer and I produce those videos for our clients. My background was in the television news business for about 11 years, so I can come up with good story ideas and pitches that actually work. Some of my clients have been able to get local, regional and national exposure.

How many clients do you have?
Right now, we have about six clients that we're doing different projects with.

How did you get your first client?
I had one client that I started with ˆ— JobsInTheUS.com [in Westbrook]. In my previous company, I started working with them doing some public relations work and I basically built on that. When I started my own business, I kept them on as a client. Beyond that, I added new clients by basically pitching my services to other businesses.

How did you pick which businesses you wanted to work with?
Well, some of them I had worked with on other projects, [such as] video production work, and then I talked with them about doing some public relations work. But other businesses came to me through referrals from other clients I have. And it was also just meeting people through networking.

Is there a certain type of business you work best with?
I will obviously meet with anyone, but I feel very strongly about working with clients whose story I believe in.

Why should a company tell its "story" rather than just say what it's up to?
Every company has a story, something that they're doing that might be unique. So what I typically do is I sit down and talk to them about what they've got going on, what they're doing for a product and how they're developing it. Then I see if it would actually make a good, newsworthy story for a regular news media outlet, unlike just pitching a profile [about] the company and how great they are. Because, for the most part, that's not typically what a news organization is going to do, unless it's a feature story on a company.

Could you share how you got media coverage for a client?
Well for JobsInTheUS.com, they have a lot of good information about the job market in each state they're in. They can pull from that data [to find], for instance, the top industries people are looking for jobs in, or the top industries that are posting jobs. I worked with a local TV station to produce some segments about the local job market. It worked out really well because we were giving them content, but it wasn't just about JobsInTheUS.com, it was about the job market, because [the site] can generate that kind of content.

So they become a source for media outlets.
Yeah, exactly.

What made you decide that you wanted to do video producing on the public relations side rather than the journalism side?
I had been in journalism for 11 years, and then when I moved back to Maine, I was working in Boston at one of the TV stations down there, so I was commuting for four hours every day. I just realized I wanted to try something new. So when an opportunity came up to do some Web video production for a company [here in Maine,] I thought I'd try it and I really liked it. From there, we tried out some PR things, and I realized I liked that and that I could proceed and succeed in that industry, so I took that a step further.

What are you thinking about for the future?
Well, I'd certainly like to have more clients, and I'm actually looking to hire someone to help me with a new Web product I'm developing for my clients. So that's something I'm looking forward to for the new year.

New Entrepreneurs profiles young businesses, 6-18 months old. Send your suggestions and contact information to kelson@mainebiz.biz.

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