Hollis Thomases, the 2009 University of Baltimore Distinguished Business Innovation Entrepreneur
Note: This article is taken from the Daily Record's special section on the UB Distinguished Entrepreneur Awards, which will take place on April 30.
To view Hollis Thomases' video profile, click here.
When companies began transferring their businesses to the Internet more than a decade ago, Hollis Thomases recognized they would need unique marketing assistance that was not available through traditional marketing agencies. With a vision for the future and the determination to succeed, she created WebAdvantage.net in 1998. While the business model has evolved since then, Thomases' Havre de Grace-based firm is continues to set a new pace not just in Baltimore but across the online advertising industry.
The company specializes in planning and executing online marketing strategies with services that include search engine advertising and optimization, social network marketing and more. With all of these services, Web Ad.vantage works to empower firms to understand and eventually maintain their own web presence and reputation.
In the beginning, WebAdvantage.net was challenged by corporate confusion and resistance to Internet marketing.
"We realized early on that just because a company builds a Web site, it doesn't mean [customers] will come," Thomases says. "Nobody had a clue what Web marketing was."
Having weathered the dot-com bust by operating "lean and mean," the landscape started to change for her company. By the end of 2003, companies knew they needed help with online marketing and started to hunt out firms like WebAdvantage.net to assist with new advertising needs, such as ad banners, e-mail advertising or search engine marketing.
As the Web has begun to attract big dollars previously earmarked for traditional marketing budgets, WebAdvantage.net has grown right along with it, and currently generates sales of more than $4 million and employs a staff of 12. As to more growth, Thomases intends to limit expansion to remain "lean and mean" and ensure long-term viability regardless of economic cycles.
"We operate as a boutique shop within the industry," Thomases explains.
Though the firm may be small in size, their client list includes such giants as Nokia USA, The Johns Hopkins University, Endo Pharmaceuticals, the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association and the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
A frequent speaker at trade and business events, Thomases has been a keynote speaker for the American Marketing Association, Search Engine Strategies and the University of Baltimore's Entrepreneurship Speaker Series, where she helps business owners and entrepreneurship students at UB understand the challenges of running a business and the role that online marketing can play in it’s potential success.
Last year, Thomases was recognized as an "Enterprising Woman of the Year" by Enterprising Woman magazine, and in 2007 she was the Maryland Small Business Administration's "Small Business Person of the Year."
Thomases lately has built a reputation as an expert in the emerging field of social media, and councils companies in developing optimal strategies for engaging clients with new technologies like Twitter and Facebook. She advises companies to plan on doing much of the work with social media for themselves, as they are the experts in their business and are the best to provide authentic answers and comments online.
"We help clients get their social media footing," Thomases says.