Client stories are the emphasis of Camp Hill-based marketing firm

Jeannette Magaro knew for years that she would one day open a marketing firm.

Two years after the founding of Storytelling Marketing and Consulting, Magaro’s boutique marketing firm in Camp Hill, she sees a path to push the firm over $100,000 in annual earnings.

A former analyst for Harrisburg-based Aetna Health Insurance, Magaro quit her career of 11 years to focus on her family and to help with the marketing of her husband’s business, Nikoli’s Pizza and Catering, in Lower Allen Township.

It took years of hard work for Magaro and her husband to grow Nikoli’s Pizza but Magaro said that the social media campaigns, community relations and events that she put on for the business began showing dividends and other businesses asked her to do the same for them.

“Businesses in the community wanted me to help in their marketing,” she said. “I had college tuition coming for my kids so I said why not?”

When Magaro first began marketing Nikoli’s Pizza, she was primarily focused on social media marketing and web design, but she saw a niche in

marketing with an emphasis on a client’s story being used nationally that she did not see being filled in Harrisburg.

A self-proclaimed “21st Century Storyteller,” Magaro felt that there were plenty of firms in the region offering traditional marketing campaigns. She saw an opportunity to create a platform where she could help her clients communicate to their clients what the businesses purpose is.

Magaro said that she sees her firm as a different service from marketing with some of her clients using the storytelling services alongside other marketing firms and social media experts.

“I don’t think marketing companies should look at me as competition but as a partner,” she said. “We offer storytelling marketing and branding services that are customized. Designed to create an emotional connection between the audience and our client, stories make the companies we represent 20 times more relatable, resulting in a lasting impression that traditional marketing campaigns lack.”

Jeffrey West, founder and managing partner of Lemoyne-based Freedom Financial wealth management, began using Storytelling’s services last year. He said that as a financial advisor, his business needed a way to stand out from businesses offering similar products and the way to do that was to forge a unique brand.

“A client can look for financial product through so many avenues, West said. “They want to work with someone they trust and trust starts with knowing the person at the other side of the table and from hearing their story.”

Magaro is proud of the growth she has seen in her first two years and expects to move the business out of her home and into its own headquarters by next year. She is also looking to push the business over an annual revenue of $100,000, a number that 88 percent of women-owned businesses have yet to reach, according to a 2018 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report by American Express.

Storytelling Marketing and Consulting recently received a Women’s Business Enterprise Certification, which will allow Magaro to bid for work from corporate businesses and federal, state and local agencies partnered with the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council.

Magaro also has a Small Diverse Business Certification from the Pennsylvania Department of General Services, allowing Storytelling to work as a subprime or prime contractor on state services.

Magaro said she foresees her business bypassing the $100,000 mark, particularly if she wins a government contract, she will be looking to grow the business with new hires.

“If it is something big we will have to hire,” she said. “It is extremely important that everyone gets the same services they are getting now.”