Dare Digital: Making a mark in the Romanian digital marketing industry

Business Review sat down with Ciprian Susanu (Founder) & Oana Grasu (GM) of Dare Digital, a Romanian creative agency with an integrated approach to digital creativity and media performance, to find out more about how they managed to successfully transition from a performance media agency into a 360-degree digital marketing agency with a unique business model.

Business Review: To kick things off, what can you tell us about the story of Dare Digital, from its founding until today and what are some of the milestones of this journey?

Ciprian Susanu: I founded Dare Digital in 2014 with the clear objective to make a mark in the Romanian landscape of digital marketing. We started as a performance media agency, focused on delivering the best possible results for our clients. As we grew, we recognized the need for a more holistic approach to digital marketing, which led to our repositioning in 2017 as a 360-degree digital marketing agency. This transition allowed us to provide more comprehensive solutions, ranging from strategy and creative content to web development, while keeping our competitive edge on digital media.

In 2018, we took a significant step by changing our business model from a traditional employee-based structure to an ecosystem of partners. This change allowed us to tap into a wide array of skills and expertise, creating a more flexible and adaptive business model that could better serve our clients’ diverse needs.

In this model, we offer a much more rewarding and motivating environment for our partners too, as they are paid based on their level of effort. This has several benefits. It fosters a greater sense of ownership and commitment, as our partners know their input directly impacts their income. Moreover, it’s an appealing model that easily attracts new senior partners, particularly experienced professionals in the industry who are looking for opportunities that align with their skills and interests.

This model is also in line with our prediction of the ‘Big Resignation’ trend which we saw as early as 2018. In a time when professionals seek more autonomy, recognition, and rewarding work, our ecosystem of partners offers a fresh and motivating alternative to traditional employment structures.

Over the past two years, we’ve been focusing on consolidating our middle and top management layers, which has resulted in a stronger, more cohesive team that’s capable of driving our agency towards its strategic goals.

Lastly, in 2023, we upgraded our agency’s proposition to ‘optimizing your brand’s digital fingerprint’. This signifies our commitment to helping brands enhance their digital presence and influence, through a blend of the most appropriate digital marketing strategies, followed by sharp tactics and excellent execution.

Our journey from our founding until today has been marked by continuous evolution and growth, all aimed at meeting the changing needs of the digital marketing landscape. It’s this commitment to adaptability and innovation that has brought us to where we are today.

BR: What is your vision for the company’s future and the way you conduct business?

Oana Grasu: Our vision for Dare Digital’s future is rooted in a deep commitment to both our clients and ourselves. We aim to play an integral role in the digital transformation of businesses, not only as advisors but also as a model of digital innovation. Just as we counsel clients to embrace digitalization, we too are continuously refining our own operations. We have adapted a SaaS ERP solution to the advertising business model and transformed it into a tool that helps us deliver our services end-to-end in a digital way, ensuring efficiency and a seamless experience for our clients and partners..

As for our business conduct, our ecosystem approach remains at the heart of it. Over the past three years, we have partnered with over 100 ecosystem members, each contributing with unique expertise and competencies. This collaborative model fosters rich, multi-disciplinary solutions for our clients and contributed heavily to our growth. Over the next three years, our goal is to triple this number, and reach 300 partners. We believe that the diversity and depth of knowledge will enable us to meet any challenge and offer our clients innovative and comprehensive solutions.

Furthermore, as visionaries in our field, we have invested in building robust systems to support the growth in the number of our partners. As such, we’ve ensured that our onboarding process and the process of team selection to meet specific client needs can be accomplished seamlessly and at a single click within our system. This advanced digital infrastructure reflects our commitment to efficiency and ease of operation, making it even more straightforward for our partners to engage and deliver high-quality solutions to our clients.

So, in essence, our vision encompasses two main elements: driving the digital transformation of businesses, including our own, and expanding our ecosystem to foster innovation and meet the evolving needs of our clients in an ever-changing digital landscape.

BR: What was your approach to scaling your business; what were the main ingredients of this successful evolution?

CS: The key to our successful scaling process lies in the approach we adopted – a flexible, decentralized model that centers around creating custom teams from our ecosystem of partners for each business and marketing challenge. The ability to handpick the most appropriate persons for each project has brought enormous value both to our clients and our partners. It’s a win-win situation – our clients get the best expertise for their unique requirements and our partners have the opportunity to work on projects that truly suit their competencies. This approach has kept everyone involved motivated and invested in our success.

Our decentralized approach was another major factor in our growth process. By empowering our partners and teams and giving them the autonomy to operate, we’ve fostered a culture of innovation, responsibility, and engagement.

Another significant factor in our scaling has been our commitment to client retention. By being fully invested in each project and ensuring a hands-on approach, we’ve managed to maintain a small, inevitable, churn rate year over year of under 15%. We’re proud to say that most of our clients have remained with us, trusting us with more significant investments each year.

Lastly, we’ve made a concerted effort to increase the profile of our new clients year over year. By steadily raising the bar and attracting more prominent, sophisticated clients, we’ve been able to scale and grow Dare Digital, while simultaneously enhancing our reputation in the market.

BR: In recent years, you’ve managed to partner up with some important companies on the Romanian market; how did you manage to accomplish this and bring in new business for your company?

OG: Forging partnerships with leading companies in the Romanian market has indeed been one of our most significant achievements. And the key to these successful collaborations has been our ability to offer a comprehensive suite of digital marketing services, coupled with a deep understanding of our clients’ unique needs.

In addition to communication services, I would like to mention that we also provide business solutions for our clients. We have experts in product development or placement and listing in International Key Accounts (IKA), financial consultants, e-commerce experts, among others, at the table. This holistic approach, coupled with our communication layer and focus on optimizing results, has proven to be a successful methodology for technology startups, as well as Romanian entrepreneurs operating on both the local and global markets. It’s worth mentioning that we’ve managed global video production projects and that we increasingly gain new clients through recommendations from international consultants with whom we’ve worked on business scaling or breaking into new markets and launching new products. This diverse range of offerings truly sets Dare Digital apart and enables us to provide comprehensive, tailored solutions.

CS: For instance, with Cargus, one of the leaders of the Romanian courier market, we went the extra mile by proposing a very strategic approach to performance media. This enabled them to reach their target audience more effectively and efficiently, thus optimizing their media spending and improving their business outcomes.

Our partnership with Sanamed Hospital is another testament to the impact of our services. Over the past three years, we’ve helped them grow both their business results and brand awareness. By understanding the nuances of their industry and audience, we were able to craft campaigns that resonated with their target demographics and drove tangible results.

For Glovo Romania, our flexibility in creating beautiful content for their social media channels was highly appreciated. We know how dynamic the world of social media can be, so our ability to respond swiftly and creatively to their needs was a significant asset in our collaboration.

With Cesarom, we managed to provide a 360-degree coverage of their digital marketing needs. This included digitally integrated campaigns, social media content, web development, SEO, and performance media services. Their satisfaction with our all-round service offering further underlines our expertise in handling diverse digital marketing needs.

These partnerships and many others demonstrate our commitment to offer solutions tailored to each client’s specific requirements, while our approach and methodology ensure that we can adapt quickly and efficiently to their changing needs.

BR: What is your approach to the day-to-day operational duties and tasks?

OG: Each day is an opportunity to make a difference and to further strengthen the foundations of our work. My approach to the day-to-day operational duties goes beyond merely ticking off tasks. It’s about being present, being involved, and being a source of motivation and inspiration for our team of partners.

My role encompasses a wide variety of tasks, from strategy planning to problem-solving, from quality assurance to relationship building. I believe that leadership is less about the position and more about the action and example. I am committed to demonstrating the values of our company & our very different business model – dedication, integrity, and a relentless focus on our client’s success.

I take pride in guiding the team and helping them thrive in an environment that encourages innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. Yet, I am always aware that we are a collective, an ecosystem of partners that grow and succeed together. I am here to ensure that we maintain a harmonious synergy, where every contribution is valued and every voice is heard.

Moreover, I am consistently inspired by the talent and drive I see in our partners. Seeing their growth and dedication reinforces my belief in our meritocratic system. It pushes me to continually strive for more – for better strategies, better solutions, and better outcomes for our clients.

In essence, my approach to operational duties is deeply personal, underpinned by my belief in our collective potential and the transformative power of digital marketing.

BR: What was your business model in developing your employer brand and towards employee attraction and retention?

CS: In the context in which traditional agencies, and not only, often struggle with employee retention, we had an entirely different approach.

In developing our employer brand and attracting and retaining talent, we recognized early on that the modern workforce values autonomy, mastery, and purpose in their work. Daniel Pink’s book “Drive” was a big inspiration for us in this respect. We understood that our partners wanted to have more control over their work, the ability to continually improve their skills, and a sense of contributing to a bigger goal.

Our approach to business, therefore, was framed around this model. We developed a meritocratic system, where every partner is paid in direct proportion to the volume of their work. This means that the more our partners contribute, the more they earn, which encourages dedication and excellence in their work.

In addition to that, we’ve made it a point to foster a culture of continual growth and learning. Together with Formula4, we aim to help our partners improve every day and become better at what they do. We believe that personal growth and collective growth go hand in hand, and by fostering an environment of learning, we also create a sense of purpose.

Transparency is also a key value for us. We believe in open communication and honesty in all aspects of our business. This creates a sense of trust and mutual respect among our partners and us.

Furthermore, our recruitment process is heavily focused on values affinity. We look for partners who share our values of transparency, growth, and meritocracy. We believe that by aligning on these core values, we can ensure a harmonious working relationship and mutual success.

Lastly, we have always encouraged an entrepreneurial mindset among our partners. We believe that this promotes innovative solutions and gives our partners a sense of ownership in their work. This combination of factors has helped us build a strong, dynamic, and committed team of professionals who are ready to meet the digital challenges of our clients.

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