B.O.O.S.T. Podcast
B.O.O.S.T. Podcast
Bold Brands on a Budget: Callum Gracie’s Playbook for Standing Out Online | EP168
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What does it take to build a brand that cuts through the digital noise without burning through your budget? Callum Gracie, founder of Otto Media and trusted guide for everyday entrepreneurs, explores the real strategies behind building bold, effective online brands.
Callum shares how his early days as a DJ shaped his approach to branding, debunks common myths about SEO and digital marketing, and offers three low-cost, high-impact tactics business owners can use right now to boost visibility. He also reveals how authenticity can be your greatest differentiator in crowded digital spaces and the branding mistakes to avoid if you want to grow with clarity and confidence.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/callum-gracie/
Website: http://www.gjgardner.com.au/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/otto_media_agency/
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It's something that a lot of people are scared of getting their face out there and actually talking publicly or getting on videos or doing any kind of PR or networking or anything like that. But now I think it's more important than ever that you need to get your face out there and you need to be able to share your wisdom.
Kelly LeonardThat was Callum Gracie. Callum is the founder of Auto Media and a trusted guide for business owners navigating the digital world. From wedding DJs to seven-figure e-commerce brands, he's helped everyday entrepreneurs build bold, effective online brands, cutting through the noise with smart strategy, honest advice, and no fluff. In today's episode, Callum shares strategies to build your brand. Get ready to learn, laugh, and walk away with practical ideas you can use today to start seeing results tomorrow. I'm Kelly Leonard, and this is the Boost Podcast.
AnnouncerWelcome to the Boost Podcast, the podcast created to ignite your business and career potential. In each episode, host Kelly Leonard and her guests dive into one aspect of Kelly's Signature Boost framework, ensuring you get practical, actionable insights, tips, and takeaways to build your brand, optimize relationships, obtain more leads, secure thought leadership space, and tap into new markets. And now, here's Kelly Leonard.
Kelly LeonardHey Callum, welcome to the Boost Podcast. Hey Kelly, how are you going? Doing great. For folks who are hearing your name for the very first time, tell us a bit about yourself.
Callum GracieYeah, absolutely. Well, my name is Callum Gracie. I um I'm the founder of Automedia here in Australia, which is a digital digital marketing company specializing in SEO and digital PR. But we've naturally found ourselves looking after other areas of marketing, especially down the paid ads route as well. So Google Ads, uh, meta ads. Yeah, so kind of doing it all now. Anything to do with your branding, it's sort of a changing space, which is exciting.
Kelly LeonardAwesome. Well, we're excited to have you here. And so just to give folks a bit more background about you, what really inspired you to launch your company and how did your your time as a as a DJ shape shape your approach to branding?
Callum GracieThat's so funny, Kelly. So, so very, very good quick, very quick story. So I was um I was a school teacher, I was then doing some gigs on the side as a trumpet player, and then I was able to um manage a a um a company that called the Baker Boys Band. Uh, and that it was a team of about a hundred creatives, and uh they would perform for events. And anyway, once once I were up and running, we're we'll I was booking around 500 events in a year. Uh and then COVID hit. And so that was the really that that was sort of what triggered me to turn into DJing was I thought, so I lost all of my gigs when COVID hit and I decided to sort of move away from teaching. So I I literally lost everything. Thankfully, I guess maybe this has something to do with we've definitely got a bit of ADHD and I got a little bit of obsessed with um, I thought, okay, well, if they um if they can't have me, well, how do I make it so they need me? Because I mean, the first to go when COVID hit, all all weddings got pretty much closed down. If you if you were lucky enough to have a wedding, you could only have 20, 30 people, people there, including the vendors that were at the event. So I was the um I was the trumpet player in the band, so I was obviously the first to get the axe and first to go. So I thought, well, how do I make it so they need me? All right, I'm a DJ now. So I double- So I thought, okay, well, all right, get to it. And then I just sort of got obsessed with that. And in the in the in the um midst of it all, um, I did go back to do doing some casual teaching, but I did sort of I did get obsessed with SEO and and digital marketing. And so I just went all in with that and I was able to get my website up, get myself ranking, I was able to get it back up and running um to a point where he was making significantly more than I was as a teacher. And then I thought, well, that's that's interesting. That is almost like that's how you make money. It doesn't matter how good how good you are, you've got to be good at what you do, but you need to be able to back it so with marketing. So I thought I I'll do it for my brother as well and made him a DJ. And then I'm all of a sudden he was making just as much, um, having just as much success. And then I think my little sister got um a bit jealous, so she said, I want to be a DJ. So she's yeah, DJ Emily, Gracie, check her out, she's very funny. Um, and so so I thought I can do this, I can absolutely make it happen. And and if anything, it's just the most amazing opportunity for for business owners to, I guess for anyone to be able to have success, I felt like I knew something. I knew something that other people didn't really put value on or didn't really understand it. So I thought, all right, well, I really want to get into this space, but because I didn't have any training, I tried to apply for SEO positions. Um, because I didn't have any formal training, even though formal training doesn't really exist for SEO, I didn't really have much, much luck. I was applying for a lot of positions and and then I was able to um get a a role with another company um doing their well, SEO advisory, but um it was definitely more geared towards sales. And then I just sort of thought I can just do this myself. I just was just seeing so much great, I guess, rewards for business owners, just their their happiness and trust. Like that sometimes I'll I'd be talking to business owners that are quite vulnerable, they're in a really tough position and being able to hear their story and sort of knowing, hey, I think I can help you. Um it was great. And so that's sort of where auto media came into it. And just over the course of the last sort of couple years, we've we've pivoted SEO towards more digital PR, which is still quite new in Australia. I know it's quite big over there in the States, but that's sort of how I got into Auto Media, and I still do my DJing on the side. I had a had a corporate event last night. Wickle, we can I love that in my intro too, Kelly. You make sure that makes the makes the cut. Absolutely. Um and yeah, and that's so now I'm just doing uh digital marketing. We've been able to build our team from two to 16 full-time team members in the space of a year and a half. We are working with international brands worth millions and millions of dollars. So I'm very, very lucky to be able to give it to be, I guess, given that trust. Um, but I think a big part of it is is in how you position yourself as a business and what you what's I guess how you want to be seen and heard online. So I'm a big believer in producing content and helping people. So I guess that's sort of that's being again again a secret weapon. I sort of thought, well, it's something that a lot of people are scared of is getting their face out there and actually um talking publicly or getting on videos or doing any kind of PR or networking or anything like that. But now I think it's more important than ever that you need to get your face out there and you need to be able to share your wisdom. I mean, really, it's even if you were just one step ahead of someone else, but that one thing was the very thing that they needed, then you're helping someone. And when you're helping someone, it builds trust. And when they build trust, when they do get to a point where they actually need a professional service, I'm just finding that they're wanting to talk to me. So I'm posting every day little helpful marketing tips and tricks on our Instagram and social media. Um, we're building out a learning center on our website. Um, I've it's allowed me to stop prospecting, which has been really interesting because I've always been in sales. It's um I've always, yeah, always done that. But now it's just produce amazing content. Talk instead of talking to one person, I'm talking to many through the content that I'm producing. I'm listening to what people are asking, I'm engaging in conversations online. And as a result, they're wanting to talk, talk with me. And it's almost like they've got this instant trust that it's kind of eliminated the whole price thing or any kind of objection around sort of price because it's more about I want to partner with you. So how do we do this and what's the next step? So I'm really, yeah, having amazing conversations and being able to help some incredible businesses too.
Kelly LeonardWow. Now I'd imagine that throughout this sort of evolution of Callum 2.0, you've probably identified a number of things where, oh, I thought this, but now I realize this. And so what's one myth about SEO or digital marketing that you wish you knew more business owners would sort of like just let go of that, let go of that. I heard enough. I feel I feel like you were answering part of that in your res in your previous comments, but I'd just be curious about what's that one myth that you think folks should let go of.
Callum GracieWell, I mean, it's not so much much a myth. I think it's more that everyone gets scared when they hear SEO. They just think it's so overcomplicated and tough and challenging. It's actually not, it's really just creating a wonderful brand, being active online and helping people through just great content. There's definitely some technical stuff in the background that you can seek help with, but really it's just more about be the best business you can be. And I guess there's lots of little wins you can do. Your Google Business Profile is a massively under-leveraged marketing tool that a lot of business owners don't seem to do. Like I always sort of say, treat it like a social media platform. You can do updates and posts on your Google Business profile, you can up and you can add photos from your jobs, which is almost like a timestamp with Google to then push your local um relevance um and put you up in the in the top three um businesses to to hire for whatever it is that you're looking for. So Google Reviews is a really big one as well. Um speaking with beautiful people like you, Kelly, I think that's another really important thing is get out there and share your message. And um, yeah, I think that SEO now, the myth is it's still very, very important to have the foundations, but it's not the it's not everything now. It's it's you've got to get off of your website to publications, media, and get them talking about you and about your business. And that is going to really help keep your SEO in check and moving up. Um so that's why, yeah, we've sort of heavily moved into digital PR now because that's sort of where where it's all heading.
Kelly LeonardOkay. And so you've alluded to in terms of like just the Google updates, but what are maybe two or three additional low-cost, high impact ways that entrepreneurs can boost their visibility, like starting like immediately, what can they do?
Callum GracieYeah, absolutely. So I would firstly build out your foundation, figure out exactly what services you offer and make sure you've got a dedicated landing page for each. I would then create a blog and I would create three to five content assets that will support that landing page. So let's say if you're a uh a landscaper and one of your one of your services is decking, you might do a blog post on you know the the the top three or most popular decking wood types in Canberra. And you you want to be able to build, or you might do like a um might be like a landscaping calculator that you can get made very easily with ChatGPT now and put that on your website. It's just again all this trust that you're trying to build. So that would be so build out content assets to to then support the pillars of your core services. That's going to really help you. The other thing is do podcasting, really easy backlink and mentions online. And another really, really cheap um way to do it, and and we you we leverage this, is called Harrow Outreach. Harrow Outreach is answering questions from journalists that are writing a story and they need an expert opinion. It's so easy, and you can get on articles that uh from publications that charge milli uh millions, charge thousands of dollars for for for a um for a backlink or a mention or an article, and you can get them all for free. Um not long ago I got one on Hubspot, which again they bring millions of people to their websites every month. And so the credibility from these powerhouse media outlets talking about your business is just a massive injection. You can find people think you can find people that actually do that for you, and they'll just charge per backment they get. It might just be like you know, 60, 70 bucks. Um, and they'll do they'll do the outreach for you. And it's such a fantastic way to get those links. It just takes grit and bit of work.
Kelly LeonardAnd so the the latter part, a bit of work, like time is always a challenge to folks. And so if you if someone were to say, okay, I've got an hour that I can dedicate a day, like what would you like what are the must-do things that you should like perhaps maximize in that hour as it pertains to either SEO or digital marketing?
Callum GracieYeah, that's a really, really good question. I think the first thing is make sure that your foundation is sorted, make sure that you have a key page on your website for everything that you do, and then build that out. That's that would just be the first thing. It's almost like the the hierarchy. The next thing I would do is go to ChatGPT and ask them to um do a competitor analysis against your competitors to see what they're doing that you're not doing. And then from there you'll be able to leverage that um and then fill in the gaps there. And then Yeah, so there's there's lots of different steps that you can do depending on where you are in the journey, Kelly. It's really hard to say, well, this is what you should do right now for your business because everyone is sort of in a different, different position. But um, just make your brand the best it can be.
Kelly LeonardSo then and and in doing that, like because it's like the digital space is such a crowded market. And so, how do you help clients sort of stay authentic while standing out in such a crowded market?
Callum GracieYeah, no, yeah, it's this is a really big one. So, I mean, that look at look at Automedia. We have so many competitors and so many um businesses saying they're the leading marketing, digital marketing specialists, and they offer this and they do that, and it's all so cheap. And so, oh man. Oh, by the way, if you ever hear an agency say they can do SEO for a thousand dollars, just run. I don't think our just our tools that we use doesn't even doesn't even cover that. Um so yeah, there's a lot of um there's a that I think that's that's the scary thing. That's what they like to make it really difficult because it's um yeah, there's a lot of people in in the industry that that aren't doing the right thing and and will definitely not help your business, which sucks. But um yeah, I've actually forgotten your question, Kelly. What was that?
Kelly LeonardOh, but staying like how do you like stay, like how do you break through the crowded and the noise in the digital market space? So how do you help clients stay authentic?
Callum GracieSo so the most important thing is to be authentic to yourself and to get out there and talk to people, get on camera, produce helpful content. It's really just about it's now a trust game, I believe. I think it's more about um what can what value can I produce to then earn trust from people so that when they come to a point where they need support or need help, they're going to turn to someone that they feel like they know, feel like they trust, feel like they resonate with, feel like they could work with you. Um, and it opens up that that dialogue and conversation. So yeah, I'd just say do as many videos as you can, put a plan in place, any sort of meeting or topic or anything that you can talk about, film yourself talking about it and just post it. I know that people get really scared by seeing their own face, but you know, online I'll see their own face. Um get they do get scared by seeing their own um face on online or or hearing their voice, but it's exactly the same as talking to someone. Like you just you just do it and be authentic to yourself. Mistakes and all, it doesn't matter. People are forgiving and and they're always rooting for you as well. I know that we always jump to hate, jump on the hate train thinking that there's gonna be all these trolls and people hating on what you're doing. I'm still yet to hear from a troll. And I post most days. I'm still yet to hear that so there's always gonna be uh some negativity. They might be doing saying some stuff behind closed door, like oh, he's a bit fat. It's just a bit bit dumb. What what the heck? But again, you've got to appreciate the hustle as well, and you've got to appreciate that that they're just trying to do the best job that they can do, and everyone's rooting for you. So once I've realized that, like you're not gonna die by doing these videos, you're not going to um, you're not hurting anyone, you're helping people, so it's just a win-win for and you get content, amazing content, and thought leadership. You sort of start to become a a leader in that space, and people start recognizing you and and seeing you. Um, and I mean, I had a had a meeting with the CEO of a um a large association, and the first time I met him, but he felt like he just knew me and he said, I've seen your content. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm like, hey, where'd you see my content? And he said, LinkedIn. Um, I sort of said, I'd say it on Instagram because I don't you I'm too old for that account. So Instagram. But uh no LinkedIn and again I think that that just softened it that we could just have a wonderful conversation. I just he just felt we just it was we just hit it off straight away. But yeah, I'm hearing that all the time. People like, yeah, I see I see your stuff. Oh yeah, I see your face. Oh, oh, you've got a really familiar face. Where have I seen you before? Or like it's like I don't know, who knows? Wow, wow.
Kelly LeonardSo well, Callum, if folks are hearing, like just want to tap into your genius, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you and the great work that you do?
Callum GracieDefinitely, I'd just say go straight to our Instagram or website. We're building at our learning center. We're we're trying to post a three or four articles every week of how we can sort of help businesses in all from all different angles. But uh Instagram is definitely a wonderful source for you to get lots of little bite-sized marketing nuggets that you can implement in no time at all and just be aware of, and you'll be able to sort of stay on track with what's in and what's happening, what's being penalized, and where you should be going as a yeah, to make sure that you are appreciated by Google.
Kelly LeonardAwesome. And I will include all those links in the show notes as well. So, Callum, thank you so much for investing some time with us today. Kelly, such a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
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