Darkroom is a digital marketing agency focused on DTC brands.
Interview With Lucas Dipietrantonio and Jackson Corey
Describe your product or service & the problem it’s solving:
“Darkroom is a venture builder at heart, and we act as a growth partner to brands in all stages of growth. Darkroom’s success is attributed to our unique partnership model, purposely built to launch and scale e-commerce brands. With the real-world venture experience of our team, Darkroom is ultimately able to avoid some of the common pitfalls that plague ambitious growth agencies and deliver smarter, more cost-effective growth for our clients.”
How did you come up with and validate your startup idea? Tell us the story!
“Darkroom is a digital growth agency that began as the brainchild of serial-entrepreneur Lucas DiPietrantonio and lifelong friend and creative director Jackson Corey. Both have deep experience in the ecommerce and digital marketing space and started Darkroom in 2017 because they felt other agencies were missing the mark on their full-service promise because they lacked competencies in human capital allocation, process, and creative production.”
How are you funded?
“Bootstrapping.”
Who is your target market? How did you determine this?
“Brand launches and growth engagements include VYBES, Verb Energy, ZOA Energy, Article Number, and Maaji.”
What’s your primary marketing strategy?
“Darkroom was founded in response to the changing market landscape. As the market has become more saturated with DTC brands and consumers, have become more savvy, simply running single-channel paid acquisition is no longer a viable growth strategy. Accordingly, single-channel agencies are becoming obsolete commodities. We recognized this need early, specifically and intentionally building service offerings that integrate paid media, creative, retention, conversion rate optimization, data, and forecasting functions — giving our clients an unmatched level of synergy that leads to fast, measurable, and sustainable results.”
What was the biggest obstacle you encountered while launching your company? How did you overcome it?
“In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many digital advertisers paused spending, Darkroom pivoted to focus on delivering cost-effective growth solutions and become more data-driven, choosing to focus on marketing spend efficiency over time, rather than simple churn-and-burn-acquisition strategies. The COVID-19 squeeze that many in the digital marketing space felt was ultimately the crucible that forced us to innovate and forge a new direction for the agency based on machine learning modeling and customer-cohort analysis. With the possibility of a 2023 recession looming, we feel confident that our current focus on data-driven, efficient growth will continue [to] build long term value for our clients in the years to come.”
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