Most marketing agencies follow the same playbook: take your budget, run a few campaigns, post on social media, send some emails, and move on. Dannet Botkin takes a different approach. After decades of leading businesses across the U.S. and internationally, she founded her own agency with a perspective few marketers share, one grounded in real operational experience. For more than a decade, her firm, Designs Group Consulting, has helped clients connect marketing efforts with the core of their business strategy. The result is not just stronger branding, but measurable growth and lasting impact.
Building Cohesive Marketing Systems
Botkin’s agency manages everything from website design to event marketing for clients in real estate and small business. Through that experience, she’s uncovered a costly problem many companies overlook. When clients hire her team for certain tasks but keep others in-house, their marketing efforts lose momentum. “Although we’re driving traffic to them, they don’t necessarily have the matching brand, the right click-through, or the right content for interested visitors,” she explains.
To illustrate, Botkin often compares marketing to a spider web. The website sits at the center, with each channel radiating outward. Social media, newsletters, blogs, podcasts, and video marketing should all connect back to that center, capturing leads that flow into a CRM system for automated follow-up. “You actually save money, save time, and do better and get more leads if you let a company do it all,” she says. The real challenge, she adds, is inconsistency. When an agency manages social media but the client controls the website, the brand’s voice begins to splinter. Traffic can land on the wrong page or fail to connect with the CRM. These gaps drain marketing budgets and confuse potential customers who expect a unified experience.
Establishing Credibility Through Strategy
About 75 percent of Botkin’s clients come through referrals, and some have remained with her agency since its founding 11 years ago. That kind of loyalty doesn’t happen by accident. “The difference between my company and other companies is that we bring that business acumen into the marketing,” she explains. Rather than focusing solely on running campaigns, her team looks deeper, analyzing how each initiative influences day-to-day operations. They ask the bigger questions: What needs to change internally for marketing to succeed? Where can the business streamline processes and reinvest savings into stronger lead generation?
This higher-level approach builds both authority and trust. Clients aren’t treated like account numbers; they are treated as true partners. “You are our partner for success, and we believe when you succeed, we succeed,” Botkin says. That mindset, combined with her extensive business background, distinguishes Designs Group Consulting from competitors who rely on marketing tactics without fully understanding the business mechanics behind them.
Bringing Cross-Industry Experience Forward
Botkin’s career path explains a lot about her approach today. She began in fashion merchandising after her father encouraged her to pursue a business degree instead of fashion design. After starting in Neiman Marcus’s buying office, she moved to New York to work for a wholesaler in import and export. Earlier retail management roles during college eventually led to running entire businesses for different partners. Those positions required her to manage finance, operations, logistics, and marketing at the same time. “I worked with different partners who taught me a great deal. We would discuss various industries, and I eventually gravitated toward the marketing side because it brought that artist back in me,” she reflects.
Marketing became the ideal intersection of business thinking and creative expression. That blend matters when new clients walk through her doors. Real estate firms, small businesses, and retail operations are all industries she already knows well. She understands their regulations, compliance challenges, and what truly works. “I’m able to help them not just in the marketing, but on the business side,” she says. For female entrepreneurs who are just starting out, Botkin’s advice is straightforward. Build a real business plan that includes a comprehensive marketing strategy, and do not treat it as something you write once and set aside. “Let it be dynamic, let it be living,” she advises.
That plan becomes a roadmap, guiding founders to analyze competitors, define their positioning, and gather ideas before investing money. Without it, chaos usually follows. “They tend to throw spaghetti at the wall, waste money, try too many different things, and feel chaotic and scattered because they’re not sure what’s working and what’s not working,” she observes. A solid plan helps leaders direct their teams, stay focused on goals, and avoid wasting resources on disconnected tactics. The act of planning itself sharpens thinking and saves both time and money in the long run.
Follow Dannet Botkin on LinkedIn or her website to learn how integrated marketing strategies can transform real business results.
