The People Behind Kirk Donovan Enterprises

Kirk Donovan Enterprises was founded in 1984 by Kirk Donovan. The firm calls itself an Atlanta advertising consulting firm; its office is in Covington, Georgia, and it serves Atlanta businesses.

The work runs from media buying and creative work for radio and television to mobile, digital, web and social marketing, and the services page lists each service in its group.

The current team is Kirk Donovan and Mason Donovan. Kirk brings the agency's response-first advertising foundation, while Mason understands the connection between traditional media and digital channels. Their backgrounds are introduced below.

Radio is where Kirk Donovan's career began: he worked as an announcer and as a sales representative. Early on he learned that retail advertising, the advertising done by businesses that sell directly to the public, was more than ratings, demos and cute creative copy. Ratings estimate how large an audience is, and demos are the demographic groups it is divided into. Neither one tells an advertiser whether anyone acted on the message, and acting is the point. Kirk learned that advertising exists to get people to respond.

Behavioral science looks at what people actually do and why. In Kirk's approach to advertising, the practical question is what a person should do next and how the message makes that response possible.

He is the author of AdSense2: The Digital Revolution and Where Did The Love Go?, and companies and organizations can ask about a seminar with him. The training page has the books and the seminar details.

Mason Donovan was raised in the world of advertising and marketing; he appeared in commercials as a two-year-old. He is a child of the digital age, with a firm grasp of how traditional media sends people to digital channels.

That link is worth understanding because a radio spot, a billboard or a television ad is often the first step, not the last. The person who hears a business name on the way to work may search for it later that day, read its reviews or visit its website. Knowing how people move from one to the other helps the traditional and digital sides of a campaign support each other instead of running separately.

Behavioral science is the study of what people do and the reasons behind it. In Kirk's approach, any advertising message exists for one reason: to get the people who meet it to respond. A response might be a call, a visit, a search, a sign-up or a purchase. Whatever it is, it is something a person does, not something an advertiser hopes they will feel. A response can usually be observed, which gives the advertising something to be measured against.

A response-first view raises practical questions for any business, whatever the medium:

• Who, specifically, is this message for?
• What should that person do after seeing or hearing it?
• What might stand in the way, and how can the message remove it?
• How will you tell, from what people actually do, whether it worked?

Those questions apply equally to a radio spot, a billboard, a website and an email. Not every message asks for a purchase, either. Some ask for a first step, such as a call, a visit or a request for information, and the right first step depends on how much the audience already knows and how large the decision is. Settling on that step before any ad is written keeps the rest of the work pointed at something.

Before choosing a medium, describe the decision from the customer's side. What does the person already know about the business? What would make the next step useful to them? A message meant to introduce a service has a different job from one meant to answer a question or invite an inquiry. Keeping that job clear helps the words, the page and the contact step fit together.

The same thinking applies when traditional advertising leads someone online. The name they heard, the service they searched for and the page they reach should make sense together. A clear description and an easy way to ask a question give the visitor somewhere to go with that interest. The agency's current services include mobile app development alongside its traditional and digital advertising work.

If you would like to talk through your current advertising, your market or your goals, the free consultation is the place to start.