Meet Gwen Beren | CEO, Illuminous Marketing, Inc

We had the good fortune of connecting with Gwen Beren and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Gwen, can you share the most important lesson you’ve learned over the course of your career?
The most important lesson I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is the importance of flexibility and resiliency, especially in digital marketing. We often don’t have control over the platforms we use and it is important to be able to pivot quickly and frequently.

A perfect example of this is how AI in marketing is swiftly revolutionizing how work gets done. When you own a business, rather than looking at changes as a threat, you can look at them as an opportunity to do things a different way and to serve your clients in a better way.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
This month, Illuminous Marketing is celebrating its 10-year anniversary and I couldn’t be more excited. The road to this milestone has been winding and bumpy at times, however, it’s also given me loads of life lessons to learn from.

When I started Illuminous back in 2013, I wanted to create a company that really helped other businesses. I came from a corporate background where clients were treated as disposable numbers and that didn’t sit well with me. Because of that experience, I didn’t want to create just another marketing firm or SEO consultancy, I wanted to make an impact when businesses trusted us with their marketing budget.

That same value has carried me through to this point in the company 10 years later. In the last 18 months, we have invested heavily in growing our reporting and data capabilities to be able to provide clients with reports that help them make better business decisions about where to allocate their marketing budgets. Additionally, the majority of our clients are purpose-driven businesses that are looking to make their own impact in the world, whether that is through providing better training for leaders and teams or guiding people with ESG investments so that they know their retirement isn’t funded at the expense of the environment. Illuminous continues to hold strong to the belief that integrity can be a core value of a successful business.

We’ve also seen many changes in digital marketing in the last 10 years that are mostly very exciting. New trends that we are incorporating into our strategies for clients include leveraging AI to increase effectiveness and efficiency while maintaining the human element of marketing. There are some fantastic possibilities available right now with creative tools that use AI and when those are paired with human creativity, the results are phenomenal!

We are also fortunate to be alive in a time when measuring marketing outcomes has never been easier. New tools emerge constantly that help us to gain better insights from the data we collect in order to increase the impact we have for our clients. In the last year, we’ve been able to save one client about 20 hours of work per month by automating reports that were previously gathered manually. This freed up their team to focus on more creative endeavors that resulted in better-performing campaigns for the business.

All in all, while it has at times been a challenging road, the journey of entrepreneurship continues to be a fun adventure!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Whenever we have guests in town, we love to take them to the beach in Carlsbad followed by ice cream from Handel’s or Jeni’s! We also love to take guests to little hidden gems like Misadventure in Vista, which distills their own vodka from expired pastries. The cocktails are to die for and the ambiance is top-notch. Another of our favorite spots is Del Lusso in Bressi Ranch. The food is fresh and delicious, just like in Italy and the service is hard to beat.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Hera Hub definitely deserves a shout-out for helping me to develop my business over the last 10 years! When I first joined, it was to get out of my house and have a change of scenery. I quickly discovered that it is so much more than a co-working space! Over the years, I’ve attended (and led) their business boosters, gone to strategic planning workshops, made lots of friends, and of course, great business connections. It is also really great to have a supportive community that can identify with the unique challenges facing female business owners today.

Website: https://illuminousmarketing.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/illuminousmarketing/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/illuminous-marketing/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@illuminousmarketing