Riding the Next Wave
How Dana Pulis built Kinetic Marketing and is now reinventing it in the age of AI
When Dana Pulis isn’t busy leading the region’s largest marketing agency, she is thinking about surfing, and that’s no surprise. Her newfound quest to catch a wave and surf the perfect curl is a metaphor for so much in her 20-year career.
“The water is changing every single second, so what you learned two minutes ago doesn’t apply. You have to fly forward to a completely different condition,” Dana says.
With AI growing in popularity, the marketing landscape is changing almost as fast as the ocean in a storm, and the algorithms for online marketing change with a such a frequency that it could give any pro marketer whiplash.
“There are plenty of times in business where we catch a wave of AI and we're like, we're on it. We're riding it. This feels good. Look at it. It works,” Dana says. “But it changed and it just changed again. And it's changing right now as we speak.”
Dana founded Kinetic Marketing in 2007 without a safety net, and the endeavor was risky from the beginning. She realized she was a woman in a man’s world and knew that building her business would take more than just the right connections. It would take decisiveness and hard work. At that time, the agency’s slim portfolio included lots of spec work — working unpaid to build Kinetic’s reputation.
“From this standpoint now, that would look reckless because we were wasting all this time, but it was very strategic,” Dana says.
She had conviction, believed in her team and was willing to take risks because she knew that she was in it for the long haul. At the time, Dana, who has a degree in journalism, did all the writing. It was her first love and the reason she started the agency.
In the early years, she leveraged her spec work and the success of those first clients to attract more clients and bigger contracts. Dana was always thinking two years ahead, building a flexible strategy that opened the door for more work.
“I would take a little bit of equity from one project or one client and move it forward to the next,” she says.
Dana calls it leapfrogging, and it’s been a cornerstone of her business model. It’s a philosophy she still believes in.
“Just take a risk, take what you've got, and leapfrog it,” she says.
Dana worked long hours to support her family while her then-husband pursued higher education. They have three sons, and the youngest was 3 when Dana started Kinetic. No matter how late it was when she got home, Dana insisted on making dinner for her family.
Now Kinetic employs about 25 people, and several employees have been there from the earliest years, the “scrappy days” as Dana calls them. She takes pride in providing a great work culture for her employees. It’s paid off with team loyalty, and many employees have been with the company for 10 years or more.
Kelsea Schreiner, part owner of Kinetic and a managing partner, came on board in 2009 as a writer. She’s seen many changes in Kinetic over the years and said that Dana has always been a steady, guiding force, who fostered creative solutions and modeled work-life balance.
“Dana is tenacious in a way that is larger scale. It’s not about the small details, and her kind of tenacity and vision is hard to find,” Kelsea says.
Relationships are key to Kinetic’s success, she added, and Dana has always focused on building heartfelt relationships with clients and with her team. “Dana is one of those people I’ve never not trusted her intentions for people she works with, for clients, and for me,” Kelsea says.
To make Kinetic thrive, Dana realized she needed to embrace structure, focus on the numbers and keep metrics top of mind. It didn’t come naturally, but she knew early on that discipline was essential for the success of the business.
Kinetic had always been a founder-centric agency, but in the last three years, Dana, 57, has orchestrated a shift to a new leadership model. She’s handed off direct management to a leadership team. Now Dana oversees client accounts and revenue, leaving the day-to-day execution to her team. Lately, she’s been working on vision and strategic planning to “reinvent our position.”
“I don’t want to be indispensable, I want this agency to be indispensable,” she says.
As part of Dana’s strategic plan, Kinetic bought a small, successful marketing firm in Bozeman with the goal of serving small businesses. The new venture is called Kinetic Greenhouse.
“We have a love for local business, and we know how hard it is for them to compete in this world, in marketing,” Dana says.
These days, Dana’s neglected creative side is getting the love it has long deserved. She’s hosting podcasts and writing a regular column on LinkedIn. Her column has more than 20,000 views, and her podcast features executives from A-list companies like Wells Fargo, KOA and Fox Entertainment. Dana leapfrogged her way from one top executive to the rest, and she has hosted 15 guests. Her podcast is for marketing professionals and is called “The Sting,” which is a nod to her beekeeping hobby. You can’t have honey without the sting, she says.
Dana also takes her expertise on the road as a speaker at various marketing conventions across the United States. While her colleagues think she’s crazy for taking the stage in front of a crowded room, Dana is energized by public speaking. Her message illustrates a need in marketing for connection.
“We have technology and we have AI, but we must maintain human connections, human emotions, and humanize our world more than we ever have,” she says.
All these new endeavors — surfing included — sprang from her decision to loosen her grip on the agency and allow others to lead. In fact, she says the move has been one of the best leadership decisions she’s ever made. It provided the time for her to pursue other things in life, including a new romantic relationship and more time with her adult children, who all still live in Billings.
“There was a time in the beginning when I was all the things,” Dana says. “Now, I'm in the long game, and I'm building confidence for the last chapters of my life.”
She’s excited to share what she’s learned about business and life, and yes, about surfing.
“You don't have to do it like everybody else. You just have to take action even if it's just a first small step,” Dana says. “That’s where the confidence is built.”
Starting out in any new pursuit, whether it’s in business or life, can be scary, Dana says. Not every risk she took or decision she made was met with reward, but she didn’t let fear make decisions for her. She just looked to the next opportunity — the next wave.
“Maybe why I love surfing so much is because I’m learning how to thrive in a condition that is completely unpredictable, uncontrollable, and is changing second by second. It is how life is. It is life in motion. It’s constant,” Dana says.
