Kevin Whitmer’s firm builds websites. It gets clients found on Google and AI search, aims their ad dollars at the right target audiences, runs their social media, writes their thought leadership and helps them win news coverage.
What it doesn’t do is hand them a price sheet or playbook.
The former Star-Ledger editor and NJ.com content chief said every engagement starts from scratch, with one question: What’s your why? As in, what does a client want to accomplish, and when do they want to get there?
Most of his clients are small and midsize businesses, growing family businesses, associations, trade groups and labor unions. Many, he said, have come to him after a bigger shop sold them a campaign and handed them off to someone else. At his firm, Whitmer said, he’s involved in nearly every piece of work — and clients who need him at 5 a.m. or 11 p.m. get him.
The firm launched in late 2021 as Whitmer Consulting, co-founded with his wife, Regina, also a former journalist. It recently added Mark Lovito as a Marketing & Communications Associate — in addition to its three other regular contributors. This week it rebrands as Cardinal Marketing Partners, a name meant to reflect what the work became.
The name and relaunch are personally meaningful to him. The birth of Cardinal Marketing Partners marks five years to the week since he told his NJ Advance Media bosses it was time for someone else to be the organization’s lead editor. “Cardinal” honors his late mother, who was especially fond of the birds.
BINJE talked with Whitmer about what digital marketing means, why he avoids the word “agency” and what a newsroom career brings to the table.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
BINJE: Big picture. What are you doing?
Kevin Whitmer: We’re rebranding to better reflect our work and what our clients need. I thought a lot of the work when I left journalism would be consulting, but we’ve evolved into pretty much a pure-play digital marketing operation that’s intensely focused on storytelling.
It also lets us do for our own brand the SEO and AI search work we do for clients.
BINJE: Who are your clients?
KW: We’re confident we’ve found our sweet spot in the market as a big-agency alternative and here’s why: There are a lot of great agencies out there doing great work for larger clients, but they can’t always give smaller, midsized and family businesses, trade groups and labor unions the attention or experienced operators they deserve. I understand why, and that’s where we fit. Having the familiarity I now have, especially with a lot of the labor organizations in the state, we come in game ready and save our clients time and money.
BINJE: Digital marketing can mean 100 different things to 100 different people. What does it mean to you and your clients?
KW: Digital marketing is different for every client. We do not have a playbook. We do not have a rate card and we do not bill hourly. We go in and try to understand what a client wants to accomplish and what their pain points are.
My first question is always, “What’s your why?” And what do you want to accomplish if you’re going to spend money? Some clients know that seven or eight bullet points deep. And some say, “I don’t know, what should we do?”
We try to take apart what a client is doing, understand their audience or audiences and then dig in on how their website performs, how their socials perform, if they’re using the right tools, if they are spending on paid and what the metrics show.
BINJE: Once you know the goal, what’s in the toolbox?
KW: We’ve probably built 25 websites now with our friends at Media Cutlet, which has evolved into a wonderful partnership. And we’re now doing a lot with SEO, AEO and GEO. We do paid digital. We’re doing design and publishing: white papers, one-pagers and brand style guides. We do social media. We do PR. We do thought leadership. We show people how to use AI. And we have access to some really talented multimedia specialists.
BINJE: You started as a writer, editor and section designer, but your last couple of years at NJ Advance Media were about the business model. How much does that help now?
KW: I was fortunate to work for bosses who realized the potential of the newsroom to be a revenue engine and they encouraged me to work outside some of the traditional boundaries. That allowed me to spend my last few years at NJ Advance Media working closely with really smart people on the digital advertising and marketing side, and that’s where my education in digital marketing began.
Then, there were so many other things we kind of had to teach ourselves in the newsroom, but the tools, how to use them, how to build and optimize campaigns and how to get messaging in front of the right audience, really evolved from those client meetings.
BINJE: When I deal with anyone in PR or marketing who comes from a media background, I know they’re going to be 10 times better. Do clients understand how much of a value-add your 36 years in journalism is?
KW: That’s a great question. Almost everybody I meet who knows my background starts with a few things: “Oh my God, I miss the Sunday paper. I miss having The Ledger at breakfast.” Or, “Did you work with Jerry Izenberg when you were in sports?”
Those are fun conversations, but I don’t think most people fully understand what has happened in media or that probably 75% or more of the journalism jobs in New Jersey have disappeared in the past 20 years. I don’t think people understand a site like BINJE is putting up as much content as it is, or NJ.com, even with a fraction of the print staff we once had, is publishing hundreds of pieces of content a day.
The digital reading experience is also so different. I always tell clients: we don’t read websites the way we grew up reading newspapers and the loss of traditional media coverage means it’s more important than ever to tell your story.
BINJE: Bottom line: How much does your newsroom experience still show up in your work?
KW: There’s no way I can do this job today and serve clients the way we do without my journalism experience. And when I find a client who needs to move at the pace we worked in the newsroom … well, that’s heaven.
