Dean and Mel Kennedy own and operate DMK Business Systems Pty Ltd (DMK) as a “marketing agency”. Dean doesn’t like job titles (and if he did, he’d be suited to too many of them!). Mel (Dean’s wife) is the full time Office Manager.

Dean and Mel are DMK!

When required, other staff are engaged on contract. But 98% of the time, DMK is Dean and Mel’s business. Dean has been in business full time since 1998, and operates nearly 100% on word-of-mouth business from existing clients (he’s never spent a cent on advertising for DMK!). Our clients are our advocates, a business call sometimes wanders off onto other topics, as the relationship is personal and not just a “faceless” numbered transaction.

DMK provides marketing, public relations, advertising and design services to businesses and community organisations. The business is based in Moonee Ponds, Victoria, and helps clients across Australia (and communicates with our client’s clients across the world, in places like Taiwan, Germany, the USA, the UK and Malaysia). DMK has clients in every Australian state, and has even provided services for clients in New Zealand and the USA.

Whether it’s the design (and writing) of a newsletter, posters, printing, direct mail, flyers, business cards, advertising layouts for newspapers, web sites, logos, corporate stationery, keyrings, letters to Government, or more, Dean and Mel can probably help through direct service or advice and referrals.

Change from Terrabyte

Until 2006, the business was originally called “Terrabyte Communications.” However, a company was created and a new name chosen — DMK. This was for a number of reasons: firstly, the dmk.com.au domain name became available, and also DMK is easier to spell than Terrabyte! DMK also celebrates Mel’s full-time participation in the company by having (D)ean and (M)el (K)ennedy in the DMK name. “Business Systems” is used in the name to reflect our preference for marketing, advertising, design and printing to be delivered via a system or strategy, rather than just an ad-hoc approach.

The DMK Approach

For every project we do, our first thought is “what’s in it for my client” … how is this meeting their objectives? More sales? More awareness? Effective communication? Value for their money? Worth it for them to do? If we don’t think so, we’ll say so!

Sometimes we’ll plead with a client (and have a great bunch of reasons to back up my case) on why or why not to use a certain approach. Another perspective, some fresh ideas, new thoughts.

The DMK approach is to be effective, simple and influential, through the use of practical marketing ideas. DMK isn’t “bleeding edge.” Our clients are not a test-bed, we treat their business like they are our own. We don’t enter awards (although we’ve prepared successful award nominations for two of our clients for success in their own industry awards!) … we are after results. The recognition Mel and I receive is in the hundreds of testimonial emails offering thanks for our help and involvement!

The “why” is much more important than the “how” … and we’ll even tell a client when we think we shouldn’t complete a project for them — it’s not about the next invoice, it’s all about building trust. We know it works — our clients love what we do for them (and say so!) as much as we love working like we’re a part of their business.

You’ll find the basis for our experience is practical rather than theoretical. Dean has been raised on street tactics, from an outrageously young age. He was out earning pocket money BEFORE he went to primary school. Dean’s expert advice is based on getting the most value for your dollar — he’ll tell you the best value solution he knows of to meet your needs, even if he cannot provide it for you!

And we’re “always learning” … looking at marketing sites, the books, programs and systems of those who make millions in sales and marketing. We love learning new material and giving our clients another great idea. We pay for new courses and systems as much as possible and swipe ideas and translate them into client projects. Many of the ideas also originate from inside Dean’s head of course.

We’re upfront about using third-party trade suppliers (it is rather intriguing to us why some businesses try to mislead their customers about the real supplier of a product or service … that approach never creates long term relationships or “advocates”), and we are happy to act as an ‘informed consultant’ if you want to work directly with other suppliers you may already use.

A client emailed us just the other day and wanted one sentence of their website updated. It literally took us 30 seconds! A minute later, we emailed them back and said “it’s done!” … boy, were they impressed!