After talking to Katrina Foster for a few minutes she will have you convinced that working in public relations and marketing is really just a lot of fun says the Times Herald-Record.
Foster, 27, is the president and founder of KKPR, a boutique advertising, marketing and public relations agency based in Milford, with clients ranging from the Hotel Fauchere to a craft brewery to a New Jersey nonprofit that works with children with disabilities.
KKPR began life as Konceptual Kreations in Foster’s basement in Milford in 2006. She was 23 at the time and had recently graduated from Penn State University with a business degree and a 4.0 average. Almost nobody took her seriously.
Today she’s moved out of the basement, has a staff of six people and has managed to expand her business in an era of contraction. She was named among the “Top 20 Under 40 Business and Community Leaders” for Sussex County, N.J., in 2009 and nominated for the U.S. Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year in 2010.
Foster’s youth sometimes leads people ask her if she works for KKPR. “Yes,” is her standard, almost-truthful answer. At a recent business gathering, a man described the owner of KKPR to Foster as “a woman named Katrina” who was tall and blond. When she finally introduced herself, the man was astonished. “You’re so young,” he said – not to mention, a brunette.
Youth can be an advantage, Foster said, particularly when clients want to understand social media. “‘If you build it, they will come’ is so wrong when it comes to social media,” she said. Foster said it’s not enough to have a Twitter account or a Facebook page; you have to continue to feed them and engage people.
She compares owning a business to a marriage: “You have to get up every morning and find something else to love about it.”
Screenshot from KKPR