ABOUT
Built on hallowed ground.
HG Media Co. is a Nashville media company for the businesses that keep America running: home-services contractors and trucking companies.
THE NAME
HG stands for Hallowed Ground.
The ground these businesses are built on matters. Somebody works it every day, before sunrise and after dark, on American soil. To us, that ground is hallowed, and every brand we build should honor what happens there.
FOUNDER
Shawn Layton
Shawn has worked in audio since he was 14. He started as a stagehand and worked his way up to front-of-house engineer, mostly in houses of worship. He studied audio engineering technology at Belmont University in Nashville and acoustics in England, France and Germany, then moved from live sound into Nashville recording studios, from garage setups to A-list rooms with A-list players.
At SiriusXM, he built Trucking Sense from scratch with host Charles Gracey. Today it is one of the most-listened-to trucking shows in America. Working alongside the men and women of the supply chain, and helping small fleets tell their story, is what led him to start HG Media Co.
HG Media Co. sells two packages: Authority SEO & AEO for home-services contractors and Authority Video for trucking and transportation companies, with every lead tracked back to its source.
VIDEO WE PRODUCE
Why trades and trucking
Shawn’s dad has run a one-man electrical and HVAC business for more than 20 years. Growing up, Shawn heard the same thing from customers again and again: we need you, we can’t find anyone else, we don’t trust anyone else.
They deserve better
These businesses keep the lights on and the shelves stocked. They are the first ones out and the last ones home. It isn’t glamorous work: it’s grease, dirt, exhaust and long days. But it makes everything else possible, and it has some of the worst marketing in America, because owners don’t have time for it and most agencies don’t understand it.
Marketing isn’t a content factory.
Plenty of agencies now ship as much content as they can, as cheaply and as fast as they can. That isn’t marketing. Marketing is how your customers perceive you. Big agencies run the same playbook for whoever has a budget, and trades and trucking end up looking clunky, intimidating and boring. You have to understand this work from the inside to show it the way it really is, then make it impossible to ignore.
No one works for us. They work with us.
HG is a collaborative crew of producers, editors and shooters. Everyone is trusted to do what they do best, and every idea gets heard. That energy shows up in the work. Templated, committee-made marketing feels soulless because the people making it don’t know what they’re making. We do.
OUR PROMISE
Understood and heard.
Within a year of working with us, and often much sooner, you should feel understood and heard: first by us, then by your customers. Your name in front of the right people, shown in the best possible light, for the work you actually do.