Darrell Keezer is an entrepreneur, marketing executive, and founder of Candybox Marketing, Canada’s premier full-service digital marketing agency. In addition to acting as CEO of that company, Keezer is also the author of two books (37 Ways Your Website Died and How to Resurrect It and Pick Up Your Freakin’ Phone: The New Rules for Entrepreneurs), as well as a highly regarded keynote speaker.
As a young man, Darrell Keezer attended Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario between 2002 and 2006, graduating with a degree in marketing.
Upon entering the working world, Darrell Keezer accepted a position as the Manager of Automated Marketing Services with Pitney Bowes of Canada. Here, he oversaw a series of information technology projects related to marketing automation and managed a team composed of training, support, customer service, programming, and network administration professionals. He was laid off from Pitney Bowes in 2008, something he would later chronicle in his 2020 book, Pick Up Your Freakin’ Phone: The New Rules for Entrepreneurs, where he largely credits the firing as providing the impetus for him to become an entrepreneur.
That same year, Darrell Keezer created Candybox Marketing with a vision of expanding the horizons of the digital marketing industry.
In 2011, while Keezer continued to grow Candybox Marketing, he helped co-found the company Social Stage, subsequently assuming the role of Senior Vice-President of Marketing. Social Stage would go on to create the successful Facebook Page App, launching it across the United States and Canada in partnership with Facebook Promotions, FOX Broadcasting, and other leading media brands and commercial sponsors.
Darrell Keezer wrote his first book, 37 Ways Your Website Died and How to Resurrect It, in 2014. The book is best characterized as an online marketing how-to guide, exploring several common missteps companies tend to make when trying to establish an effective web presence.
In 2017, Keezer became an official member of the Forbes Agency Council, an invitation-only community for senior-level public relations, marketing, advertising, and media agency executives. He is still a member of the council to this day.
By 2019, Candybox Marketing was expanding at an incredible rate and grew by at least 50% every year for the following five straight years. Keezer accomplished this without the aid of investor dollars, bank loans, or even carrying a balance on his credit cards. Candybox now employs more than 50 marketing experts and offers a host of digital marketing services, including innovative web strategies, targeted online advertising, strategic branding, and robust video and social media marketing.
Darrell Keezer finished writing his second book, Pick Up Your Freakin’ Phone: The New Rules for Entrepreneurs, in 2020. In his sophomore effort analyzing the modern business world, he takes a more biographical angle, relating his own personal highs and lows on the road to entrepreneurial success. He also provides insights and lessons on how best to start a new business from the conceptual stage through to launch, all written in Keezer’s signature straight-up, boots-to-the-ground voice.
When not working, Darrell Keezer travels across North America delivering keynote speeches. Though the subjects of his speeches vary somewhat, at their core they are all about teaching organizations how to transform their online presence by adopting cutting-edge digital marketing practices. In the past, he has accepted invitations to speak by Microsoft, the Conference Board of Canada, the Young Entrepreneurs Conference, the Electro Federation Conference, the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario, and Vista Master Mind Group, among many others.
Darrell Keezer also volunteers his time serving as the Chair of the Marketing Advisory Committee at his alma mater, Sheridan College, which he has done since 2011. Between the years of 2011 and 2014, he also served as Board Director at OneBook, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping advance the cause of literacy in underdeveloped nations.
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