Today we’d like to introduce you to Alan Thompson.
Hi Alan, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Alan Thompson is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Stingray Branding. With three generations of small business owners in his family, he’s been surrounded by and worked with entrepreneurs his entire life. Alan founded Stingray Branding in 2008, seeking to bring his innate knowledge of entrepreneurship and marketing to others. As a founder of two non-profits, the North Charleston Chamber and Great Business Networking, Alan has proven he is more than just a small business owner. He is truly an entrepreneur for entrepreneurs.
If you’ve spent any significant time in the Charleston area, there’s a good chance you’ve met Alan or been impacted by his work. Over the years, his work of empowering and enabling entrepreneurs to grow their dreams has made him a respected staple of the Lowcountry business community. If you haven’t met him yet, but you do see him out, stop and say hello. We promise he’ll try to find a way to help you.
Alan is a proud member of the United States Air Force Reserves, having previously served in the U.S. Army. He studied Business and Marketing at the University of Florida and the International Academy of Design. Alan sees the future as a bright destination for everyone who believes in themselves, their dreams, and their ability to work for them.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Every startup goes through significant obstacles, some may be different than others. Alan and the Stingray Branding team have endured an 8-month deployment, along with multiple military breaks every year, which take Alan away from sales and leadership time from the company. In addition, the industry of marketing has undergone extensive transformations over the last 20 years, the latest being the evolution of AI into consumer purchasing behavior. There has yet to be a year of Stingray’s time that a unique challenge has not had to be faced, whether it be military obligations, staffing, strategy changes, or growing pains. However, stingrays are adaptable, wich allows our team to always ride the evolving waves of business.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
In the world of marketing, numbers play a significant role. Businesses invest money to drive results. At Stingray Branding, not only do we understand that the goal is ROI; it’s the expectation. Working with our award-winning digital marketing agency is the first step on your business’s journey to thrive month after month, ensuring a profitable marketing strategy.
We also recognize that effective marketing is about more than just numbers. It’s about connecting with people on a personal level, and this is where our marketing agency truly excels. We have mastered the art of delivering the perfect message to your target audience, ensuring that your local marketing initiatives resonate with individuals, not just statistics.
We seek to help businesses get BRANDED & get RESULTS!
To date we have won numerous Charleston American Marketing Association awards, 7 consecutive years of a top 3 rated business, and over 30 Community Votes awards. Our team has been recognized with a Marketer of the Year (Charleston AMA), Chief Marketing Officer of the Year (SC Biz News), and as of 2026 – Alan is a Florida Gators Alumni 40 Under 40 honoree.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Starting a business is one of the largest risks you can take in life. You wake up every day unemployed and have to go earn the ability to feed yourself and your family. As your business grows, you continue to wake up every day unemployed and have to go feed your family and all of your employees’ families. The larger your goals and success become, the bigger the risk that you inherit. In addition to taking on the risk of the massive liabiity that comes with running a business with employees, in marketing you also have the responsibility of creating success (revenue) for your customers and your failure to do so can result in their collapse, which impacts their lives, employees, and the community. Yet, even with enough of the daily risk that comes from owning a company, we also acquired another marketing company in app development in 2019. Alan also co-founded the North Charleston Chamber of Commerce in 2016 and launched Great Business Networking in 2011, both completely volunteer run and operated nonprofits in South Carolina to help business owners connect and grow their sales opportunities. To date, he still leads the Chamber with other great volunteers, as the Chairman of the Board.
Pricing:
- Websites start at $297/mo
- SEO & AI Marketing starts at $697/mo
- CRMs & Lead Generation start at $297/mo
Contact Info:
- Website: https://stingraybranding.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stingraychs/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stingraybranding/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stingray-branding
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/stingraychs
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@stingraybranding
