“We’re making great progress. Look at the increase in impressions on our content over the last 90 days”
A few years ago, I was working as interim Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for a client looking to increase lead generation via digital marketing. We had an excellent content marketer on staff and were consistently creating high quality whitepapers, social posts and email campaigns. By all traditional metrics (open rate, click rate, click-through rate, new signups, etc) it looked like we were a high-performing marketing team. There was only one problem…none of our efforts had any impact on revenue.
I brought in a reputable digital agency and asked them to manage our lead generation funnel. I was specific on our objectives and offered to walk the entire agency team through our business model, competitive landscape analysis and strategic plan. There was a lukewarm comment from our account manager about scheduling something “after we’ve had a chance to poke around in your Google Ad Manager account”.
Each week, I’d check in with the team and they would report on website tweaks, and new channels they wanted to advertise on. They would ask me what type of content we were planning on creating and who I thought the target audience was. I remember thinking to myself, “I’m paying these guys to own our lead generation process. Shouldn’t they be telling me what type of content to write and who we should be targeting?”. I wondered why they didn’t ask to talk to any of our current (or lapsed customers), why they weren’t interested in our financials, and why they hadn’t presented any ideas outside of traditional marketing tactics (conferences, direct mail campaigns, webinars etc) to increase our lead generation capabilities.
After 90 days, when no new revenue-generating leads materialized, the agency came back to me and said we needed a new website and wanted to increase our pay-per-click (PPC) budget by 50%. I asked if they could estimate the return we would get on this investment. After a few minutes of blank stares, I was told they would look into it and get back to me soon. It’s been over 4 years and I still haven’t received a response to my question.
Is the point of this blog to bash the agency we hired? No, not really. They did exactly what they thought they were hired to do. They brought their expertise in paid search, digital marketing and web design to our team. But they thought like digital marketers, not business owners. They believed if we had a “perfect” website and a healthy marketing budget we would win long-term. They weren’t interested in the bigger picture – what we did well, who our customers are, what changes were happening in our industry, what marketing options we had based on our budget and forecasts and what mattered most to the leadership of our company. No one on our 6-person “performance team” at the agency had a business degree, had worked at a startup before or had ever started a company.
I decided right then there was a need for a different way of thinking about marketing. One that focused on building and executing sound strategies based on a holistic review of the business. One in which the consultant was well-versed in the latest marketing tools and techniques, but also brought a comprehensive business background. Someone who can analyze financials, interface with C-level executives and board members, introduce the client to new customers and employees, and understands that marketing doesn’t exist for marketing’s sake.
RevUp Growth Partners isn’t a traditional digital agency or consulting shop. I’ve spent my career helping grow businesses the right way – by thinking like a business owner and designing and executing custom strategies (tune into another blog post for my thoughts on “Marketing Playbooks”) that lead to sustainable, profitable growth.
While we oversee all projects, we know that we don’t know everything. That’s why we work with a proven group of sub-contractors (link to team page) that I trust to over-deliver for our clients. Clients get the best of both worlds – an experienced team, with a scrappy, entrepreneurial attitude at a great value!
When you work with RevUp, expect to work with people who are curious about your business, who want to know where you’ve succeeded (and failed) before and are going to look beyond simple marketing metrics when discussing where your business needs to go. Expect to work with a team that thinks of your business as their own and operates with a sense of urgency. Expect honesty and integrity at every interaction, and know you’re working with a team that measures success the same way you do.
Sincerely,
Brian Precious
Co-Founder & Managing Partner
RevUp Growth Partners