Big Leap

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of digital marketing at Modere. We sell healthcare and personal care products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Big Leap?

We wanted to make sure that people could find our company and products easily online. We hired Big Leap to help us improve our Google rankings and manage our online reputation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They supported SEO and social media outreach. They also created content for our site and suggested we partner with new sites to increase exposure to our content. They also helped us manage our online reputation by pushing negative posts down so they were less visible.

What is the team composition?

I worked with at least 10 people on their team, including their president, managers, content creators, and social media specialists.

How did you come to work with Big Leap?

They have a good reputation. I heard about them from some other companies and I knew someone who worked there. We contacted them to discuss their services and pricing and decided they could help us meet our goals. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $40,000–$80,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from February 2018–July 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

They always provided reports that covered our Google ranking and the number of people who saw the site. We really enjoyed working with them.

How did Big Leap perform from a project management standpoint?

Their customer service was fantastic. They always hit their deadlines and communicated well. We met in person on a monthly basis, had a couple of Zoom calls, and emailed back and forth.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with the results and their customer service. They did a fantastic job explaining why it was important to do certain things and why it took a while to see the impact of their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We never had an issue with them. We, unfortunately, couldn’t implement all of their suggestions because of internal limitations, so maybe they could offer alternative solutions.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should meet with them, ask tough questions, and let them explain what they can do for your business.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the President and CEO of the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce. We connect businesses, thought leaders, and community initiatives to make our towns a great place to live and work.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Big Leap, and what were your goals?

We hired Big Leap to create and execute a long play SEO strategy that engaged our community across multiple platforms and channels.

SOLUTION

How did you select Big Leap and what were the deciding factors?

We have been impressed by their management team and ability to scale with their clientele. Big Leap delivers on the basic strategies of SEO while exploring new methods and compelling engagement opportunities with our desired audiences.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

After the discovery phase, we outlined our goals and objectives. Big leap helped us with keyword research and performed an analysis of our online presence. From there, they made on-site changes and created new collateral with our updated tactics and keywords. Their team also manages our content calendar and posts regular blogs for our website, gearing it toward our target demographic.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We engaged three specialists from Big Leap, including organic search, content writer, and SEO strategist.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Our rankings continue to climb and our community shareholders more easily find us and the relevant topics we care about.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Big Leap utilizes the best in class tools of the trade. We coordinate well through the use of online platforms of communication, task tracking, and collaboration.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Big Leap's management is first class and they continually attract the talent and skills from the community to deliver on their promises and delight their customers.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Big Leap regularly calls our team to provide updates, share new ideas, and receive constructive feedback.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Xyngular is a direct-selling company that sells weight loss and health supplements in the US, Canada, Mexico and in the Caribbean. I was hired in October of 2017 as the Director of Communications and was then made Director of Digital Marketing in early 2018.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Big Leap?

Many direct-selling companies typically have SEO issues as many competing products vie to catch search traffic and also review sites compete for search rankings. Xyngular initially brought in Big Leap to help its SEO rankings and did so by helping to optimize the Xyngular website and blog content. They would also provide strategic direction in regards to content and digital marketing efforts as Xyngular really had no digital marketing to speak of prior to my arrival.

In addition, once we started to implement more digital marketing efforts, budget was freed up to look into marketing automation, a service Big Leap at the time offered with HubSpot. We soon implemented HubSpot as our official ESP as Big Leap helped provide direction to our IT department and training for our marketing department copywriters. This gave us the ability to better segment our email lists, in order to provide better and timely content and sales to specfiic audiences.

We also started to use Big Leap in our content marketing efforts as content creators. They would provide keyword research and we would prioritize blog articles and other content pieces like infographics, etc. They also helped us with some social media management help as well.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals for SEO were simple, we wanted to clean up page 1 of Google. The impacts on Xyngular were huge, because of the direct-selling aspects of the business - many potential customers would use search engines to find out more about our products and business. When there are competing products and misinformation still on page 1, it can definitely impact the companies bottom line. Our goals for marketing automation/ESP were simple.

We wanted to increase our engagement and CTR for emails and to get better analytics and feedback from our audiences. We also wanted the ability to create a better look and feel in our emails and to segment and automate emails where necessary to increase sales and average order size.

SOLUTION

How did you select Big Leap?

Before I was employed at Xyngular Big Leap was already doing SEO work for the company and helping with content optimization. Once we started to look at increasing our marketing budget and looking into marketing automation, we re-looked at Big Leap's capabilities and also looked at other local vendors. We quickly narrowed it down to Big Leap and another marketing company.

I met with both companies face-to-face along with our COO who was overseeing marketing at the time as he was the ultimate decision maker. Ultimately, the biggest factor that led us to staying with Big Leap was because we had already had several months of SEO work being done and we didn't want to interrupt that. Plus they could also offer Hubspot as a marketing automation option, something the competitor could not offer.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

I was the direct point-of-contact for Big Leap and would often have bi-weekly phone calls going over tactics and we would always get a monthly breakdown of work done & progress made. The scope of their work involved SEO -they were given access to the Xyngular website to optimize and update content - this included a list of changes and recommendations for links, titles and meta data.

Big Leap also provided blog article recommendations based on keyword research and then later agreed to write a certain amount of blog articles. Big Leap, as a HubSpot partner, was to help us implement and train on HubSpot as an ESP and help integrate with our systems.

What was the team composition?

Xyngular had around 3 different project managers during my time with the company. They would help coordinate updates and go over any concerns we may have had.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

With Big Leap's help, we saw an increase in organic page views of more than 180% YoY, 75% more page views, and our site traffic increased from 2.8 million in 2017 to 4.9 million through August of 2018. Our social media saw FB organic reach increase by more than 30% YoY, engagement increase +50%, while referral traffic from social increased 465%! The company had its best year in 2017.

With Big Leap's help we successfully implemented HubSpot and saw immediate returns in our emails with a 4.4% CTR (2% industry average), which also helped increase our blog views by more than 20%.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was excellent, Big Leap was very attentive to our needs and also would come with ideas to help. They provided a great monthly breakdown of work and progress and meshed well with our marketing team as well.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their knowledge of SEO and keyword research is what stands out, but they were also true partners who listened to our challenges and workload and would offer help and solutions along the way and on time. As someone who managed the vendor relationship, you want to partner with people who are going to do great professional work that produces results, be proactive in providing new ideas and help whenever asked and also work with people you can trust. Big Leap checked all those boxes.

Are there any areas for improvement?

When we first broached Big Leap with HubSpot implementation, I knew this was something new to Big Leap. I think the implementation process was fine and they were extremely helpful. Because HubSpot has a ton of functionality, some possible training would have been helpful for our team to truly feel like we were getting value out of the product--because it was a huge marketing investment.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the demand generation manager of a hot tub manufacturer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Big Leap, and what were your goals?

We hired Big Leap as an SEO marketing agency to help us grow our organic traffic and create content for our blog.

SOLUTION

How did you select Big Leap and what were the deciding factors?

We've been working with them so long that I wasn't part of the initial discussion on hiring them, but we've continued to use them based on the quality of their work compared to other SEO agencies.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

They have performed keyword research, technical SEO audits, content audits, written content, and more over the past few years for us. We've generally seen positive results with our organic traffic growth.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We've worked with several digital marketing managers and their teams over the years. Since I've been at my company, I believe we've had 4 different managers over 4 years that have been the lead contact for us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Generally positive results. I believe our organic traffic has grown every year we have worked with them and we've generally hit our goals as well.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

They usually just have 1 meeting per month where they go over a report and talk about next steps. They are willing to respond to emails or schedule other meetings when necesary.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They've been growing a lot and shown that they know how to help companies improve their SEO & digital marketing

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

At times I've felt they don't spend enough time on our objectives or communicating with us because they are too busy with other clients. Depending on the year and team we were working with, content quality has been suspect.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Digital Marketing Strategist for an employee recognition software service company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Big Leap, and what were your goals?

We work with Big Leap to acquire backlinks, write striking distance content, net new skyscraper articles, and Big Leap provided us with a site audit that we are working towards completing. Our goals are to increase our organic visibility, with a focus on "Company Culture" terms.

SOLUTION

How did you select Big Leap and what were the deciding factors?

Manager had previously worked at BL, and liked the company, was in budget, the rest is history :)

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

Backlinking to specific content pieces Site Audit Striking distance recommendations/content written to increase visibility Skyscraper content written targeting specific keywords

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I am on an email thread with a few, but I work closely with one - Ryan, who is a Digital Marketing Manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Company culture glossary has been increasing, we currently have the best organic web traffic we've ever had. I am happy about the deliverables!

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

We have Google spreadsheets, and Ryan will send regular updates about projects and metrics around keywords.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We are very impressed with the content written for the striking distance recommendations, and appreciate them answering questions whenever they arise.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of All California cremation. An online cremation company that allows families to arrange cremation services online, from the comfort of there home never entering a Funeral Establishment

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Big Leap, and what were your goals?

SEO focusing on organic searches that would help build our market share

SOLUTION

How did you select Big Leap and what were the deciding factors?

We were originally referred by a company called Boostability and after our initial meetings and calls we decided on Big Leap primarily due to there comprehensive planning and reporting

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

It started with a comprehensive plan. That involved breaking down and reviewing our current system. One of the first steps was a site audit that involved the seed keyword research and recommendations, followed by the metadata, building content and blogs and continued work on the rankings

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

At least 5.

1. Taylor -Client Strategist
2. Cassara -Digital Marketing Manager
3. Sean -Digital Marketing Specialist
4. Danielle -Product development Manager
5. Dan Posner

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We have been able to directly relate improvements in our organic search operation and keyword rankings to increased case count and market share with the revenue far outweighing the cost of the service

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

The Big Leap team are personable and professional. I feel at this point as if I know them personally. They develop a well laid out plan over a certain time period with goals and timelines provided. They are very interactive with the client and take the time to understand the business they are helping. Regular calls and meetings help keep everyone on track and the project moving forward. No content is launched without the client approval. They make recommendations but let you decide what is best for your business.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

There knowledge as a team and ability to build a plan with minimal effort from the client that is easy to understand and follow

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We are completely satisfied with every aspect of the Big Leap team

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an HR software company for small to medium sized business and I'm a product marketing manager

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Big Leap?

We hired Big Leap to help us with content creation (infographics, ebooks, research studies, blog articles) for our site, technical SEO, and CRO consultation.

What were your goals for this project?

We hired Big Leap to help us increase our online presence, drive traffic to our site, make sure we were had our technical SEO covered, and increase leads.

SOLUTION

How did you select Big Leap?

Big Leap had a proven track record of success with other clients and showed us a detailed plan of what work they could do with us and the price point was right.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

This is an ongoing relationship/partnership and continues to evolve. Some months are more focused on content, others are more focused on technical help, and some are focused on CRO. 

What was the team composition?

We worked with a director and an account manager on a weekly basis to go over the progress of the projects. On the backend they had several fulfillment people (writers, SEO analysts, designers) that would help produce for us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We've been able to 10x the number of users to our blog. We've seen a tremendous amount of growth for our product pages which has to lead to record months for visitors, leads, and revenue. They've been a great partner in helping us increase our traffic and leads coming from the organic channel.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They've done a great job communicating and working together with us. We've switched tools a few times since starting work with them and they've been very adaptable between email, Asana, and Wrike.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Big Leap does a great of reporting back on the success (and sometimes failures) of projects that we're working on together. Their ability to communicate with us is impressive.

We understand that we won't always be on the same page with every project, but we've both worked hard to have open, frequent conversations together. We're not afraid to tell them when we need more from them, and they're not afraid to tell us when we're being a roadblock to having more success.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I can't think of anything currently.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of Jump

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Big Leap?

As a startup, we were having a difficult time managing all of our growing marketing needs. Our ad budgets were growing and we could not keep up on content and SEO work. So we engaged Big Leap to help us write strategic content for our users and prospective users.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to generate more consistent traffic from other web sources to ensure we were not entirely dependent on paid ads. Big leap helped us generate more traffic consistently. After some time, we were finally getting organic inbound leads.

SOLUTION

How did you select Big Leap?

Their proposal was the most appealing. Our marketing endorsed using Big Leap.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Their work was to write 1 weekly article on specific keywords where we were falling behind our competition. They were also helpful in identifying opportunities in search traffic where our competition was also not ranking. The reporting from Big Leap was also very helpful and consistent to their strategic objectives.

What was the team composition?

I know the owners myself fairly well. They are a great team made of a great culture. The account manager and the content writers stayed very integrated with our team so their was no ambiguity regarding the work at Big Leap. This was a big deal for us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We received about 10% month over month organic traffic increases.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The teams were easily integrated. The Big Leap team was great at communicating with our team. This is unique for SEO companies who kind of forget about their clients and just do their work. Big Leap is great at communication. We saw them as an extension of our own team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The quality of the content was what impressed us the most. They did not do the traditional spray-and-pray content strategy that most SEO firms do... they work on strategic content for the most results.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I can think of now.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

At the time, I worked for a software-as-a-service company that helped small businesses manage customer interactions. I was vice president of marketing & communications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Big Leap, and what were your goals?

We needed to improve our branded SEO on a key search term. We had a negative branded SEO footprint on this term, and it was outdated but hurting our business. Many of the branded search results were sites with extremely high domain authority.

SOLUTION

How did you select Big Leap and what were the deciding factors?

We chose Big Leap due to past positive interactions, relationships with key people in the company, high competency in branded SEO, and assignment of a great team.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

Goal was to improve branded SEO footprint to 9 out of 10 positive results (started with 0 out of 10 positive). Project was broken down into several content creation steps. We created new accounts, populated them with new and repurposed content, optimized existing owned properties, and launched a branded microsite.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

4-5, ranging from SEO and content specialists to vice president.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Big Leap successfully helped us achieve 9 out of 10 positive branded search results on P.1 and 18 out of 20 positive within 7 months. We were exceptionally pleased, given the complexity and difficulty of the task.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Big Leap used a proprietary project management system to help us keep track of deliverables and progress. We reviewed in weekly meetings. We each had action items each week and never missed deadlines.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They're exceptionally pragmatic and they focus their energies on results instead of optics.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Writing skill was hit or miss, which I think makes sense given the SEO focus.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the Digital Marketing Manager for a $100M+ SaaS organization. We had more than 800 employees and I was responsible for managing our web properties. I reported to the VP of Marketing, managed two teams with seven total employees and managed the responsibilities of a 5 person web dev team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Big Leap?

We hired Big Leap to help us focus on SEO improvements and to manage our paid search marketing. Eventually the paid search was managed by a peer who was hired to focus on that specifically, but the organic efforts stayed with me for the duration of my time there.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to drive additional organic traffic. A rebrand had impacted our presence on Google and we wanted to surpass where we were. This meant content, on page improvements and general site optimization per SEO best practices.

SOLUTION

How did you select Big Leap?

We were working with a different agency in another market previously, but spent time with Big Leap per their local reputation. Though we met with multiple companies, the audit provided by Big Leap gave us a clear understanding of what we would work on with them. This decision was made between myself, the VP of Marketing and the CMO.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Big Leap was a key partner on many fronts. They were a crucial partner in the strategies we pursued, collaborated with our dev team on planning and understanding execution. They delivered key content pieces and provided consistent reporting.

What was the team composition?

I worked with two different representatives from Big Leap during our time together. Initially it was a manager level employee, but later a director level took over our account. I was familiar with a number of specialists on the team from various projects. The CEO and a VP consistently joined our discussions and regardless of whether or not they were in the meeting, I ALWAYS knew they'd take my call and respond quickly.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Not able to share specifics, but we saw a dramatic increase in our ranking with Google, our content library grew and we accomplished many of our goals.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Scheduled meetings were frequent and consistent. We communicated and collaborated with the Google suite. Project management efforts were based on priorities, resources and impact.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

As I alluded to earlier, I always knew that Big Leap would be responsive and available when we needed something. They were flexible in balancing their approach based on corporate needs. And significantly - they were great to work with. Kind, fun, energetic. They fit right in with our culture which was meaningful.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No major areas for improvement.