Collective Content

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Head of Content and Thought Leadership of a business services company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Provides a full range of professional services, including audit, consulting, deals, risk and tax services, to businesses, public sector organisations and NGOs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Collective Content to accomplish?

• Produce high quality content that supports sales and marketing objectives
• Produce and optimise content for multiple channels and formats

SOLUTION

How did you find Collective Content?

Previous working relationship

Why did you select Collective Content over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned
• Subject matter expertise

How many teammates from Collective Content were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The team at Collective Content provide ongoing content support, from providing write-ups of events to crafting messaging and working on extensive case study programmes and reports. It is a broad and varied scope of work, but there is always a need for high quality content, often produced to very tight deadlines, with demanding and complicated stakeholder approval processes.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Qualitative assessment of content quality
• Positive stakeholder feedback
• Online performance of content (impressions / engagement / sharing)

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Collective Content has always delivered content on time and to the quality required. Throughout a project, their communication is very strong. Their client management is also excellent. If deadlines are missed on our side, or if scopes of work start to stretch, they are quick to consult, helpfully and collaboratively on updating timelines, suggesting workarounds, and where possible flexing workstreams and resources to accommodate.

What was your primary form of communication with Collective Content?

In-Person Meeting

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

Their subject matter expertise, particularly the depth of understanding and experience they have on technology is excellent, but they also bring the thinking required to understand how technology impacts businesses and people across industries. They can turn the highly technical into the highly engaging.

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

N/A

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Global Director of Content Marketing and Thought Leadership

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Leading global software and cloud solutions provider

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Collective Content to accomplish?

• To provide ad hoc and project-based content writing capacity

SOLUTION

How did you find Collective Content?

Online Search

Why did you select Collective Content over others?

Close to my geographic location, Great culture fit, Good value for cost

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We have worked with Collective Content on a number of writing projects including blogs, ebooks, case studies, infographics, videos and emails. Every project has varied in scope but we have a regular cadence of monthly blogs and campaign linked assets that they have helped us write. Case studies - including three different formats (web, pdf and powerpoint slides) have also been a core part of the service

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Delivering good quality content on time and in budget

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The team was always very responsive, quick to reply, and turned around work fast. They were very accommodating about changes in scope or last minute requirements

What was your primary form of communication with Collective Content?

Virtual Meeting, Email or Messaging App

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

The personal nature of the account management, never feeling like we were being sold to, their ability to scale up or down depending on our needs without a fixed retainer, ability to cover a breadth of technology subjects and good, succinct storytelling.

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

A few items of work needed reworking, but that may have been down to a poor brief from our end. Telling us about more of their services would have helped us to understand where else they could help us

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am advisor to the company around their Software as a Service Go to Market. The company has launched the world's first sustainability solution for the hotel and tourism industry

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Collective Content?

We wanted to create a compelling brand and demonstrate thought leadership and a contrarian point of view to our B2B buyers. We also wanted to educate prospective customers, on the art of the possible and how data driven, objective measurement could drive positive development around key sustainability factors. We wanted to do all the above through a comprehensive content plan.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We were firstly looking for an agency who specialised in Content. We found lots of companies who stated they did content, but on more thorough investigation we found content was not their focus. We also wanted specialists who understood B2B and who were Subject Matter Experts around the content areas we wanted to talk about.

We were looking for an agency who could help us articulate with clarity but also add personality to our materials and who were great storytellers. And finally, we were looking for an agency who we felt we could partner with us to help us see the big picture and apply content to take our intended buyers across their buying journey in a compelling and memorable way.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Collective Content took us on a journey, bearing in mind we were a start-up. They discussed positioning, points of view and tone for the intended audiences and conceived and sold in a content plan that included a wide variety of materials such as product materials, customer educational pieces, website, long form content to become definitive online destinations, blogs and several other sales related pieces.

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

We had a team of 5 people on our account including content writers, project management and strategic counsel.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We launched a new website, a new SaaS application, complete library of training guides for customers. The long form content on our website has already hit page 1 of search. The feedback from customers has been extremely positive and much of that is because of the excellent deliver from Collective Content

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Cannot fault it. There was full weekly transparency on both sides, and we had a seamless review and approval process. Collective have always delivered on time and the quality has been consistently good. What is very refreshing is that there have never been long, convoluted review cycles and Collective have always hit the mark.

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

I think you don’t feel that Collective are an outsourced agency. Rather they ‘feel’ like an extended team. They are always equipped with great ideas and I know that their advice and counsel is appreciated across the company. They deliver great value for money and I think we will be working together for a long time.

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

Nothing I can think of to be honest. They have a good service and delivery model and are always keen to sense check with us that they are on track

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of B2B Comms of EE

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

EE, the UK's No. 1 network with superfast 5G and 4G. Discover the best mobile phone, sim and fibre home broadband deals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Collective Content to accomplish?

• B2B webinars

SOLUTION

How did you find Collective Content?

Referral

Why did you select Collective Content over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Collective Content were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The team at Collective Content helped us with a series of B2B webinars - planning, writing, directing and presenting. They worked well with our video production agency, not to mention various in-house marketers and our guests.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The webinars supported our first Gold Campain, resulting in 43% uplift in site traffic and c75% uplift in online sales.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

These were high-end productions hosted at Wembley, with panels and 1-2-1s, featuring our main partners and customers — often organisations familiar to the Collective Content team. The team were very hands-on, putting the partners at easy, as this was often their first time in front of a camera. As for delivery, the webinars were always created to strict timings, which the Collective Content team managed with great attention to requirements and detail.

What was your primary form of communication with Collective Content?

• In-Person Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The personal touch. The content and the way it's delivered/ presented is very important to the team at Collective Content. 

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

No. They were great to work with and a real extension of our team.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Vertical Marketing Manager of an information technology company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

cybersecurity

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Collective Content to accomplish?

• Copywriting
• Strategy

SOLUTION

How did you find Collective Content?

Referral

Why did you select Collective Content over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Collective Content were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Created outlines, copywriting and strategy for vertical campaigns

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Translated into other languages, used across multiple campaigns and part of some of our most successful results (real ROI)

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Punctual, timely and consistent management. Lovely people to work with and quick to respond if any issues

What was your primary form of communication with Collective Content?

Email or Messaging App

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

Company culture and how professional the teams were. Their quality output was very impressive!

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

no

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was running a content and comms team within a larger marketing function at a high growth B2B technology company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Collective Content?

We wanted to explain a complex technological concept using a variety of content channels to build brand and reputation, as well as drive leads.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

As an agency, Collective Content came highly recommended. I had also heard of them individually, as many were journalists at various high profile publications previously.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We wanted a variety of things (1) Evergreen written content which would work with Google to position ourselves effectively from an SEO point of view (2) Top of funnel short form content which was compelling enough to grab people and convince them to engage with our company (3) Longer form eBooks and other assets which took a more in-depth look at subjects

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

We had a team of 5 - two managers and three content creators

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality and quantity of content on a variety of external presences was vastly improved - Collective Content clearly know the sector they are in. It's very rare to be able to hire an agency to do something as personal as written content, and for them to hit the nail on the head so often. Collective Content achieved this because they are specialists. Copy was clean, punchy and in-line with the company (and wider industry) narrative.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They were often better organised than me. The processes they insisted on, and the personalities involved, meant that we were kept to task and work was delivered on time, and at a high quality.

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

The clear specialism that each member of the team displays about their core target area - B2B Tech. All those years working in newsrooms at places like ZDNet and The Register are evident in the valuable perspective they bring to a sometimes dry and often unfathomable subject.

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

Not really