Directive

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Xactly provides software that simplifies and enhances sales planning, incentives, and employee performance. I am the web optimization manager and run tests for our website for user experience and to optimize leads coming through the site.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Directive Consulting?

They helped us with our SEO and PPC campaigns.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to increase lead generation.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We discovered them at a marketing conference.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

They drive leads for our company for both organic and paid campaigns. They create compelling content to increase conversions and recommend changes to site structure that have a positive impact on our bottom line. They know how to deliver quality leads via paid channels.

What was the team composition?

We have a dedicated project manager who speaks with us weekly and is available anytime we need him. He has a team of specialists that support our team and we always know where we stand.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've seen incredible results, including 178% growth in organic traffic, 93% increase in organic lead generation, and 44% improvement to PPC lead generation.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication is great. They're always available to provide in-depth answers and their turnaround is exceptionally fast. Our project manager adopted our company's task management platform to make tasks and scheduling easier for our team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I am constantly surprised by the additional resources and recommendations they provide. I've used other SEO/PPC agencies that use a generic template for metrics. Directive is consistent and includes new recommendations for research. They know about every trend and algorithm and they have new ways to improve lead generation every week.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No. We are extremely happy with the team and their service. If we ever see weekly results go down, their specialists identify the cause and find a solution immediately.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a senior scientist at Hai Tech Lasers responsible for a large number of tasks, including marketing, sales, and advertising. Our company performs laser marking, cutting, and engraving services, as well as custom laser marking and engraving machine assembly.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Directive Consulting?

We’re a small business that needed outside services to help us grown online. We hired Directive Consulting to manage our online presence and increase website traffic.

What were your goals for this project?

Our ultimate goal was to increase sales at a reasonable price. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Directive Consulting was a referral from a friend of mine, who also happened to be one of their current clients. A brief conversation confirmed that I would be happy to work with them. Previous companies had simply not offered the professionalism, knowledge, and communication that Directive has. 

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

The scope included a website rebuild to fix backend issues that were hampering our rankings, to optimize the link structure, and to make the platform more user-friendly. We also wanted to emphasize blog content and additional link-building strategies. The work is ongoing.

What was the team composition?

We generally speak with one contact at a time from Directive Consulting, but a few more team members work alongside us. The quality has remained consistently high despite changes in the team throughout the course of the engagement. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Over the past year, sales and website traffic have clearly increased, especially through the blogs, and we can attribute a large part of that to Directive Consulting's efforts.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow between our teams has been effective; any lag time or delays have been on our end. Weekly meetings with Directive Consulting allow us to review tasks completed that week and discuss monthly, quarterly, and yearly updates. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I am most impressed by their professionalism, responsiveness, and quick communication. They are knowledgeable in their field and offer a wealth of strategies to get the best results for our company.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They are doing a very good job and I am happy with the results.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the digital marketing director of HyTrust. We specialize in security, compliance, and control software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Directive Consulting?

We needed to get the SEO portion of a new website in shape and aligned with our current messaging and target audience.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to do page-by-page SEO to increase our ranking and support our PPC efforts.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I worked with them when I was at a previous company, but I also researched other firms to be thorough.

Describe the project in detail.

We had an initial meeting to understand the goals, strategy, budget and timeline of the project. Directive then researched our current SEO situation, which included the website itself, and our search results rankings. We then collaborated on a plan, executed it, and reviewed the execution.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a team of people from Directive.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any statistics or metrics that speak to the quality of their work and impact of the engagement?

Our keyword rankings are up across the board. Organic traffic is also building at a nice pace and website engagement is much higher than it was.

How did the Directive Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

Their level of feedback and pro-active communication throughout the engagement was great. SEO is a game where if you aren’t on top of the latest information, you become irrelevant quickly. Directive gave me the confidence to let them work independently and do what they thought was best. They came to meetings prepared and with clear goals, which made them quick, effective, and low-stress.

What impresses you about the Directive Consulting?

I loved their attention to detail and thoroughness. They never forgot anything on their part, and that forced me to be more on the ball getting my end of the work done. It was refreshing to be managed by their hard work, instead of me having to do the managing. It was also clear that Direct was not only thorough in their knowledge, but passionate as well.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I can’t think of anything. I don’t want to seem like I’m gushing, but the experience was one that you always hope to have with a vendor. In the end, you feel like you got what you paid for.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the director of operations at a nurse staffing agency. Our company has 25 years of industry-specific knowledge, experience, and care.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Directive Consulting?

We hired them for online lead generation through SEO and PPC strategies.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed more registered nurses to apply for travel nurse assignments for our partner healthcare facilities. This required increasing organic and paid traffic to our website.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We searched online and looked at a couple of local contenders.

Describe the project in detail.

Directive came in to audit our website. Then, they helped us improve organic traffic performance by giving technical and content recommendations. Initially, they were also brought in to clean up our paid search campaigns in AdWords and then hand this over to us to manage internally. However, we ended up adding this to their tasks. Directive also set up Google Analytics for us so that we could start tracking our results.

What was the team composition?

Directive provided us with a senior consultant to manage everything. He was supported by our dedicated SEO and PPC specialists.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any statistics or metrics that speak to the quality of their work and impact of the engagement?

They generated over 500 leads in less than five months. Before, we would get a lot of leads that did not meet the required qualifications to even be placed as a travel nurse. Now, we’ve started to notice that the quality of our leads is improving—applicants now have a greater chance of being placed in our open travel nurse assignments.

How did the Directive Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

Directive prepares weekly reporting and monthly status reports to keep track of their work and performance. The initial project was very thorough, but they have been great at keeping everything moving forward.

What impresses you about the Directive Consulting?

Our assigned consultant truly tries to understand our business model and help us grow.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The road to improvement is taking a little longer than I wanted it to. Also, there are development costs associated with their recommendations.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a partner and the marketing manager for a 40+ year-old IT hardware value-added reseller. We primarily work with New England-based, large mid-size and enterprise organizations, supporting the IT hardware needs of their in-house IT teams. We also have specialized expertise in the sales, service, installation, integration, and refurbishment of mobile computer carts and wall mounted workstations typically found in the healthcare vertical nationwide.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Directive Consulting?

At a high level, we wanted to increase leads and sales through digital channels. In order to do so, our team was looking to expand their online reach through search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC). Previously, our company wasn’t proactively creating unique content to drive organic traffic nor was utilizing highly targeted PPC campaigns and landing pages to drive leads. Directive Consulting provided an ongoing solution to these needs with consistent SEO and PPC services, including rapid testing of new strategies and campaigns as well.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were looking for support in managing our SEO and PPC account. On the paid side, they actively manage our AdWords account and create custom landing pages and display ads. They handle everything from in-platform optimization to the testing of new ads and budget allocation. For SEO, they help us acquire new links and create unique content for our site in order to drive new users and engagement. They also do technical SEO checkups.

Our relationship is a collaborative effort in which they propose new strategies to us and we bounce back ideas to help us align with business goals. Directive executes on all of the deliverables and creative assets and we provide them feedback and approval for all campaigns.

How did you come to work with Directive Consulting?

They were recommended to our CEO by an acquaintance.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent approximately $25,000 to date.

What is the status of this engagement?

We signed the contract in June 2017 and the engagement started immediately thereafter.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When comparing six months before and six months after the start of the relationship, they increased the average monthly lead volume by over 600% and decrease cost per lead by over 80% with their PPC efforts. For organic traffic, we were able to see a 46% increase. At the same time, we've been continuously collaborating on different strategies to improve lead quality.

How did Directive Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

Directive has weekly meetings with us where they share what tasks were executed that week, how tests performed, and action items for the following week. They work in weekly sprints and analyze key performance indicators every month. My main point of contact manages a team of SEO and PPC specialists that help with the execution and strategy. Both teams have been good at communicating, collaborating, and being transparent.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team at Directive knows their stuff. They work collaboratively with us and we have a healthy exchange of ideas. I actually like challenging them to exceed our expectations and we share our thoughts with each other every week. Collaboration is the key to achieve synergy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They love what they do—their passion for SEO/SEM is evident in all communications. However, I think that they tend to forget at times that clients may not be as well versed in these subjects. I often have to ask them to slow down during our weekly calls.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Meet them and really get to know them. Also, listen and have a dialogue with them. They are very impressive and knowledgeable.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I manage business development and marketing for a regional auto insurance company. We focus on direct-to-consumer sales for the non-standard market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Directive Consulting.

We wanted to increase the performance of our marketing campaigns. We previously worked with other marketing agencies, and felt like they underperformed. We wanted to see what a real marketing company, real expertise, and real engagement looked like.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we hired them for PPC, Google AdWords, and Facebook advertising. From our initial meeting, they introduced us to an entire world of SEO that they could help us with to enhance not only our overall web presence, but all the details of our campaigns too.

On the paid search side, they manage our Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook advertising campaigns. They run about 12 different campaigns in total for us right now; we’re looking to double that amount by translating to Spanish and running separate Spanish campaigns. It’s a lot of PPC - and they’re also developing an overall SEO and content strategy.

When we brought them on we had several existing campaigns. They went through everything and refactored some of them, but mostly built new from the ground up. They looked at the performance of our previous campaigns, decided to pause them, start over, and create their own.

What is the team dynamic?

We have a dedicated account manager, and also work with their director of content, several content specialists, and one developer who works more behind the scenes. We’ve got a team of about 3–4, but I usually only interact with our account manager.

How did you come to work with Directive Consulting?

We were referred to them by a firm that we hired for web design work. They heard we were looking for a marketing agency and recommended Directive; it turned out to be a good fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $60,000 with them, including their retainer fees and the campaigns. About 40% of what we pay them goes to their retainer and the remainder is the ad spend budget. The management fee however, is below $50,000 at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2017, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we didn't have much of an SEO strategy before, they focused on that. As a result, we've seen a 96% increase in organic results from this time last year. We’ve also seen huge improvement on the paid search side. New-user acquisition costs have fallen by 20% over the results with the previous agency we were working with.

How did Directive Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been really good to work with and are consistent. Our account manager is always available for questions; I’ve never had an issue getting ahold of him or anyone else there. They’re good at outlining our team’s responsibility versus their team’s responsibility. I haven’t had any issues overall; they’ve been excellent.

We use Google Docs to collaborate, and have a dedicated folder for the project. We don't have any specific project management software, which as a project manager myself, I appreciate. We do really well just with Google Docs allowing the information to be shared between teams.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were blown away by how thorough and detailed the onboarding packet they provided was. They performed a full audit of our web presence and paid search campaigns, and took a look at everything we were doing online in the first 30 days. They provided extremely detailed, actionable strategies to implement short-term and long-term strategy changes.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Occasionally, when their experts are talking to non-technical staff of ours, they launch into technical explanations without checking that people are following them. In a new working relationship, it would be good to have a little more hand-holding to make sure the client is comfortable with the terms and strategies that they are going to use.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Companies - especially smaller companies like ours - should be prepared to put the money in to really get the results you’re looking for. You can’t go in with a small budget and expect miracles; you have to remain attentive and take in the advice they’re giving you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Aiya America is a provider of Japanese matcha green tea. We are a fully-owned subsidiary of Aiya Company based in Nishio, Japan. As a U.S. owned company, we represent sales, marketing, logistics, and services in the country. We are one of five global offices and focus on the U.S. and Canada.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Directive Consulting?

Our business is in the food and beverage natural products category, in the coffee and tea subcategory. We were focusing on our worldwide presence, the website specifically related to our market, and improvements on search engine optimization, e-commerce solutions, and overall, ensuring that our web content was closely monitored and reaching our target audiences. We wanted to better understand how to reach them effectively.

The top three metrics we were considering were traffic, unique visitors, and conversions (those who’d signed up for either a newsletter, a wholesale account, or a consumer account).

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had migrated from a different e-commerce platform to Magento. Directive Consulting had a focus specific to the website, not so much social media. They also worked on AdWords and an overall optimization on Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, as well as the management of our content strategy. We managed the content itself, while they focused on our strategy, making sure that the website was workable, and any fixes would be identified and put into the queue. They helped us understand things like domain authority and the effectiveness of site loads and of content, which we would get through Google Analytics. They are experts on this material.

We didn’t hire them specifically for pay-per-click. The transition from our old platform to the new one was messy and the content was not clean. In 2018, we will be working with Directive on our PPC strategy.

How did you come to work with Directive Consulting?

I don’t know what the process was for finding them, but I know that they came recommended.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent approximately $39,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We signed the contract in December 2016, and the engagement started in January. We have a six-month renewing contract.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

At our request and with their input, we have maintained a monthly log of unique visits and overall conversion and sales, both on the consumer and retail sides. I have asked them to track items like our domain authority separately on a monthly basis.

As with any business, we experience seasonality and have seen growth trends along with a month or two of retrenchment. For the food and consumables category, this is normal. I don’t have a year-over-year analysis, but I feel confident that if I had three months of 2018 for comparison, we would show that growth. We are only at month 13 at this point.

How did Directive Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

When I joined the company in May 2017, the team assigned to us had a much different philosophy, and I did not feel that they were meeting the full expectations of what we needed. In July, a new team was put on the account after I voiced that things were not being done as effectively as possible. This was followed by immediate changes in perception and results. I have seen a lot more collaboration and follow-through on requests.

As marketing brand manager, my thought process involves taking care of both sides of the business. We need people who can understand the strategy. In summary, I would say that Directive has gone above and beyond, to partners, working alongside with us. They’ve met our deadlines and they’ve brought something very tangible to the team.

We communicate using their own project management tools and exchange several emails throughout the week. We established a weekly phone call using Zoom. I have a dashboard on which all meeting notes and reporting are kept. We’re pleased with what Directive is doing in terms of managing the workload and the overall project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The partnership and collaboration are the most impressive. After July when the new team was assembled, I saw a collaborative spirit, an engagement, and an exchange of ideas. I bring things to the table and challenge them to meet or go beyond them. They come back each week with new thoughts and ideas based on this. The strategic collaboration is key, and the sum is greater than its parts.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’s hard to answer after such a short cycle. As with all projects, meeting more items on the list is a matter of being able to work faster. In general, we’ve felt that Directive is meeting our criteria and coming back with what we’re looking for. They probably wish that we were more engaged in terms of a PPC strategy since it’s one of the things they’re effective at, but, in terms of strategy, SEO cleanup, and website updates, I don’t have any complaints.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should meet Directive’s management team, including Tanner Shaffer, their VP, and 1–2 of the senior consultants. It’s important to understand that an SEO company is not a fix-all solution; it’s only what clients put into the equation and will only be as good as what they’re instructed to be. People should allow themselves the opportunity to collaborate and strategize together. This is where the true power of a consulting firm is unleashed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a digital marketing manager at a manufacturing company that predominantly  makes protective cases for the military, government, or other industries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Directive Consulting?

I was looking for a company that specializes in B2B [business-to-business] cases and has expertise in lead generation. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At this point we're mainly focused on PPC [Pay Per Click] campaigns. I do a lot of work myself and needed to expand my reach. Their agility and ability to manage AdWords daily or weekly was important to me. 

As far as lead generation goes, they offer creative services – for the landing page ability, the weekly analytics, and the display ads.

What is the team composition? 

I have an account manager who works with his team.

How did you come to work with them?

I did initial research online and interviewed several companies. I liked the fact that they're a small agency focused on B2B, and they seemed very agile, so I chose them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement? 

We started working together in June 2017, and the collaboration is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They cleaned up any issues we had with our AdWords. We've seen an increase of leads up to 30% and were able to start new campaigns, such as targeted funnel campaigns. 

How did they perform from a project management standpoint? 

We're in constant contact throughout the week via email, and we have our weekly update when we have a meeting via web. They also have a Google Doc hub, where I can see the updates. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like their agility, the collaborative nature of their team, and their proactive approach. My account manager is always available to answer my questions and is very flexible. I have a feeling that I'm part of it all.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the head of marketing for a talent management software. We provide solutions for applicant tracking, onboarding, performance management, and goal setting and alignment. We basically cover every stage of the talent lifecycle that an employee fits into during their tenure with an organization. I generally oversee brand management, content marketing, web design, customer engagement, and communication.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Directive Consulting.

We were looking for additional assistance with our Google Adwords and PPC strategy. It's something that we had struggled with for a little while, and a very expensive channel for us that we weren't really seeing a solid return on investment.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They handled the strategy for our SEO, SEM, and PPC across multiple channels. We brought them on to initially help with PPC, but they put together a compelling case around expanding into SEO. They help with Google Adwords results, but they are also very helpful in general looking at our entire web presence. This includes how we're presenting ourselves, how effectively we’re showing up in searches and getting into the details of how we might be able to do a better job on a page by page basis. We take all their recommendations and implement them on our own.

How did you come to work with Directive Consulting?

They initially reached out to us. One of their outbound sales representatives sent me an email at the perfect time and that got the conversation started. Prior to that, I hadn’t heard of them and they weren't necessarily in our consideration sets.

Out of all of the agencies we evaluated for the role, they seemed to understand our concerns around investment returns and customer acquisition cost. At the end of the day, it’s about having a campaign that brings in the revenue. That was ultimately what was most appealing about them.

How much have you invested with them?

About $45,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2017, and signed for a six-month contract. This engagement is ongoing. We have every intention of resigning for a longer term commitment when it the current term ends.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We continue to see an increase in our organic traffic. The key results have been in PPC. Our cost per click has gone down, our cost per acquisition has gone down, and the number of prospective customers that we're able to get in front of has increased – so across the board we’re really happy. We’re seeing good numbers of people who are interacting with our brand and the conversions that we're getting from those interactions.

How did Directive Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re exceptional project managers. We started with an implementation process that was 30 days long and they set very clear expectations for what would be accomplished in those 30 days which was quite a bit. They went through our entire web presence and audited everything.

We communicate through Trello, and Google Docs. They come to us on a weekly basis with recommendations. At the end of the month, we did a large presentation style contemplative session where we were left with a great deal of things that we could implement. We’ve seen a lot of results from those recommendations. From my perspective, it has run seamlessly.

We also like the fact that it’s clear what our deliverables are versus their deliverables, and they lay out for us in any given project what we need to do, what they’re doing, and how we can work together to get the result.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m not an expert in PPC, and they’ve done a wonderful job of explaining things in detail on my level so that we can really work together to find success. They're doing an incredible job of being true business partners for us, instead of just a vendor who's delivering things. They're working with me to increase my knowledge on the topic so that we can better work together.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, however the implementation process definitely took a lot of work in order to lay the groundwork. It’s not something that I would necessarily want them to change, but be aware of the time it takes on the client side to get up and running.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Look for a firm that you can grow with. Another reason Directive was appealing to is that while they are experts in PPC, they do a whole lot more and it's nice for us to be able to ask them questions and learn from their expertise in other areas. We can implement that information separately, but also know in the future we can grow with them if we need to.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company creates workforce training courses, health and safety training, industrial skilled training, e-learning courses, and learning management software. I’m the marketing manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Directive Consulting?

We wanted to increase traffic and conversions on our website. We wanted to increase the demo requests and fill our pipeline. We have a limited amount of resources internally and weren’t able to make the progress that we wanted to make just having myself and one other person working on all of our marketing efforts. We needed someone who was committed to working on our goals full-time.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve been able to contribute in many different areas. They manage our PPC advertising and helped us grow our efforts there enormously. We’ve gone from PPC to YouTube ads to Gmail ads and exploring other paid advertising opportunities that they’re able to manage for us. They create content for our site and our blog posts and help with our link-building efforts. We have agreed that they would provide 5 posts a month. They also help us do general optimization of posts and content. We have our own content writer but he doesn’t have a marketing background. On our own, we struggle sometimes to do the research and identify topics based on their potential for driving traffic and conversions. 

Our relationship has been a collaborative effort where Directive Consulting can do research and come up with suggestions for posts that fit our subject matter based on our business model and our markets and then we can decide whether to use it or not. They’ve been able to come up with some good topics and I’ve been pleased especially as our relationship has developed over the past 6 months. They’re understanding our business better.

How did you come to work with Directive Consulting?

They cold emailed me at just the right time and I thought it was a clever email. I followed up on the owner and realized the owner, Garrett, was really sharp.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2016, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

In the first quarter of this year, traffic to our site increased 36% over the same period last year and conversions increased 60%. I would not say content is the strength of what they’ve offered. Content was a strength of ours before we brought them on. The content they’re creating is shallow but probably good for keyword research. It’s not something we’d put out as high-value thought leadership pieces. They have helped a lot in informing us how to optimize the content that we do create.

They had suggested very early on that we move our blog from the subdomain that it was on to our primary domain and I think that’s had a big effect on organic search traffic. They’ve been able to help with more technical optimization that has gotten us some wins. Being able to unload all of our online advertising efforts and have them manage all of that has been big for us because we don’t have the resources in-house to do that. They’ve been good about continuing to explore options and we’re now moving into Facebook and LinkedIn. I think being able to expand our advertising efforts has contributed greatly to the increase in traffic and conversions.

How did Directive Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager is our main point of contact and he manages his team of PPC and SEO team members. There are certain things that I’ve requested that have not come back as quickly as I’d like. It makes me wonder if they’re overwhelmed or if we get less priority because we’re a small company. I know there’s only so much time they can put in for the amount of money we spend, so that’s a challenge to keep in perspective.

Overall, I like working with them. We have a standing meeting every week and then a monthly report. Sometimes the smaller line items can get lost. We had a handful of spreadsheets in Google Docs at the beginning where we kept track of everything but we don’t review those every time we get together to make sure everything is done. There are things they tell me I need to take care of and I don’t get a chance to, but then, at the next meeting, we don’t even talk about that. So those items just fall off. We’ve had times there’s a post we want them to optimize so we can publish them on the blog and they don’t get to it.

What did you find most impressive about Directive Consulting?

I haven’t worked with other digital marketing agencies, but we did spend some time evaluating a couple different companies. I can tell you the reason we decided to go with them was because they offered a broader range of services than a lot of other agencies who might just focus on managing an AdWords campaign or doing on-page SEO, etc. Initially when talking to Garrett, Directive Consulting seemed to have more ideas and some really creative ideas of places we could advertise and things we could be exploring outside of just AdWords and changing page titles, etc.

Are there any areas Directive Consulting could improve?

One thing I was hoping to get when I started working with them was identifying a list of keywords that we should make sure we’re targeting and seeing where we rank for those. It’s still unclear to me what our core keywords are. Maybe it was a misconception on my part but I thought that would be a fundamental part of getting started on a project like this. Maybe that’s a longer process to identify those. I know they’re doing keyword research on a post-by-post basis, so maybe I just misunderstood.