Fresh Content Society

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of digital marketing and a marketing tech at Old World Industries. We are essentially a holding company that’s privately owned and based outside of Chicago.

We have several consumer brands as well as B2B heavy brands for businesses and heavy-duty equipment. We are primarily in the automotive industry, so we sell consumer automotive maintenance products to consumers through the automotive retail channels.

That is our consumer side of the business, and then we have a commercial side of the company, which is mostly our B2B business. We sell some of the same types of products, but more for on-road fleets. That business is primarily handled through distributors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Fresh Content Society?

I have been with Old World for a little less than ten years. Typically, from a digital marketing standpoint, we have had digital marketing agencies and ad agencies that were contributing to our social media strategy.

Our first digital marketing agency, when I first started, was an organization out of California, and they did content production and pushed out content on social, and it was a very one-way conversation. We had another agency that we brought in that was based in Chicago, and again, it was a larger ad agency, but the cool thing is that they had a community manager who was Scott (President). Situations changed, and like most ad agencies and digital marketing agencies that we had worked with, there was that constant turnover with who was running the social media and who was essentially the voice on social for our brands.

Social is so important in that it can be a very authentic voice to a brand. As marketers, we are always trying to achieve that one to one conversation with consumers, and social lends itself perfectly to that conversation.

When Scott left the ad agency we were working with, and he was our community manager, I noticed a significant drop in the amount of engagement and the types of impressions, and just the overall quality of our social media feed at that time. It turns out that they were trying to find somebody else to run our social media account. That wasn’t okay, as that was extremely important to us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Over the six years, we have really grown from a social media strategy that really consisted of pushing a lot of one-way conversations out there to really something that I am extremely proud of.

We have developed a community of followers within Instagram and Twitter. This past year, Scott has been really instrumental in driving the success we have had on YouTube.

My philosophy from a digital marketing perspective is that there are a few things that don’t need 100% attention every day. These are things like search engine marketing because they take a lot of time and daily effort. Social media and community management kind of couple together.

You have to have that person that essentially lives and breathes your brand on a daily basis and that is Fresh Content Society for us.

What is the team composition?

Scott is our primary contact. There are other people within the team that help produce the content, but Scott is our main contact there.

How did you come to work with Fresh Content Society?

I reached out to Scott when he first started the business.

How much have you invested with them?

We have monthly invoicing. Depending on the projects, we spend between $100,000–$150,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our six-year engagement with Fresh Content Society started in February 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

One of the things that is special about Fresh Content Society is they really truly are partners.

Agencies aren’t usually really fully engaged in your brand. They don’t know the ins and outs of the organization like somebody that is working the company would know. They don’t take the time to really do their homework and understand who the community is and who the consumer is, and what the vernacular is within that community and really live and breathe the brand on a daily basis.

I have never seen an agency that is able to do that, but Fresh Content Society, led by Scott, really lives and breathes it every single day.

Just from a YouTube perspective, through their efforts, we have been able to secure over 5,000 new subscribers to the channel since the beginning of the year which is great. It wasn’t necessarily a marketing channel for us, and now we are at over 9,000 subscribers. Before starting this whole campaign, I think we were at a couple of thousand.

The success is really attributed to the episodic series that Scott’s team and the program that he manages. Pretty much all of our subscribers have come from this campaign. We are about to launch another one in the next couple of days.

How did Fresh Content Society perform from a project management standpoint?

In terms of project management, we actually have weekly calls just to go over social media strategy and brand ambassador strategies, and different things that are on the to-do list. We also have a weekly call to run through our content strategy with a person on my team that handles a lot of the development of that.

Off of that, we have calendars for each brand and a running list of to-dos by brand, and Scott and my content person manage that list. Through that, we have a shared doc that we all manage and maintain.

From a project management point of view, I would say that is one area that he has grown quite a bit.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What makes them stand out from other agencies, is I have never really seen another agency that immerses themselves into the brand business as much as Fresh Content Society.

From a social media standpoint, when they are essentially the voice of your brand, that is exactly the number one priority that you are looking for. You are looking to have the confidence and the trust that they know enough about the product brand, company, and are able to know enough about your consumer that they can have that one to one conversation and really engage within the community outside of just pushing content out. It is more of a two-way conversation there.

We have trusted Scott to really run with it and do what he does best.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Anyone can continue to improve and hone in on their skills, but with project management skills, that is one thing that I think he has really grown tremendously in. At this point, I really don’t have anything specific. There is continuous improvement.

If you’re not constantly pushing or constantly evolving and changing as well as staying on top of what the current trend is, you’re not winning on digital. That is one thing that is ingrained over at Fresh Content Society.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

To get the most out of it, it goes down to what the plan is and what you are hiring them for. if you’re hiring them for community management and social media, I would say you have to get them ingrained into your business and organization and trust that Scott is going to do what he does best. Let him and FCS do what they do best.

They are a very creative group, and with creativity, you need to let creativity breathe and develop. They are a first-class organization, and you just have to trust that they are really going to represent your brand in the right way which I think they do.

From the other aspects that they manage, they will be able to integrate into your brand very seamlessly as long as you are very transparent with the expectations and the needs, and what the brand actually stands for and how you communicate that.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

True Value Company is a global hardware & home improvement store chain. I'm a Digital Ecommerce Manager, and I manage budget, strategy, and execution of Paid Search, Programmatic Display & Video, Native, and Social Media for TrueValue.com and TrueValuePaint.com.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Fresh Content Society?

We hired Fresh Content Society to handle the community management and paid media management for our social channels.

True Value didn't have the resources but understood the importance of community management, so Fresh Content Society has been our solution since 2014.

What were your goals for this project?

The goals of this project were to address customer inquiries/feedback on our social pages and increase engagement with our follower community.

SOLUTION

How did you select Fresh Content Society?

I started at True Value in 2018, so I wasn't part of the decision process, but I believe Fresh Content Society was selected through an employee's existing network. Our Head of Marketing and Digital Director were involved in the process.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

We engage in on-going services with FCS.

They monitor all our social pages for customer inquiries, escalate any issues to our Customer Service team, provide campaign setup, post organic/boosted/paid posts, proactively engage with commenters of paid & organic posts, monitor all post performance and technical errors, and provide monthly reporting.

My role is FCS' main client contact. We meet at least every week to discuss any upcoming initiatives, new opportunities, or past performance.

What was the team composition?

We've worked with a few people at Fresh Content Society, the owner being our main contact. The folks at FCS have primarily worked directly with myself & supervisor on the digital team and the customer service team, but also small amounts of contact with the ecommerce, marketing planning, and creative.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since working with FCS, we have seen a lift in social followers, benchmark engagement rate, response time, and overall happy customers.

Everything we wanted to achieve with this relationship has been met, and FCS continues to look for new ways our brand can do better and better.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We've have had a seamless process in place for many years, and it's based on trust, accountability, and collaboration. We do our thing, they do their thing, and we meet consistently to collaborate on the two.

Community Management has been the biggest thing we put a lot of trust in FCS to handle, and they manage it responsively, provide quality responses, and escalate as necessary.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

FCS is VERY knowledgeable. Their owner lives and breathes social, so he has a pulse on everything. I haven't worked with any other community management agency, but if I do, a high bar of excellence has been set for them to measure up to.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Honestly, no.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I run the marketing department

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Fresh Content Society?

Had trouble getting quality leads and sales onlione.

SOLUTION

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

Scotts team set up an incredible strategy, optimized my website for facebook and google conversions and sales came in left and right.

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

Had a social media audit of my website. We set up conversion goals and tracking. Scott was able to optimize goals in my campaign that spent $7,000 and turned it into $130,000 in sales.

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

2. Facebook marketing and google ads strategist.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Spent 7,000 and turned into 130,000 in the second month.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

This was the best marketing campaign.

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

The level of detail and work that went into it.

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

Done perfectly