Mr. Marketing

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Raising the Bar is a mobile bartending company in Atlanta. We provide bartender and hospitality staffing, physical mobile bar structures, non-alcoholic beverages, glassware, and alcohol service for any type of corporate event.

What is your position?

I am one of the owners of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Mr. Marketing?

We had a website which had been created by a web designer with no background on SEO. After a quick Google search, I discovered that we weren't showing up in results, but all of our competitors were.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Mr. Marketing started the SEO process from scratch, guiding us through what we needed to do in order to get our previous website in check and become more relevant on the internet. Since we started working together with Mr. Marketing, the SEO field has changed. They've guided us through the process of staying up-to-date.

Mr. Marketing provided a copyrighter which produces our blog posts. We utilize another service for social media content. Our work is organic and search-driven. We do not engage in paid search. Mr. Marketing also reworked our website using WordPress.

How did you come to work with Mr. Marketing?

The owner of a public relations firm had hired our company. We had a chance to look at their website and saw that they were well-received in Atlanta. Out of curiosity, I asked him who handled their web services and he recommended Mr. Marketing. We gave them a chance and haven't switched since.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We spend around $7,500 yearly. The website redesign was included in our monthly scope. Any updates in terms of content and information on the website is also included in the monthly services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with Mr. Marketing for 4 years. It's been an ongoing relationship and we have no plans to stop.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

People always ask us how we advertise and what has changed about our business. Our concept was always sound, but it was a matter of being found by clients. I had no knowledge on how to do this and didn't trust anyone with the work. In a small business, every dollar counts. $800 each month was a huge commitment for us initially.

It was our biggest expense at the time, but once we were able to start the work and to trust Mr. Marketing, it literally changed our business in every respect, from growth, to sales, leads, clicks through to our website, and so on. I thought that we were busy 4 years ago, but looking back at our business since, those numbers seem small. We're growing at such a rapid rate that we've come to turn down as many jobs as we accept.

A number of people each month are calling us because of what our website looks like, compared to our competitors'. Many businesses in this industry work part-time, as opposed to us. We have an office and are better able to respond to inquiries which are coming in.

How did Mr. Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

We receive a monthly report in terms of traffic and how we compare to competitors for search terms.

What distinguishes Mr. Marketing from other providers?

Even though Mr. Marketing is growing as a company, they've continued to show us the same attention as they did in the beginning. I don't think I've ever heard their answering machine, and Mr. Marketing has never taken more than 45 minutes to an hour to respond to any questions I had for them. I feel that I can call them at any time and receive a response.

Is there anything Mr. Marketing could have improved or done differently?

Mr. Marketing could improve in terms of content writing. Instead of updating every 3 months, we would like to see new content every month. This is also partially our fault. Mr. Marketing always told us that, if we have something special going on, we should let them know in order to generate press releases and relevant content. We have been so busy that we've forgotten to do this, so Mr. Marketing does it at their own leisure.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Always Best Care Senior Services is a national franchise with 120 franchisees across the US. We have locations in Canada, Germany, and Australia as well.

What is your position?

I am the Internet Marketing Manager of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Mr. Marketing?

We try to offer our franchisees packages that can help their business progress. We have a social media package for which we engaged with a third-party vendor, in this case Mr. Marketing, in order to come up with a percentage that would work on a national scale, getting the cost down to a level that would help everyone.

We run national press releases for franchisees, letting them know that we can provide a vendor with which they can get in contact and use to get a business Google listing, make sure that their website is optimized with keywords, and facilitate campaigns through Facebook, LinkedIn, and other areas, using paid ads. This helps us provide partners low cost, effective SEO programs, making sure that every localized franchise is getting what it needs, helping the entire network as a result.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

Mr. Marketing provides SEO, page optimization, WordPress customization, content blogging, backend PHP development, and image correction for our company. We have thousands of images for products, which Mr. Marketing is able to process for us. Mr. Marketing provides us an extensive team of programmers. We're working with other vendors as well in order to implement Mr. Marketing's optimized work. Mr. Marketing has come up with additional applications for our WordPress system which have proven useful for our company.

How did you come to work with Mr. Marketing?

Their president used to work for another company and acted as our primary vendor representative at the time. When that company stopped operating, we maintained a relationship with him. He is easy to work with, very upbeat, funny, and has a very good turnaround time. I couldn't ask for a better vendor than Mr. Marketing in terms of work relations. I've worked in this field for 20 years and Mr. Marketing has been one of the top 10 vendors I've known.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I cannot provide this information.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our relationship with Mr. Marketing is ongoing. We've been working with them for around 5 years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We set different targets for each quarter. Mr. Marketing has helped our company achieve those targets. Many vendors come and go, but Mr. Marketing has remained with us.

The internet is ever-changing, so we always have to analyze what worked in the past, making a logical inclusion for the future, which is what Mr. Marketing does. On many occasions, they've been the first ones to identify an issue and bring it to our attention. Mr. Marketing has been a very good alarm bell for site downtimes or keywords which weren't performing properly. In one instance, our Google Ad Words account was blocked. Mr. Marketing brought it to our attention fast and we were able to get the campaign back online. Mr. Marketing uses a number of tools in order to provide metrics.

We had a database error which wasn't within Mr. Marketing's responsibilities. We locked out every developer except for Mr. Marketing in order to eliminate the possibility of further issues. Mr. Marketing was able to service the updates needed for every franchisee, such as creating pages, adding testimonials and changing contact information. Even though the service was out of contract, Mr. Marketing helped without nickel-and-diming us.

How did Mr. Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Mr. Marketing provides us reports broken down for each franchisee. Our franchises contact Mr. Marketing individually, acting as individual businesses. Not every location is the same, so Mr. Marketing has to be able to localize keywords, phrases, and campaigns, providing reporting on broken links, website functionalities, campaign progress, and so on. Mr. Marketing will then discuss next steps with each member.

What distinguishes Mr. Marketing from other providers?

I have nothing negative to say about Mr. Marketing. Their company has been able to service a national brand which has been included in Forbes magazine. Finding a partner with integrity can prove difficult. I've seen many vendors during my career, but Mr. Marketing is pretty up-and-up. This is an industry in which providers will try to charge as much as possible. Even Google Ads can prove to be a black hole, and getting a return on investment can be difficult. Mr. Marketing has always found ways of optimizing our campaign in order to cut costs, which is atypical for a vendor.

I've taken part in the hiring process for a long time and saw many people come across my desk. I can count on one hand the number of stars that came through, but Mr. Marketing is one of them. They're honest, which is hard to find, have a good sense of business, and want to make sure that the client is getting the best. They know how hard it can be to get a business off the ground, so they throw as much as possible into helping us out.

Is there anything Mr. Marketing could have improved or done differently?

No.