North Star Inbound

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-Owner of AHMS Skin Care LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We sell skin care products online nationwide. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire North Star Inbound to accomplish?

Onsite and Offsite SEO services (PR campaign)

SOLUTION

How did you find North Star Inbound?

Referral

Why did you select North Star Inbound over others?

Referred to me

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

Site Architecture
Content Creation
Digital Promotional Posts and digital PR campaigns

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

ZERO results, and horrible experience.

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

We invested a total of $76,000 in this company for both onsite and offsite SEO strategies. While it’s too early to see significant results from the onsite SEO, the offsite portion of our investment, particularly a $22,500 digital PR campaign that promised to deliver links through three articles, ended up being completely fruitless. Despite our high hopes, we did not receive even a single link from this campaign.

Our attempts to resolve this issue were met with considerable resistance. When we reached out to the company owner for a remedy or a refund, we were confronted with an unprofessional attitude and wrongful accusations of outstanding payments on our part. This, coupled with multiple incidents of being double billed (which we noticed and corrected before payment), has severely impacted our trust in their business practices.

Many reputable firms in this industry take responsibility when they fail to meet their commitments. Unfortunately, this company seems to operate differently, showing more interest in taking money than in delivering results or ensuring customer satisfaction. I strongly advise others to consider alternative service providers who value accountability and professional integrity.

What was your primary form of communication with North Star Inbound?

Virtual Meeting

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

Nothing

Are there any areas for improvement or something North Star Inbound could have done differently?

Their priority should be to diligently work towards satisfying the customer, rather than merely collecting payments. It is crucial that they assume responsibility when outcomes do not align with expectations and demonstrate professionalism and accommodation, especially in instances like when a customer is charged $22,500 without receiving any services. 
Additionally, they must rectify their billing errors. We have been repeatedly billed for invoices that were already settled, a practice that could lead many customers to overpay simply by trusting this company.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an Executive of Shiny Smile veneers

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Removable Dental Veneers 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire North Star Inbound to accomplish?

• PR Campaigns and backlinks

SOLUTION

How did you find North Star Inbound?

Referral

Why did you select North Star Inbound over others?

Referred to me

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

SEO and PR Campaigns to get high quality backlinks 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

improved organic rankings, Traffic and revenue. 

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

They used to deliver on time and respond to our needs. all of the sudden this changed to the contrary. While their SEO content services is good, I'm unsure if they justify the premium pricing of $2,500 per article. We did see a few articles rank, but considering the six-figure investment over 18 months, the return was underwhelming. There was no noticeable improvement in our organic traffic or organic revenue.

As for their PR campaigns, while they did deliver some valuable backlinks from high-authority sites, we didn’t observe any significant improvement in our rankings or organic traffic. We were paying $12,500 per month for these services, and frankly, I regret the investment. In the last campaign, we received only one backlink, despite the typical campaign costing around $5,000 to $7,000 per month.

Additionally, if you're dissatisfied with their services, don’t expect much flexibility or resolution from the owner. She seems indifferent to client concerns. There were also issues with invoicing—on more than one occasion, we paid invoices only for the owner to claim we hadn’t, leading to unnecessary confusion and later apologies. Unfortunately, this happened multiple times.

What was your primary form of communication with North Star Inbound?

• In-Person Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Nothing other than one of their employess who was really great in communication and her content. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something North Star Inbound could have done differently?

They should refocus their goals from simply taking and keeping clients' money without delivering results to prioritizing delivering results and making their customers happy. When they do that, the money will follow naturally

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on October 12, 2022.

Executive, Shiny Smile Veneers
Beauty & Cosmetics

Houston, Texas

11-50 Employees

Aug 2022 - Ongoing

$10,000 to $49,999

Verified

Project summary
North Star Inbound provides SEO services for a dental cosmetic company. The team has discussed the project goals, researched, published on-brand articles, and improved exposure to increase awareness. 

Feedback summary
While the engagement is ongoing, North Star Inbound has delivered two articles, which received 44 mentions and backlinks. The team excellently streamlines the project and communication and accurately adheres to the deadlines. Their work quality stands out as it surpassed the client's expectations. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are an online dental cosmetic company

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire North Star Inbound, and what were your goals?

Our main goal for hiring North Star was increasing our brand awareness and improving our SEO.

SOLUTION

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

We were referred to North Star by one of the biggest experts in SEO.

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

The project steps are :

1. Exploring everything about our brand by North Star and what we exactly need to accomplish.
2. Researching the topics that are interesting and at the same time related to our brand .
3. Publishing this article .
4. Exposing it to publishers that might be interested
5. The publishers will link to our article and mention our brand.

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

Three

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project didn't even end and for only two articles we got around 44 mentions and backlinks with very good DA.

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

They are great at communication and are very accurate regarding timelines.

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

The quality of their work , they promised very little but delivered and exceeded our expectations .

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

I cant think of any .

STAR RATINGS
Overall rating: 5

Quality: 5

Cost: 5

Schedule: 5

Willing to refer: 5

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the campaign manager at Preply, an online learning platform for tutors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with North Star Inbound?

We hired them for content creation and ideation and digital PR outreach.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

North Star Inbound has provided content writing and digital PR outreach for us as well as some content marketing based on SEO. For content writing, we give them our brand guidelines and the topics we want. Then, they’ll pitch ideas, usually around nine of them, and we pick three content pieces a quarter. 

From there, North Star Inbound goes away to do research and conduct surveys. They write the content, create design images, and put them together to deliver to our internal team to do a brand check. After that, we put the content on our blog or a landing page, and then they begin PR outreach.

We’ve also done some content marketing pieces together. First, we do SEO keyword research, and from that, they create a piece of content that generates links over a period of time. These pieces are meant to rank for bloggers and journalists when they’re googling statistics to get links passively over a period of time. 

We’ve scaled our engagement with North Star Inbound over time. Initially, we focused on two PR campaigns and two SEO campaigns quarterly. Now, we’re focusing on three digital PR campaigns larger in scope. We’ve also begun a project where the team will create 2–3 SEO pieces per quarter. 

How did you come to work with North Star Inbound?

Our director of inbound marketing brought them to our attention. We had a big budget for digital PR, so we interviewed a lot of digital PR agencies, and North Star Inbound stood out to us the most. They were one of the few agencies that dared to propose a big contract; they were confident they could achieve high targets. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $400,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The penultimate campaign North Star Inbound created drove 300 links in the space of two weeks. In a seven-day window, it also attracted 27,000 unique visitors to one of our blog pages. Meanwhile, their latest campaign was featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and then on The Drew Barrymore Show. Disney also connected with us through LinkedIn to do partnerships, which we assume came from that campaign. 

Our process with them is usually super fluent, with no stops. We trust them to create ideas autonomously, and they add value by thinking outside the box about different ways of talking about online learning and education. While we work with a lot of agencies doing similar work, North Star Inbound is our biggest and most important agency due to their offering.

How did North Star Inbound perform from a project management standpoint?

They always deliver items on time and respond to our needs. We've never met them in person; all our communication is through Zoom. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I only have good things to say about North Star Inbound. They're super transparent and always willing to help, even outside the scope of work. Our internal team always asks about what North Star Inbound does because they're impressed by their work. The team is always happy to share their press releases and what they've done, which allows our internal team to flourish and grow. Some agencies flat-out refuse to share that kind of information, so we appreciate North Star Inbound's openness. 

Moreover, their ideation is always great, and our communication flows well despite us being in the UK and them being in the US. The time zone difference between us is almost unnoticeable because the communication is seamless from their side. We have an open dialogue with the team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't have much critical feedback because they've overcome their one challenge. Initially, we were off to a slow start because the education vertical isn't very active in the news cycle. However, they've adapted to that very well. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you're looking for digital PR that can go alongside traditional PR and has a performance-based SEO perspective, North Star Inbound is a good company to go with.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder and CEO of JobSage. We are an employer review platform focused on company culture.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire North Star Inbound?

We started our company with a brand new domain only a few months before starting to work with North Star. Our overall strategy was to invest in content mkt, SEO, etc. in order to quickly build up domain authority and traffic to our site, knowing that this would create long term value for our company.

SOLUTION

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

My co-founder, an expert in SEO, did a lot of research and talked to a lot of potential partners. Ultimately we decided to go with NorthStar because they clearly had the expertise we needed and they too had a passion for our work/mission, which was important to us.

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

At a high level, we are creating relevant content relevant to our target market that is both highly valuable from a pure user perspective and also gives us the biggest opportunity to make SEO/traffic gains. The project kicked off with a collaborative brainstorming session to share thoughts and ideas. From there we created a 3-month roadmap of content that then gets produced along with a digital PR campaign. The process over those 3 months is very collaborative. We get to provide input along the entire journey while still keeping our schedules on time. Near the end of the 3 months, we re-start our process of planning again.

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

We work with about 2-4 people there. There is a project manager, content creators, a PR person, etc. We also have good communication with their CEO, which is great.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our domain authority is around 50 according to HREFS, which is amazing for such a young site. Our site site traffic also continues to grow approx 30% MoM.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Really amazing. The team was really receptive to our early feedback on how to work together. It took a little time up front to get the right balance down but I'm very happy with how we work together.

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

The whole team is great and I just really appreciate their founder. She's a good human and cares. That's most important to me.

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

It might be our fault but it took us a bit of time to figure out how to think about how they bill / charge us but we eventually figured it out and it's fine now.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the SEO Director for our company and I'm responsible for driving organic traffic to our website and blog.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire North Star Inbound, and what were your goals?

We are a fast-moving startup with more things to work on than there are people to work on them. We needed to increase organic ranking and convertible traffic from search. We hired North Star Inbound to provide support for SEO, content marketing, and competitive landscape assessment.

SOLUTION

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

There was a referral from some other great work they've done with other clients. After interviewing and assessing fit, we knew it would be a great match and that they could help us move the needle and drive more revenue.

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

Our ongoing work with North Star Inbound includes a monthly meeting to assess the previous month's activities, email support for any random SEO questions, creating blog posts, and implementing completed works. They keep their fingers on the pulse of the SEO world and keep me informed of any changes or ideas that could negatively or positively affect our site goals.

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

I've worked directly with the founder, Director of Content Marketing, and a couple of other people from their content teams. Most of the contact is with the Director of Content Marketing, who organizes the work for the other team members.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've seen a steady increase in traffic since we started the contract. We also rank for almost double the keywords we were from before they started. All of this new traffic has driven more conversions for us and made our organic channel one of the highest performing in our company.

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

They communicate clearly, and we never have to repeat ourselves when discussing initiatives or ideas in meetings. We receive quick responses to any questions outside of our monthly meetings, and we are politely reminded about any deliverables we owe on our side to keep the work flowing and traffic growing.

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

I like a team that knows how to get work done but can be friendly and personable. Communication is a real challenge for many teams but working with North Star Inbound is easy and fun, making the work's positive results all that greater.

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

We haven't had any challenges with them at all.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior content marketing manager at a home advisory platform. I manage all of our SEO and link-building agencies and in-house staff.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with North Star Inbound?

We hired North Star Inbound to help us with our link-building and outreach efforts by providing content creation and digital PR services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

North Star Inbound basically creates blog content for our organization. They usually send us a pitch deck that contains around 5–6 article ideas that we can pick from. Once they submit those pieces to us, we publish them on our website. We focus more on publications when it comes to our link-building, which is why we have their team reach out to journalists to get them to link back to our site. 

What is the team composition?

I work with around four people from North Star Inbound: the CEO, the director of content marketing, the director of outreach, and an outreach specialist.

How did you come to work with North Star Inbound?

I’m not sure how the company came to work with them; they were already signed on when I joined in.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $10,000 a month on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our contract started in June 2021, and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

North Star Inbound has produced hundreds of links for our website. The work they deliver is of high quality and requires very few edits, and the fact that we’ve gained so many backlinks through them proves how newsworthy their pieces are. They know what the trends are in our industry. 

How did North Star Inbound perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re super responsive and communicative, and compared to the agencies I’ve worked for and with, they’re very in touch with us. They also always deliver on or before the deadline.

We use Monday.com as an internal project management tool, and we share our boards with their team. We also communicate via Slack, email, and monthly calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

North Star Inbound’s communication style has really set them above the other agencies that I’ve worked with. They’re honest and will openly tell us if they think something is not going to work out. We can rely on them to point out aspects that could be improved with our campaign as well. 

Overall, they deliver quality ideas, and that’s because they stay on top of what’s happening in the world or in our industry specifically. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not that I can think of. I’ve been very happy with our partnership so far. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open to their ideas and don’t try to silo them into only one area. The more creative you let them be, the more they’ll be able to produce quality content.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of an insurance initiative company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with North Star Inbound?

I hired North Star Inbound to drive more traffic to my business’s website. I needed to acquire more links to the platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

North Star Inbound provides SEO and digital marketing services. Their team completed keyword planning, but they focus on building opportunities within my competitive landscape. They create written content and graphics that fit my brand. Their team also performs outreach to acquire links that point to my website.

What is the team composition?

I’ve communicated with the company lead.

How did you come to work with North Star Inbound?

I received a message from them about four years ago. I had a conversation with them, which I remembered. As I thought about undertaking new initiatives, their company’s name stayed in my mind.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent about $15,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2020, and their work’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’ve seen an increase in site traffic over the past three weeks. I’m at an all-time high for site impressions and leads are picking up.

They said that they would provide a certain number of articles and work until they attained a certain number of links. However, they've gone far beyond those expectations. Every day I learn about additional work that was done and additional links that were earned on my behalf.

How did North Star Inbound perform from a project management standpoint?

They meet deadlines and their communication’s solid. With this project, I provided a set of goals and gave them room to work. I didn’t want to hold their hands and didn’t require them to keep checking in with me. I received project updates and they asked for my opinions when necessary too.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed by the quality of their writing. I was shocked by the content's depth and their team's thoughtfulness. There isn’t a lot of neutral information published about my niche, but they wrote as experienced professionals in my field. Their team writes with nuance and ties the content into current events. I haven’t seen this quality of work from any other digital marketing agency.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would’ve been helpful to have more insight into their ideas. Again, I’m shocked at how close they came to the mark given the space they were given to handle the project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open about your business goals. Be specific about what you want and where you sit in your competitive space. Provide business metrics outside of website performance to help them support you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a firm that specializes in customization of logo products, like T-shirts, pens, or hats. Anything a customer could want to put their name or logo on, we can help.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with North Star Inbound?

We needed help with our messaging and outreach. We wanted media mentions and wanted to make our brand stand out in the crowd. There’s a lot of competition in our industry, and we need to build brand recognition.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did digital outreach for us. They came up with content development ideas that would resonate with our crowd. It all lined up with our brand and what we provide and do . We either sponsored a study or provided a third-party with our products so they could evaluate it. We got in front of thousands of people and then combine that data to try and massage it and use it in unique ways and then pitch it accordingly.

What is the team composition?

I work directly with Nicole, and I work with 3–4 other people throughout the project.

How did you come to work with North Star Inbound?

We were referred to them by another prominent SEO expert.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $50,000–$199,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2018 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve seen an increase in traffic. We were focused on brand awareness and impressions, and we’re pleased with the impact they has on that. I’m very satisfied with their work. They operate at an elite level.  

How did North Star Inbound perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re self-sufficient. They do a great job and know what they’re doing. They understand our needs and wants and don’t require much direction. They’ve never given us a reason not to trust them. It has been a great. We only have to talk 2–3 hours and a few email a month, which I like. They’ve never pitched a bad idea and it has always been very easy to work with them. They don’t waste time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their people. They do the right thing and they’re honest. I think a lot of other agencies charge a lot more and markup what they pay an outsourced team, but I don’t get that vibe from North Star Inbound.

They’re genuine people who care about the client. It feels like they’re a boutique and they don’t treat us just like another client. They always to the right thing. Like in any engagement, we had disagreements, but they’ve shown a lot of character, and it buys a lot of confidence and trust.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There isn’t anything that I think they need to improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set realistic expectations. You have to understand that you’re moving the needle little by little, and results can take awhile.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a manager of a company that runs various different online rental websites.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with North Star Inbound?

In order to facilitate the acquisition of links, we brought in North Star Inbound, which specializes in link building.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

North Star used analysis tools and a link building CMS. They focused on ascertaining what content resonated most with the types of websites that we targeted for link acquisitions. Their team also used best in class platforms for reporting.

What is the team composition?

We had a point of contact who acted as the project manager.

How did you come to work with North Star Inbound?

A colleague referred us to North Star. I reviewed a dozen different potential agencies and ended up signing with 4–5. When I talked with North Star's team, I understood that they were experienced. They answered most of my questions and addressed my concerns much better than the standard sales representatives from other companies.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $8,000–$15,000 a month on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them between August 2018–December 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I clearly articulated what I wanted and North Star Inbound delivered on it. Their team provided exactly what I wanted to see.

How did North Star Inbound perform from a project management standpoint?

They delivered industry-standard reports, which were good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They hopped on the phone at random times that we threw at them. Communication was one of North Star Inbound's strong points.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve how they present additional offerings. There wasn’t a cohesive or easy way to understand their additional products and services. It would also be interesting to see slightly more advanced reporting. There are agencies, not necessarily in their space, that deliver much more robust levels of reporting.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a promotional products company. We’ll put a logo on anything our customers need. I am the search marketing manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with North Star Inbound?

It was for SEO, and to raise our organic traffic.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They had two different strategies. One was a digital PR campaign—they came up with interesting questions and topics that were tangentially related to our business, and then they would create a survey. Then they would disperse that survey to a few thousand people, take the answers, and they would have a unique dataset. From there, they would write an article with rich infographics and pitch it to major media outlets to get us links and traffic. The objective was to improve our site’s domain authority so we would rank organically.

Then they did more classic link building efforts, such as guest posting. They created articles for off-site. They also worked with the existing content on our website that would interest other platforms. Then they connected the dots to get us more links.

They also provided more general SEO advice based on their experience.

What is the team composition?

At least 3–4 people worked on our project.

How did you come to work with North Star Inbound?

We found them through a referral. We were working with another SEO provider that was working on the technical side of things, and we asked them who would be good for link building. They explained how unique North Star Inbound was and what they do.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $60,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from January–June 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This project was very cost-effective. We were happy with the number of links we got. We paid them on a per-campaign basis, and they told us that some were going to be very effective, while others weren’t. But the digital PR campaigns did so well, that it drove the overall cost per link way down. They were able to secure some very high-quality links from .edu, and .org sites. We also got a ton of traffic out of it.

There wasn’t a huge increase in sales, but that’s common for campaigns like this. It wasn’t necessarily our goal, but it would have been nice.

How did North Star Inbound perform from a project management standpoint?

They were phenomenal. The projects that they were putting together were pretty elaborate. The communication was always on-point, we didn’t have any issues. We were always a part of the process, but they took care of everything.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I don’t think that anyone else provides what they do. The fact that they get such unique data, and develop a talking point that no one else has, it’s unique. The writing is unassailable, fact-rich, and the visuals are beautiful. They generate a lot of interest, which drives down the cost per link, and that’s what sets them apart.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, not really.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be thorough in describing your business, what your goals are, and what you need. They’re very good about interpreting that and giving you the content that will be relevant for your company and your goals.