Obility

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the head of operations for a manufacturing firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Haatzama Marketing?

During strategic planning, we noted a gap in our marketing strategy. We needed to hire a vendor because we didn’t have the in-house marketing skills to fill out our strategy.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Haatzama Marketing revamped our website using Adobe Business Catalyst. The team then identified the tech stack to build a marketing infrastructure with our CRM and deploy that campaign. They built new functionalities including process integration. Next, we put our website on to HubSpot and they developed workflows for that software. Haatzama Marketing tested several strategies—including social media marketing—to determine their effectiveness.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two people on a regular basis. They allocated additional resources for certain tasks.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent just under $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from January–June 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Haatzama Marketing made us more efficient. Their strategy enabled us to track specific marketing campaigns and understand how they impacted our customers. We stopped the social media campaign because it was not the best method to achieve our needs; the decision was not related to the team’s performance. They would have done more if that decision was up to me.

How did Haatzama Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

From the very first meeting, the team scoped projects clearly. During face-to-face conversations, they drew process flow charts on whiteboards to translate information from our scientists and engineers into marketing tactics.

Haatzama Marketing provided weekly reports and used Wrike. The team was organized, cohesive, and goal-oriented. As a result, the partnership was easy because our team did not have to manage anything. We had a very positive experience.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They guided our team through the entire process. Since my background is in operations and finance, I enjoyed learning about the creative and process sides of marketing. As a result, the potential of marketing strategies became more tangible for me. That guidance—especially from their management team—is something I haven’t seen with any other marketing agency.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I had a high-level overview of the project. The team kept me updated and routinely asked for my approval before moving forward. There were no tactical issues from my perspective.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Listen to their advice and be open to their suggestions. Clients should trust them because they are professionals; the team knows what they’re doing. Strategic planning may take some time, but Haatzama Marketing will identify appropriate solutions.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director of finance and operations for a consulting firm. We work with organizations all over the world and help them build and increase engagement with their communities, whether that's their customers or employees. We help our clients amplify their messages out in the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Haatzama Marketing?

We’d purchased Salesforce and developed a complicated instance, but the people who generally managed it left our organization, so we needed help. We hired Haatzama Marketing with the hope that they’d be able to get rid of some of the entanglements on the backend and simplify the instance to make it more usable, mainly for our sales function.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Haatzama Marketing only fixed the instance we already had; they didn’t create any new ones. Unfortunately, our engagement didn’t go well. They only completed about 70% of the work we asked them to do. For example, we wanted to be able to use Salesforce to determine our growth project margins, but they never showed me how to do that, so that feature currently doesn’t function. They cleaned up our screens and did some of the work we asked, but the partnership wasn’t as productive as we’d hoped. In some senses, it feels like our Salesforce instance is broken.

What is the team composition?

We worked with about five people, including a project manager and their president.

How did you come to work with Haatzama Marketing?

One of our employees recommended them. We talked to their president, and it seemed like they could do what we needed, so we hired them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $43,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from November 2017–June 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They finished our marketing and account components, but other tasks weren’t completed and aren’t currently functional.

How did Haatzama Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They clearly explained their plan and laid out a timeline, but we didn’t end up sticking to it. We asked them to come prepared to meetings, but they frequently didn’t. The project manager didn’t provide useful weekly reports, although the team did keep good track of their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to have a better project manager. We ran out of time and didn’t meet all of our goals, although it was probably a combination of both of our companies failing to stick to the deadline.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Make sure you have someone on your team who understands the problems you want solved and who can work closely with Haatzama Marketing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of development for Morrison Child & Family Services. We are a child mental health services organization that serves minors and their families.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Haatzama Marketing?

Our organization had an aging donor base that we didn’t maintain consistently over 15 years. We received a grant to transfer that data on thousands of donor constituents to Salesforce. We then hired Haatzama Marketing to clean up and optimize the data for the Salesforce implementation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Haatzama Marketing configured Salesforce to help us get the data we needed in a variety of ways. The implementation focused on how we track prospective donors and different kinds of donations including grants, individual gifts, event sponsorships, and planned giving. They are now training our in-house team to use Salesforce. The implementation is still in progress because we’re refining our data processing. They are helping us transfer information more concisely, such as for mailing lists.

What is the team composition?

We work with three people.

How did you come to work with Haatzama Marketing?

After receiving the grant, we assessed our needs and then researched local organizations that had the capacity for a nonprofit setting. Our team vetted three different agencies before selecting Haatzama Marketing. However, my department experienced turnover and we had to restart the hiring process. During the second round, Haatzama Marketing stood out as a good fit for our company and we chose them again.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $29,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2018 and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Reporting and database management are already much easier. Our fundraising process is now streamlined with better communication between departments. We recently onboarded a new database manager who found the Salesforce implementation highly intuitive.

How did Haatzama Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

The team is responsive and works at a good clip, especially when we request support. The partnership started when my department was under-staffed. Consequently, I couldn’t track their work how I wanted to. But we were able to trust them instantly as they accommodated our hectic situation.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Haatzama Marketing is easy to work with because they are responsive to our needs. The team’s professionalism distinguishes them from the competition.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They’re a really good partner.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clients should be clear about their needs because Haatzama Marketing can meet them. The team is always on top of it, but we could have also utilized their time better. Ultimately, clients should expect the team to be very responsive.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We do criminal investigation compliance work around e-commerce organizations and large internet and payment companies. I am the associate director of client partnerships.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Haatzama Marketing?

We wanted a CRM that could grow with us, so we chose to implement Salesforce for the first time. It solved all our problems and operated as a business process automation platform. However, we still needed a team to help us with process planning and to do some of the more complicated steps in our implementation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had two leads on our side working on Salesforce and a group from Haatzama who came in as best practices experts. We went through 2–3 stages to implement the new process and synthesize all the data. They helped outline and drive discussions around the business process of sales. The team also met with our leadership and stakeholders to get approval for their plan.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a team of 3–4 people, including a project manager, a business process analyst, and a Salesforce engineer.

How did you come to work with Haatzama Marketing?

We chose them based on a referral.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $64,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together between December 2017–May 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work has been incredibly impactful on our business. We use the system they created in multiple departments and have seen some exciting changes. Haatzama Marketing's team was incredibly helpful, and I appreciate the effort they put in.

How did Haatzama Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed well and focused on specific steps. They had a very prescriptive process, which was helpful.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were dedicated to the projects and spent time answering our questions and explaining processes that were new to us. We don’t have a lot of experience with this sort of project, and it was helpful to have their guidance.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Because they were so prescriptive in their steps, they sometimes lost attention for how fast or how slow the rhythm of the project should be. We experienced a few roadblocks along the way and would have liked more training. We asked multiple times for documentation that wasn’t delivered.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you are organized and can track your needs from a business process perspective. Align your steps with theirs so that you can move forward without forgetting anything.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director of a B2C SaaS company. We provide a data platform that allows customers to connect and use their data with machine learning and AI. This ability allows them to better serve their customers with improved marketing tools.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Haatzama Marketing?

We were having trouble with optimizing our sales force, marketing ops integrations, and administration. We didn't have enough people in-house who were able to handle optimizing those platforms, which meant we couldn't effectively leverage our data. We also wanted our sales and marketing teams to be able to use platforms like Salesforce, as well as our own Linux platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their role focused on data integrity and cleanup, setting up basic governance, and automation operations processes. They also enabled some of our teams to start leveraging the work that they put in place from workflow and automation perspective.

In addition to sales and marketing ops, they provided e-mail services, including three email template designs.

What is the team composition?

I worked with several people at the agency, but most of my contact was with two team members to discuss day-to-day operations.

How did you come to work with Haatzama Marketing?

I'd worked with the agency's president and some of the team members in a previous capacity, so I knew the quality of the work they would produce and knew Haatzama would be a company I could trust. Furthermore, we needed to move quickly and the team is local, so we knew the partnership would be easy to facilitate.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together March 2018 and are continuing work on campaign optimization, attribution, and tracking across each stack, and day-to-day sales ops.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

By cleaning up our data with Salesforce, we were better able to leverage our visibility to help us target specific companies and accounts. I don't have financial statistics or metrics that can show the impact of their work, but it did make us more efficient and saves us a lot of time. The same goes for the improvements they made in operational automations—for example, they automated the previously manual process of task assignment. By reducing the time we spend on administrative work, the team created more time for us to focus on industry selling.

How did Haatzama Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

I really appreciate their commitment to consistent and thorough project management. They give weekly status updates, use a product management system so we always know the status of a task, and they ask the right questions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're cost effective and they have the right individuals to deliver the specific work you need. They're not trying to be a full-service agency, so there's no middle management or other ancillary roles that inflate costs. While we originally started with sales operations and sales force and marketing optimization, they were also able to quickly provide design work when we realized we needed it. The quality of work they provide at the price they charge is much more competitive than other agencies we've worked with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It often takes time to understand the nuances of a client's business, and since we needed to move fast there were a few occasions when we had small problems. Everything was entirely fixable, and I think largely a result of our immediate deadlines, but I think they'd be well served by asking more questions to determine the details of a project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Haatzama is a great choice if you need to execute a project quickly, but it's still important to know exactly what you want to accomplish and what you want them to do for you. The team will help you expand on some ideas, but it's helpful to have defined goals beforehand.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior marketing and communication specialist for a company that produces building automation supply equipment and sells it worldwide. We manufacture power meters, relays, current relays, sensors, etc.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Obility?

Our goal was to increase our web presence through SEO and bring in qualified leads to our website and sales force to convert them into sales. We had worked with an independent consultant for SEO and weren’t happy with the level of work that was provided, so we made the decision to change to a more reputable agency.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They started off doing a lot of research into what our current status was and worked on identifying keywords that we needed to target in order to rank higher. They also did a competitive analysis for us against some of our chosen competitors.

We executed some of the strategy recommendations they initially made while they implemented new keyword changes to our content. Additionally, they fixed some site errors and eliminated duplicate content. Due to the age of our site, we’re limited in what we can do. A lot of it has been strategy and problem solving, for which I’m really grateful. We haven’t done much by way of backlinking yet, but that’s next on our list.

Obility also led us through a project to rebuild our website. We haven’t started it yet, but have been doing a lot of research and work with our senior leadership to get approval and funding. Once we get there, we’ll be using their team to leverage the site and make sure we’re moving forward in the best way possible to serve our SEO goals.

How did you come to work with Obility?

Someone I knew on LinkedIn recommended them. I did some research and I met with them and a couple of other companies. I decided on Obility because I really liked the people behind the work. I felt that I would get really personalized care and that’s ultimately why I chose them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2017 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our site errors and duplications have gone down, which was one of the technical strategy suggestions they made. While we haven’t seen major results yet for our keyword work, they did give me some recommendations for updating our YouTube videos for getting rankings there. I implemented those and saw changes right away.

How did Obility perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been great in this regard. They provide monthly and quarterly progress reports and we have bi-weekly check-ins where we review what we’ve done, what’s still outstanding, and what we want to do in the future. I’m in communication with an account manager and an SEO manager. I can reach out to either of them at any time and they’re both in touch with me regularly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their communication and ability to create relationship are impressive. It’s not just a contract for them. They feel like an extension of your team, seeking to understand your business and keeping up with what is going on in your project. I never feel like I have to fill them in on what we’ve talked about previously, and they’re proactive in finding ways they can help outside of the general scope. I’m a marketing team of one, so I had to outsource some of this work. It doesn’t feel like outsourcing, it feels like they’re truly people that I can call colleagues.

Obility has also been extremely helpful and understanding in working within the limitations of our site. Whenever we’re not able to make a recommended change because our website can’t handle it, they’re good about pivoting, suggesting other options, and working to move us forward in some way instead of letting it be a failure.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The transition from their business development phase to the implementation phase was great, though I didn’t hear again from the business development guy after they started the work. I would have liked a check-in rather than a clean cutoff. I understand he had other things to do, and it’s not a problem, but rather the tiny thing I could nitpick at if I had to.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do the research and look at the company. It’s worth looking at others to really know how much better Obility is. They were at the top of the line when I was doing my research.

They host a B2B marketing and sales conference every year, which I’ve attended and is really great. I highly recommend to anyone interested in their services to go to that and see the breadth of experience and knowledge that they have to offer.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing at a company that provides operations management software to large enterprises.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Haatzama Marketing?

We have a fairly small team that’s able to get our marketing technology systems, like Marketo and Salesforce, up and running on a day-to-day basis, but there’s a lot more capabilities those platforms could offer us if we had the expertise and time to customize them and set up more complex reporting. 

We reached out to Haatzama to help us customize our marketing technology systems, so we could pull and organize our internal data to gain insights from it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Haatzama customized our Salesforce tracking to report on what we were most interested in. For instance, they customize our tracking to include funnel reporting which allows us to see our closed loop metrics and track the ROI on our marketing efforts.

What is the team composition? 

Our main point of contact is a project manager. We also work with their Salesforce expert, as well as a few of their developers who handle the customization and backend work on our project.

How did you come to work with Haatzama Marketing?

I knew Angela Earl, Haatzama’s president, from industry events and groups. Initially, we reached out to her for some consulting, but it quickly turned into larger projects. We then decided to enlist her team to help us pull and organize our internal data from Salesforce.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in September 2017, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Internally, we’ve been able to move much faster and drive our marketing program forward because Haatzama is managing our backend.

How did Haatzama Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is their strong suit. They have perhaps the most attention to detail out of the agencies I’ve worked with in the past. They’re extremely diligent about tracking projects, following up, and delivering when they say they will. They require very little oversight; we send them our expectations for a particular deliverable and they’re able to produce without too much guidance. Regardless of how long a deliverable takes to complete, it doesn’t fall through the cracks.

When submitting jobs to them, we’re given a tracking number and we can check the status of that job on Wrike. We also review the status of their work weekly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Haatzama understands how B2B companies work, so they were able to quickly understand what we were trying to accomplish. They were even able to provide helpful suggestions to optimize our experience. They didn’t require additional education; they actually gave us more time back as opposed to taking more of it up.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not that I can think of.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Think through your strategy for what you’re trying to accomplish before partnering with them. That ultimately ensures more success in your endeavors.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and chief executive officer of RFPIO Inc., a SaaS software company in Portland, Oregon. We specialize in helping our customers respond to requests for proposals. The application automates the response process for all these RFPs, RFIs, and RFXs. Our customers use quite a few response documents to do business with their customers. Our application helps them automate that process.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Haatzama?

Our biggest challenge as a startup was that we didn’t have dedicated marketing resources. We had a few engineers, but needed help with the marketing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us with our branding, including the colors, theme, and messaging that we put out. We maintain a very positive tone in the market. A lot of our competition talk about the pain point, but we cognitively maintained positivity. We don’t use negative words like frustration and pain in our blogs. We stand out from our competition because Haatzama took that approach.

They also helped us implement our marketing automation application and our CRM application. They have hands-on experience with Salesforce and Act-On, both of which we use internally.

They helped us create our website, along with a new explanation video, and integrated the website into our CRM through Act-On. It wasn’t actual development, but it was instrumental.

Our CRM and inbound lead flow are completely automated, and our entire CRM and marketing automation implementation was done by Angela [President, Haatzama Marketing].

We did a couple of tradeshows last year. Everything, from booth design to logistics, was taken care of by Haatzama. They continue to do that for our events.

What is the team composition?

I work with two dedicated staff members, but they have a few more on the design side.

How did you come to work with Haatzama?

I worked with Angela at a previous company. She was loyal and had hands-on experience. It worked out well for us to have an outside consultant rather than a full-time employee. We talked to a few entrepreneurs, but Angela knew exactly what we wanted.

How much have you invested with them?

$100,000-$150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

For the size and nature of the company, it’s unusual to get this level of inbound leads. Our investors are pleased with our conversion results. One of our investors is a venture firm. Statistically, we have the highest conversion rates they have seen in their portfolio, both in terms of inbound leads and conversions to closures.

How did Haatzama perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re always on top of things. Christina [Project Manager, Haatzama Marketing] is on top of it. When we talk about event management, we’re not talking about small events. I’m talking about Dreamforce, one of the biggest conferences. They helped us with everything that needed to be clearly planned. Project management is an important component for that kind of event planning.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They can adopt a startup’s culture and mentality. Everything is fast-paced and flexible. They’ve been very flexible and nimble with a lot of my requests. That’s their big advantage over other agencies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should have more resources.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are an electronic components manufacturer with an unwavering commitment to design engineers based in Oregon. We specialize in a diverse range of product technologies, including power, interconnect, audio, motion control, and thermal management.

I work as a promotions specialist. I manage day-to-day tasks for the SEM program, email program, co-op marketing programs, and direct advertising program. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Obility?

Prior to hiring Obility, we had been working with Anvil for several years. We became disappointed with the lack of attention we received. They were no longer bringing us solutions to grow or increase the effectiveness of the program. We attributed the decreased mindshare to high turnover and client loads per account managers on their end. It became evident that we needed to find a highly collaborative partner who could take our existing program to the next level. We needed a partner who could move past front-line metrics and give us greater insight into conversions to determine the true ROI of our SEM program.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Obility benchmarked our SEO and PPC programs. They completed a competitive market analysis and collaborated with us to create paid search, display, and landing page strategies. They built out all of the new paid search campaigns, expanding and improving upon what we currently had running. They determined and scheduled ongoing meeting dates to ensure we had an effective format for continual communication and discussing key elements of the program.

Now that our program is in place, we have bi-weekly meetings with our Obility partners, which includes a presentation on the performance for the preceding month and discussing action items that need to be addressed. Obility also sends us an SEO report every month, and we just expanded the scope of our partnership with a full SEO audit at the beginning of this year.

How did you come to work with Obility?

After the poor experience we had with Anvil, we began creating a list of potential SEM agencies to work with the beginning of Q2 2016. Obility was at the top of the list. Our VP of marketing, brand director, and myself met with Obility’s president and director of new business. During our meeting, it was very clear that Obility has a unique perspective when it comes to managing SEM programs for B2B. We were also impressed by the client load for each of their account managers, which I believe was about ¼ of what we had previously experienced, making it very clear we would receive the mindshare we were looking for. Once we reached the decision to hire Obility, they were extremely flexible as we negotiated the scope of work (SOW), and the transition into working with their team was seamless.

How much have you invested with Obility?

Sorry, this is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our ongoing plan with Obility in Q2 2016. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall, Obility continues to do a good job at optimizing and improving performance. As one example, in November of 2016, ad group-level metrics were noted as targets to improve upon. From November 2016 to January 2017, we saw:

· 58.83% increase in CTR [click-through rate]

· 26.22% decrease in CPC [cost-per-click]

· 35.97% decrease in cost/goal

· 15.19% increase in goal rate

How did Obility perform in terms of project management?

Our Account Manager, Danielle, does a good job at prioritizing based on our feedback and keeping projects on the radar. She always sends us a summary of what we discuss each meeting, which I find to be very helpful to ensure we are all on the same page.

What did you find most impressive about Obility?

Each account manager has a healthy client load, and management and employees are highly engaging. Turner, our SEM Manager, is willing to walk us through the GA [Google Analytics] editor. At one point, the Obility team was also willing to offer advice on a display campaign for a tradeshow we were exhibiting at before knowing if it fell within our SOW. They bring solutions and new ideas to the table and are approachable and positive. Even when we ask for something to be changed, they always express positive appreciation for our feedback.

Are there any areas where Obility could improve?

Obility provided us with a backend integration plan so we could tie our paid search and remarketing ads to sales further down the funnel. However, we could benefit from further technical assistance in implementing the integration.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Obility?

Be willing to collaborate. I’ve found Obility to be a great partner, and we go to them for advice on a variety of initiatives. My experience is they are open and willing to communicate, and their clients and potential clients will benefit to being open to the same level of communication.

Also, spell out the products, your competitors, main landing pages, base terms, target regions, target industries, etc. earlier in the process of each campaign buildout to minimize the back and forth. Finally, create dedicated landing pages for your SEM program—don’t just link to an organic page on your website. It’s easier if these are already developed before building out PPC [pay-per-click] campaigns.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Healthcare is our industry, but we specifically serve outpatient rehabilitation physical therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy markets. We provide an EMR [electronic medical record] and billing software that’s integrated and runs their practice: from the patient intake, recording notes, submitting the billing, and sending it off to insurance for payment. I’m in charge of demand generation, managing our digital channels, tracking the performance and efficacy of the channels, and allocating budget towards ones that are more successful such as PPC [pay-per-click], SEO [search engine optimization], email marketing, marketing automation, and lead scoring.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Obility?

When I started here in the company, there wasn’t a strategy around SEO. That was one of the early things that I identified as a key area that we weren’t spending any time or focus on. At the time, we had a PPC vendor different from Obility. We initially signed up with them, and they provided us with priorities and technical expertise to help with our SEO efforts and make sure that we were focusing on the right areas. Obility did a great job with our SEO, so we have since then switched for them to manage both our SEO and paid search efforts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of the reasons we signed up with them for SEO was that we were in the process of relaunching and overhauling our site from Joomla to WordPress. It was also important for us to make sure that we were going to try to rebound as quickly as possible. There tends to be a dip in rankings if you try to switch and redo your site. It initially was a project-based contract and they did a really good job with that, so we signed up for the monthly SEO work as well. In terms of paid search, we completely redid all of our ads, landing pages, ad groups, and keywords.

How did you come to work with Obility?

They reached out to me on LinkedIn and said that they were hosting this conference in San Francisco. Our offices are also a block away from each other, so it’s nice that we can have meetings in-person. That’s probably not the case for most people that are looking at them. I went to the conference and got to know them on a personal level. We didn’t evaluate other vendors, but we had a vendor already in place, so we were essentially evaluating Obility versus do-it-ourselves versus the vendor that we were using at the time before Obility.

How much have you invested with Obility?

Sorry, this is confidential, but it's in the $50,000-$200,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We initially signed the contract in December 2015 or January 2016. We launched our new site June 2016. The work is still ongoing with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since launching, with a large part due to their efforts in helping us with SEO, we have increased our time on site by 229% and our traffic by 134% in the last 7 months. Those are both mainly positive metrics. We increased our search impression share from 18.7% to 89.3% and our click-through rate from 1.96% to 4.18%. Conversions have increased by 33%, which is in the backend of how many actual people end up converting and becoming a MQL [marketing-qualified lead] or SAL [sales-accepted lead] for us.

How did Obility perform from a project management standpoint?

That part is really great. I’m managing a lot of different channels, so I appreciate having somebody staying on top of me, not bugging me constantly, and make sure that I’m at least aware of the things I need to be doing. Whether I always get to those or not is a different story. It’s very helpful that they manage me, and that was something we did not get with our last agency. I felt like the onus was on me to reach out to them to ask what I needed to do. It’s the other way around with Obility where we have a regular cadence, and they’re providing me with recommendations on a regular basis.

They provide us with prioritized reports with things we need to work on, along with secondary things and things that would be great but aren’t quite as important. Since we’re a block away, we meet onsite at our company every month as well as a weekly check-in.

What did you most impressive about Obility?

Their communication and responsiveness. With other agencies, the responsiveness has at times been lacking. If I have an issue, there’s a same-day response. Sometimes, when you work with agencies, you might ask for help in a certain area and they’re going to check the scope of your contract to see if it’s included or if it’s additional. We haven’t got that at all with Obility. Things that may not have even been technically scoped out or a part of our agreement, they tend to just do for us. Obviously, if we had some massive project that wasn’t a part of our agreement, then that might be different. But on a fairly regular basis, there are things in which I ask them for help.

An example would be that we had a PR agency that I felt wasn’t doing a great job in terms of incorporating SEO best practices. They were an old school PR agency—good at the PR part of it but not necessarily thinking of things in terms of how something will impact our SEO. Obility met with them and provided them with recommendations about how to be thinking about things both in terms of PR and how to get the most SEO value out of the things they were producing.

Are there any areas Obility could improve?

I haven’t had any complaints.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Obility?

For us, it was definitely helpful that we started our relationship small and we’ve grown it for additional services. With any agency, I think it’s a good idea to give them a trial and make sure your personalities mesh and that you’re feeling like you’re getting the service that you want.