Pilot Digital Marketing

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Community Education Manager of Rainbows For All Children

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We provide training to volunteers worldwide to lead free grief peer-support groups for youth in their community. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Pilot Digital Marketing to accomplish?

• SEO of our Website
• Reinvigoration and use of our Google Ads Grant profile

SOLUTION

How did you find Pilot Digital Marketing?

Referral

Why did you select Pilot Digital Marketing over others?

• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Pilot Digital Marketing were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Rainbows for all Children just wrapped up it’s six months with PILOT’s Do Good By program and we’d like to go on the record and say this program has been a game changer for our organization. They got us on the right track with our Google Ads Grant, increasing our traffic by almost 30% through Google Ads alone, and Makayla was a delight to work with and super responsive to questions we had and giving us updates as things progressed.

The SEO audit revealed high priority areas for us to improve on our website and gave us a better understanding of how to track, and what to track in terms of our website’s engagement and performance. Optimized is an understatement! Jordan was pivotal in keeping us on target for the goals we had for the grant and was a sincere, professional, and giving person to work with. I am going to miss seeing this team on a regular basis!

This grant is a true service to the non-profit sector, especially for small to midsized businesses who are continually putting their SEO, web development, and Google Ads work on the back burner for lack of staff bandwidth. PILOT’s Do Good By program will set you up for long term success and sustainability and won’t leave you hanging at the end with no idea where to go next.

The amount of time and love that went into handing this work back to us was deeply appreciated. If you win this grant, you WILL level up your organization’s online game. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were able to get more than 900 additional users to our site in a month through the use of Google Ads alone. By the final months of the program almost our entire $10,000 Google Ads grant budget was getting used. 

By optimizing our resources page, and adding new content to our site about programming, we are sending a clearer message and reaching relevant users to our site. The average user time on our site jumped from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. 

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

They were always on top of things and made sure to communicate clearly and often. As a small non-profit we appreciated this as sometimes our schedules and bandwidth keep us from staying on track with time sensitive projects. 

What was your primary form of communication with Pilot Digital Marketing?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The work was all great, and the results have been phenomenal, but I have to say the whole team we worked with was sincere and professional. Humans with beating hearts who seemed to really care about our mission and setting us up for the best possible outcome.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Pilot Digital Marketing could have done differently?

If we had a little more structure and time to walk through their process and what went into their choices that would have been an added bonus, but due to time restraints on our end, we were never able to dedicate as much time as we wanted. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Digital Strategy of Northwestern McCormick School of Engineering

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We empower our students to become whole-brain engineers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Pilot Digital Marketing to accomplish?

• Transitioning our Universal Analytics properties to Google Analytics 4.
• Developed Looker Studio reports that identified opportunities to connect with our audiences.

SOLUTION

How did you find Pilot Digital Marketing?

Referral

Why did you select Pilot Digital Marketing over others?

Referred to me

How many teammates from Pilot Digital Marketing were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Audit our existing GTM and UA properties to assess the setup and determine what data will be essential to continue tracking in GA4. Mapping the ideal setup for GA4. This included events, event parameters (custom dimensions), and content groups. Developed Looker Studio reports.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are able to continue tracking our suite of websites with improved analytics and more insights into how our users are interacting with us.

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

The project was delivered on time and communication with Pilot was clear and prompt. They were very flexible and took the time to walk us through the enhancements they were making so we had a clear understanding of the setup.

What was your primary form of communication with Pilot Digital Marketing?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Our contact Charlie is so knowledgeable and isn't afraid to to explore a new solution to a problem that is unique to our organization.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Pilot Digital Marketing could have done differently?

Absolutely not! Working with Pilot and Charlie is hands down the best experience I have had with an outside agency.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing director and trader of Cimco Resources, a metal recycling company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Pilot Digital Marketing?

We needed help with SEO and PPC services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pilot Digital Marketing has been helping us with SEO and keyword research. We’ve given them all the information they require on our end, and they’ve started working collaboratively with our third-party web development partner to implement the SEO efforts into our site. In addition, they’re taking care of backlinking, ad posting, and PPC for LinkedIn, Google, and Bing.

What was the team composition? 

We’ve been working with Ben (Director of SEO) and Rod (Managing Partner).

How did you come to work with Pilot Digital Marketing?

A business partner referred them to us.

How much have you invested in them?

So far, we’ve invested around $10,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Pilot Digital Marketing’s team is very thorough; they invest themselves in researching our end consumers, what we do, and how we do it to ensure successful results. 

How did Pilot Digital Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is beyond expectations in terms of meeting deadlines, staying within budget, and communicating. Regarding tools, we’ve used Basecamp, email, text messages, and Zoom calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their personal touch is one of their biggest strengths; Rod is involved in the process and does a lot of personal research on our company to understand who we are and find the right keywords for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Having a plan in place upfront could help the process for both ends.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Digital Marketing Coordinator for the 3 U.S. locations for Bunting Magnetics. We are a global manufacturing company, and offer a wide range of products at each location. This includes magnetic separation, metal detection, material handling conveyors, custom magnet assemblies, in-stock rare earth magnets and more. I have been doing Digital Marketing/Websites for 15 years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Pilot Digital Marketing, and what were your goals?

Our e-commerce website for tour Chicago location was over a decade old and built with custom code. It had taken us as far as it could go. Its capabilities were no longer allowing us to reach our high expectations and goals for performance, visitors, user experience and e-commerce revenue. We needed a new Word Press website that could take us to the next level.

SOLUTION

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

At the time, Pilot Digital was our SEO partner. We enjoyed working with the individuals on the team and their openness and skill-set. Since I had worked at digital agencies for over a decade before coming to Bunting, I had been on their side of the table many times before. Now as a client/in-house marketing partner, I can easily tell when an agency is giving me the run around or not being completely transparent. With Pilot Digital, I could tell that they were knowledgeable, did high-quality work, were easy to work with, reliable, and open about everything. We were very comfortable going with them for our website rebuild. There were many agencies we could have chosen, but it was really a no brainer to ask Pilot for help with such a big project.

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

Our e-commerce website BuyMagnets.com was already successful, but the design, user experience and custom-coding was holding us back. It needed a complete overhaul, while staying true to our current successes. Pilot helped us reimagine the user experience to better serve customers, site architecture, fresh design, and new features and capabilities to bring the website into 21st century e-commerce.

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

Pilot's Web Development Director (and co-founder) was our point person, along with 2 web developers. We were in regular contact and questions and needs were always quickly addressed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our e-commerce website was taken to the next level and is achieving the big performance goals that we have planned. It was a challenging build due to our internal CRM system that also needed to be incorporated into the website. So there were a lot of creative solutions and demands that needed to be met, and Pilot stepped up to the plate to deliver.

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

They get down to business and are very focused on the tasks at hand. But they are also very personable and down to earth. Communication is always open.

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

As someone who comes from years of working at digital agencies prior to my current position, they are the type of agency I would've loved to be a part of. As an in-house digital marketing director, I have worked with some agency partners that were untrustworthy and just lazy. Pilot Digital is the complete opposite. They are excellent agency partners and I enjoy our collaboration. They are trustworthy, work hard, know their stuff, and are good people. Our experience was so positive that we actually signed with them to be our PPC partners as well. You have to really trust an agency partner to count on them to be your SEO, PPC and Website partner. Usually you might spread it out a bit. But with Pilot, the trust and positive working relationship makes this possible.

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

When we first launched the website there were some issues due to the complex nature of our internal CRM system that needed to be incorporated. But they worked with us to quickly resolve the issues. Pilot answered the call to overcome challenges that would have baffled and sunk a lesser agency.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at Lil' Kickers - LKSOCCER

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Child development soccer program for kids ages 18 months to 10 years old.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Pilot Digital Marketing to accomplish?

• GA4 Migration
• Google Looker Studio Template

SOLUTION

How did you find Pilot Digital Marketing?

Referral

Why did you select Pilot Digital Marketing over others?

Referred to me

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

Google GA4 Migration - lksoccer.com 

• GA4 Audit 
• Migration Strategy 
• GTM/GA4 Deployment 
• GA4 Exploration Report(s) Google Looker Studio Template 
• Design a Looker Studio Report to serve as a dashboard of the high-level GA4 data. 
• Design will act as a template so to use it as a base for other reports.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Pilot's work migrating our web analytics to GA4 & building a Looker studio dashboard has allowed our company to view website, SMM & SEM data in an accessible way. We can better track the ROI of paid advertising campaigns and monitor the overall health of our website. Plus, the automation of reporting saves our company time and energy.

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

The pilot team provided great communication throughout the project. We were happy with the project timeline. The team was quick to make any adjustments as needed and ensure the dashboard met the reporting needs of our company.

What was your primary form of communication with Pilot Digital Marketing?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The pilot team did a great job educating/training our company on GA4 and the Looker Studio dashboard.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Pilot Digital Marketing could have done differently?

N/A