RevenueZen by Eastern Standard

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am one of the Marketing Directors and serve the brand, content, digital strategy, demand generation and marketing operations teams.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RevenueZen, and what were your goals?

We made an intentional shift in 2021 to be more focused on inbound (after having spent the duration of my tenure driving outbound and ABM marketing programs). We knew where we wanted to go and had an idea on how to get there but needed some help optimizing our content and digital strategy and really taking advantage of our digital channels. We have a goal of increasing meetings from inbound by 30% this year.

SOLUTION

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

We got a referral from our Product Marketing team to the Revenue Zen team.

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

The RevenueZen team was part of a large marketing launch in 2021 that focused on updating our brand narrative, developing new content and launching campaigns. We did some discovery calls initially to see how their skillset could complement what we were doing and really specifically focused on how they could help with content and message distribution on digital channels. We started with social selling (training and writing) and have moved into SEO support (keyword research, content strategy, competitive analysis and technical audit). Our work is ongoing but we have been impressed with the quality of work from RevenueZen and their investment in helping us be successful.

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

We have worked with their leadership team (CEO and CGO) as well as some of their brand managers and storytellers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are early on in the relationship (1 month+ into social selling and just kicking off on SEO) but we are seeing the benefit of the training they provided for the team. The team is more active on LinkedIn and understands how to use their network to their advantage.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They were incredibly patient as we worked to get the relationship off the ground. We had some pre-work to do as a part of our program that took some time and they were ready the second we were to get going. The whole team is incredibly communicative, responsive and invested in their clients. Some of their brand storytellers work directly with our sales leadership and I am constantly getting comments on how great they are to work with and how they are able to push them to areas they didn't know to go.

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

They are so knowledgeable about all things digital whether it is content, social media, SEO or your website. They are able to see us through from strategy to execution (writing and all included). They understand the big picture and how to help you achieve the goals you set. I come away from every interaction having learned something.

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

Not at this time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of Geospark Analytics, the world class leader in developing applied artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for global threat and risk assessment. We distinguish ourselves from the glut of real time social media alerting platforms on the market today by using AI and machine learning (ML) to get in front of emerging geopolitical risk, so customers as varied as the U.S. government or Fortune 1,000 companies can make decisions before it's too late.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RevenueZen, and what were your goals?

Geospark Analytics was interested in raising its profile on the commercial side of its business after experiencing the rapid adoption of our value proposition and record breaking growth on the U.S. government side of our business in 2020. We needed to engage with a firm that could implement a full digital marketing strategy that would rapidly increase our demand generation.

SOLUTION

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

We vetted three firms through referrals and made our selection based on cultural fit [we are a young, edgy, AI-driven SaaS business and wanted someone who could meet us where we saw ourselves in market, overall strategy, their subscription based model rather than being locked in to a long term contract and/or being penalized for terminating the contract, and personal touch. After one phone call with the founder and CEO I received a curated gift box that might as well have come from a family member or friend--he got me, which means he listened, took notes, and took action!

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

Everything int his project is built around demand generation. There are basically 4 primary components to what we are doing:
1) Outbound email campaign - Team curated lists based on our go market strategy and prioritized verticals.
2) Weekly posting on LinkedIn.
3) Nearly weekly blogs.
4) SEO.

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

CEO, CXO, 2 folks on the outbound email campaign, 2 folks on LinkedIn planning, content creation, and editing. 1 person on blogs and SEO.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Success in this case is measured in dollars flowing from the commercial market into Geospark Analytics. We were told to be prepared to work at this for 3 to 6 months before we would see the sort of traction we were looking to achieve. Momentum has definitely shifted, and we have now closed enough commercial sales that I can directly tie to these efforts to more than cover the costs of the engagement.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We meet twice a month on content planning and analytics. We also set up a separate channel in Slack and communicate real time in that forum.

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

They are a one-stop shop for our digital marketing needs.

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

Regardless of the client the heaviest lift for RevZen will be learning to write in the voice of their client and representing their field, which is in our case AI/ML. Not sure how to solve for that challenge other than time with a client but also increasing the variety of technical writers that they have on hand in their stable as they continue to scale.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Blissfully is a SaaS management platform & system of record for SMB and midmarket companies. I was VP Revenue, responsible for sales and GTM strategy

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RevenueZen, and what were your goals??

We were validating outbound processes including email, call and Linkedin outreach to build pipeline more consistently and repeatedly.

SOLUTION

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

Our CEO had already had a relationship with them.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package, including any calling tools used.

The project was focused on building a list and engaging IT, Finance & Procurement stakeholders at our target companies. They used Salesloft for the outbound email and calling. They used their own software for the LI outreach.

Who did you work with and what was the feedback process like?

Worked primarily with the OutboundView team and our dedicated rep for the Linkedin outreach. The feedback and delivery was excellent. We were able to quickly determine which persona's and channels were best and worst performing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Clearest takeaway was that cold calling IT was not an effective strategy with a 1.5% connect rate vs Finance persona's with closer to 6%.

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

We had a weekly 1-1 separately with the OutboundView team that was doing the majority of cold calling etc and another with the RZ rep who was running our Linkedin campaigns.

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

They have everything you need in one trusted vendor and team to experiment and execute GTM. This is especially helpful for an early startup where it isn't possible to hire an in house marketing or outbound team.

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

Would have been great to see everything in one place across the channels vs separate reports i.e. here's the list of persona's we targeted, executive summary of engagement across all channels and clear recommendations on what to do next.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing and development of a multi-family office. We work in partnership with CPA firms throughout the country to provide tax law, wealth management, and insurance services to business owners and affluent families.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with RevenueZen?

We have a national CPA partnership program. We act as back-office to CPA firms and financial advisors throughout the country so that they can hold themselves as a multi-family office and deliver all the services that we offer. RevenueZen helps us reach out to more CPA firms and financial advisors to potentially collaborate with.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

RevenueZen does direct outreach marketing for us. We go to them whenever we want to build a presence in a specific city. Then, they research and connect us with prospective CPA firms and financial advisors using their unique LinkedIn approach.

What is the team composition?

I work with Alex (Founder & CEO) and Steven (Campaign Manager). Steven does all of our marketing.

How did you come to work with RevenueZen?

We had a podcast at a previous company I owned. Alex was one of our guests 3–4 years ago, and we stayed in touch. I always had a good relationship with him. Furthermore, he had experience in the CPA market. That’s probably what pushed us over the edge and made us go with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership began in September 2020, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve had several new leads and opportunities over the eight months we’ve worked together. I’m not sure what the numbers are, but we’ve had many new meetings with prospective CPA firms and financial advisors thanks to RevenueZen.

How did RevenueZen perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate daily via Slack and have a meeting every other Friday. Apart from that, we communicate through Zoom and email if needed. RevenueZen is always available, and they usually respond on Slack within 30 minutes. They’re always ready to meet on the same day if something comes up.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I find RevenueZen’s work process the most impressive. Alex and Steven are always positive, and working with them is refreshing. They educate us on what they do and how we can improve. Also, they have a nice technology platform that makes it seamless for them to hand over the leads to us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind that RevenueZen could do differently. The scope of our engagement has been straightforward and simplistic.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear of how you’re going to measure success from the get-go. We did that, and that’s why we’ve had a good engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and COO of ProdPerfect, and we’re a software company that autonomously tests the web applications of our customers, by analyzing live user traffic.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with RevenueZen?

Unlike many conventional platforms or testing tools, it’s very easy for prospects to get a free trial and play around with it. ProdPerfect, for a lot of technical reasons, can’t do that. There’s a higher level of friction that a lot of our buyers are used to in buying our products — and that made it difficult for us to get people in the door to have a serious conversation with.

Given what’s unique about us, we went to RevenueZen and asked how to attract or develop more business for ourselves and be able to close sales.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

RevenueZen provides us with extensive digital marketing, PPC, and SEO services. For digital marketing, they’re not only creating content and links, but they’re also working hard on other forms of marketing such as email marketing, social media marketing, and LinkedIn marketing. Additionally, I've given them full access to the website so they can optimize our SEO and improve the funnel once people actually arrive.

Moreover, they’ve also been adding more features and functionalities to our marketing website, to improve the experience for prospective customers in the discovery phase.

The scope of our engagement is different from what I originally thought of, and I actually like it much better now. We ended up focusing primarily on SEO, with a limited objective of increased qualified traffic on our website. As we learn more about how people are acting on our site, they are able to come up with good recommendations regarding the improvement of the visitors' experience.

We now have them on a monthly retainer to continue improving our SEO conversion.

What is the team composition?

We have pieces of their whole team as needed, but we probably work with about 10 people. They have a suite of experts that pop in at different times for different areas of focus.

How did you come to work with RevenueZen?

They were referred to us by a portfolio member of ours.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent a total of $200,000 with them so far, and that’s obviously going to keep growing.

What is the status of this engagement?

The ongoing partnership started in October 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since partnering with RevenueZen, the traffic compared to our website from two years ago is up by a factor of 12. Our clicks from organic search have also increased from zero to 400 hundred clicks per week — which is huge. We also went from zero keywords to having 17 ranking on the first page. additionally, we're ranked at number one in four keywords that matter to us.

Their work has been brilliant, and that has translated well into the inbound results.

How did RevenueZen perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m quite happy with how they manage the project. The way we’re set up is, I have a project manager, Rocky (COO & Managing Partner) who I meet every two weeks. They also have VP-level folks who get brought in every now and then as we alter the scope of the project.

What I like about their approach to management is they understand that I’m very busy, so it isn't my job to manage them as a vendor — I want to be clear about what my goals are and put them to it. They’re very proactive about pushing the results, but sometimes we don’t really hit our goals. We had a period where we actually slipped in ranking, but they discovered it before I did, acted on it, and just let me know afterward. 

I’m really put in a good position where my job is to make decisions, and I feel very well informed. I get recommendations, they set their own goals that I approve, and it’s really been excellent. We’ll have calls every two weeks, but we also have a shared Slack channel where we communicate on a much higher frequency as needed. It’s where they push a lot of the information that I need.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the great things about my initial journey with RevenueZen, is we went in thinking we knew what we wanted — but Alex (CEO), Ken (CGO), and their team provided us with recommendations on how to improve. RevenueZen spent a lot of time making sure they learned and understood our products and buyers, which resulted in creating a demand generational experience for the prospects.

Another thing I like about RevenueZen is their holistic approach to marketing. They’re a strategic partner to me, and they operate on a high level. They make sure to understand my business and customers well enough to come up with solutions to get our business on track.

One thing that differentiates RevenueZen from the rest is they’re a smart B2B marketing team. They even develop their own technology to have some comparative advantages, as opposed to just being an agency.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would like them to have more capabilities to build a much broader general strategy. One thing that I do want is more conversion rate optimization, more advertising support, and high-level thought leadership. RevenueZen needs to grow its way into becoming a full-service B2B marketing team for Silicon Valley tech companies. They’re doing a big part of that now, but I would actually like to pay them more money to do more stuff — and they just don’t have that yet.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The thing I’d suggest is you'd want to come in with an open mind. Think of RevenueZen as a high-level partner for you. Expect to pay for it, but more importantly, expect them to have opinions on what to do. You need to go in with an objective, as opposed to a set of paths, and work with them to figure out their proposal about how to achieve that.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Head of Growth at a B2B SaaS company. We help data and product teams capture high quality data they can trust. We're a small startup with ~10 people, well-funded and growing fast.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire RevenueZen?

We hired RevenueZen to help us out with our outbound sales strategy on LinkedIn to really help us scale our activity level on the platform and capture more leads, sales opportunities and increase the awareness of Iteratively in the market.

What were your goals for this project?

*Increase awareness of Iteratively in the market *Gain more connections and followers on LinkedIn *Get more sales leads / opportunities

SOLUTION

How did you select RevenueZen?

One of our investors recommended RevenueZen to us. We looked at a few other vendors, but really liked RevenueZen's model and the team we meet.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

RevenueZen manages our outbound activities on LinkedIn end-to-end. They build lists of ICP targets, work on the copy and manage the sequence of activities through their tooling. All we have to do is wait for the leads to come in. We have a dedicated account manager, Steven, who we meet with on a weekly basis to evaluate the performance of our campaigns and discuss areas of improvement.

What was the team composition?

We initially spoke to Alex, the CEO and Founder and he introduced us to the COO and other core team members. Day to day we interact mainly with our AM, Steven, but the whole team is responsive over email and in Slack. Steven has been great – very responsive, passionate about his work and open to test some of our ideas.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

*Significant increase in network/connections size *~11% acceptance rate * ~3% reply rate *21 leads to date * 4 opportunities to date

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It's been like an extension of our own team and really frictionless. Our main line of communication is Slack and the team is always super responsive. We also meet weekly to check in on the performance and the RevenueZen team share more about what they've been doing and how that's been working for us.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They know their stuff! The team is very skilled and knows what they're doing. Their open to sharing best practices and given they work with many fast-growing startups they know what works and what doesn't.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don't have anything to add here.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder of an exterior house painting company. We want to scale and modernize service-based businesses starting with this industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Doorbell Digital Marketing?

We just needed a consultation to help us identify our needs for digital marketing. We used the website review service DDM offers

What were your goals for this project?

The consultation was limited in scope to how we can increase our in-house lead gen. We wanted specific actionable steps.

SOLUTION

How did you select Doorbell Digital Marketing?

Serendipity, happened to hear of DDM from word of mouth.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

A 1-hour, one-on-one consultation with feedback on our current digital marketing strategy and advice for how to move forward. As well as a post-meeting recap with actionable steps and material.

What was the team composition?

One on one meeting with the owner, Ken Marshal. We were extremely impressed with his professionalism and focus during the consultation- he really made excellent use of the time and asked the right questions.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After implementing just a few of their suggestions, we saw website traffic increase significantly and we predict growth will continue and even increase as we continue to follow the strategy roadmap.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

An incredible amount of knowledge and experience. Also, the company owner clearly cares about his clients and the community. I could tell that unlike other vendors, they're not going to just take your money and produce "some" results.

They have high moral values and ethics and treat you with respect. Honestly, I want to grow our company so that we can work even more with DMM. As a business owner you can tell when an investment is going to really pay off. This company is it 100%

Are there any areas for improvement?

This is not the largest company and I could see some small ways that they could improve if they scale much larger. However, that would decrease their value proposition. I like that it's personal and customized.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We own a wedding venue in East Texas. You can rent the entire place for your wedding, corporate event, family reunion etc. You can also opt to stay overnight if you like. I am the owner, manager, sales etc.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired Doorbell Digital Marketing to revamp our website that was only a couple of years old but not getting any of the response that we were wanting.

Our goal was to increase traffic, appear in the top Google searches and create some traffic in a neighboring state. Also to be able to interface with our Social Media accts.

SOLUTION

How did you select Doorbell Digital Marketing and what were the deciding factors?

Our social media technician chose Doorbell Digital Marketing for us. Best decision we have ever made!

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

Our Social Media tech, Social Beacon Media handled just about everything. I relayed what my expectations and my goals were as far as the business was concerned and Brreeze handled all the technical issues from there. Ken with Doorbell Digital Marketing worked seamlessly with Breeze and was able to produce the results that we were looking for. I did not have to learn a new industry to make sure I received the results that I was looking for.

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

The only person we worked with was Ken. I was very happy about that as I did not have to explain what my goals were to numerous people.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our organic traffic has been tremendously increased. We are ranking high on all the Google searches in the areas we wanted to target. 99% of our business comes from our website and social media. I could not be happier.

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

Again, most of the communication was between our social media tech and Ken. I did not have to have much input except what my goals were. They stuck to the timeline they gave me with no deviations.

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

The fact that Ken did not talk over my head and the results that we saw even before the project was completed. As I said our original website was not very old and it just never took off so I could compare apples to apples and the results were amazing.

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

Not that I know of. I spent way more money and time the first time around with a local company here preparing the website. I would leave the meetings with the first company feeling like my head was spinning and they always gave me a list of things I had to do before it could go any further.

Doorbell Digital Marketing rarely ever had to have something from me and Ken never talked over my head.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Marketing at CloudTask. CloudTask is a managed workforce provider for companies looking to increase their sales, customer retention, and revenue.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Doorbell Digital Marketing?

• Content Strategy SEO Link Building Reporting

What were your goals for this project?

• Increase search engine visibility around core service offerings
• Optimize all technical and on-page related ranking factors
• Laser targeted content strategy to improve traffic from the top of funnel search terms Increase domain and brand authority through strategic outreach and backlink generation
• Strategic partner that understands the ins and outs of search engines so you don't have to
• Analytics set up and conversion tracking to accurately determine campaign performance

SOLUTION

How did you select Doorbell Digital Marketing?

They were a referral from a consultant we currently work with.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Their scope of work document included the following services:

"Content Providing valuable and relevant content for your target audience is a time-intensive process involving a significant amount of research, writing, editing, publishing, and optimizing. Let us take care of all of that for you.

Search Engine Optimization Search engine optimization (SEO) starts with knowing where you currently stand; only then can you determine where you want to be.

Through in-depth research and knowledge of best practices, we will update your existing code (heading tags, title tags, meta descriptions, etc), add search engine friendly structured data, map your content to target key terms and provide specific recommendations to improve your current rankings and generate greater visibility on the web.

We will continue to monitor your site's search performance and consult on improvements as long as our engagement lasts.

Link Building As part of a holistic SEO strategy, it's essential to build quality links to your site. Why? It increases the authority and trust of your brand and domain online. Search engines reward trustworthy brands and domains.

Not sketchy and poorly thought out link schemes. Reporting How do you know if all of this is working? Don't worry - we provide monthly reports including valuable campaign metrics and results, as well as a summary of all the awesome optimizations and insights we gained from the previous month.

We'll let you know which pieces of content and pages are performing the best, how many conversions you are getting, and what we are doing to deliver more of those conversions each and every month."

What was the team composition?

I have been working closely with the Founder and 3 of his team members. We collaborate via social messaging, direct calls, virtual meetings, with reporting and deliverables done in the cloud.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From August 2020 - November 2020, year over year organic traffic of new users to the website increased by 115%. From 7,047 total in 2019 to 15,173 total in 2020.

The last two months (October and November 2020) will see the most organic users since the website started Google Analytics tracking in 2018 (and prior to our campaign, internal traffic wasn’t being filtered)

From organic traffic In the last 5 months, 33 contacts created Keywords ranking in positions 1-10 (about 75% of searchers don’t go past the first-page page of Google, which contains results 1-10. Source.) saw a net increase of 32.5% over the lifetime of the campaign.

This traffic is worth an estimated $38,000 per month if you were to pay for it using paid ads to purchase clicks for these keywords. Non-branded traffic (people who aren’t intentionally searching for Cloudtask) saw a net increase of 46%. These are your potential future leads to nurture.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Ken has been great to work with. Understands needs and will go beyond the scope of work on occasions to help on projects.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are easy to communicate with. There were some issues along the way however were quickly resolved and the campaign got back into full swing with both parties doing their parts to move things forward. Their results so far have been impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I can think of at the moment

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Manager of Business Development (Marketing, Sales, and Partnership Operations). We are an international expansion firm, helping companies worldwide enter into new markets.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Doorbell Digital Marketing?

• SEO
• Google Analytics
• Content
• Digital Marketing
• Strategy

What were your goals for this project?

Create the foundation of our SEO, Google Analytics, Content Strategy, and overall web presence. Drive more views on the website to increase top of the funnel and of course drive revenue.

SOLUTION

How did you select Doorbell Digital Marketing?

After reviewing several agencies, and interviewing several of the firms, we ultimately went with Ken and his team.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Example of Monthly Deliverables:

Month 1:

Keyword research Fix all current errors on the website

• Broken Links
• Duplicate Headers
• Optimize H1/H2 Tags Update Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Ongoing Monthly Deliverables:

• 2 new keyword focuses on landing pages
• 2-3 keywords focused blogs
• 2 pages updated with on-page content
• 25+ backlinks Internal linking to new content various SEO support

What was the team composition?

I worked directly with Ken and his team, as did the marketing / BD team

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Ken and his team at Doorbell Digital Marketing are by far the best SEO and Marketing team you can ask for. From day 1, Ken was extremely transparent in their review process, goals, and expectations. We saw over 100% growth in our organic search results in just 6 months, from a dedicated slack channel to 1 on 1 meeting to detail overviews that cater to the entire audience and not just technical marketing folks. I would highly recommend Ken and his team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had a dedicated slack channel, designated check-ins, and were in constant communication. Fit right into our team and remote work style.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They're transparent, honest, and able to understand the big picture to capture all aspects of the business.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not at the moment.