Secret Sushi, Inc

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Operations Director

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Farm-to-table regenerative agriculture company focused on promoting soil health, nutrient-dense foods, and sustainable living. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Secret Sushi, Inc to accomplish?

• Develop and implement marketing plan for hemp products.
• Generate product marketing collateral and online marketing assets.

SOLUTION

How did you find Secret Sushi, Inc?

Referral

Why did you select Secret Sushi, Inc over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Secret Sushi, Inc were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

We partnered with Secret Sushi to develop a strategic marketing plan for us. The goal was to build momentum through a focused strategy and a clear implementation roadmap.

Secret Sushi led the process beginning with a Discovery phase to understand our brand, audience, and goals. From there, they produced a comprehensive Strategic Marketing Plan and a tiered implementation proposal outlining Good, Better, and Best options aligned with available budget. Through their implementation activities they developed blog content, web content, improved SEO, and helped focus the marketing approach of the brand.

Through this work they were able to develop these key deliverables:

• Discovery session with stakeholders
• Strategic Marketing Plan with actionable recommendations
• Tiered Implementation Proposal (Good / Better / Best)
• Secret Sushi’s structured approach and collaboration provided with a strong foundation for marketing growth and clear next steps for brand development.
• Blog content
• Social media content
• Web content
• SEO 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Increaed online web content enagement by 100%

Increased SEO putting our product on the first Google search page when looking for cbd hemp cigarettes. 

Gave clear visibility into marketing priorities, costs, and effective strategies for engagement. 

Improved internal and external communication through closer brand aligned communications and content writing. 

Produced dozens of blog and social media posts. 

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

They always delivered on time and exceeded expectations throughout the project. Every time a need came up they would listen, integrate it into practice, and improve their deliverables and work with us. 

What was your primary form of communication with Secret Sushi, Inc?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

What impressed us most about Secret Sushi was their ability to quickly understand our unique business context and translate that into a focused, actionable strategy that they effectively implemented. They were always engaged and communicative ensuring that the brand's voice and content were always in alignment with leadership and other stakeholders. And they are just some rad people who make work fun and welcoming. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something Secret Sushi, Inc could have done differently?

The only area of improvement that I can easily say would be on my own behalf. If I could go back, I would dedicate more time and attention to the work that they were doing so that we could continue to sustain the benefits and impact that they created following the end of our project. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a Marketing Coordinator at Pet Camp

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Dog and cat day and overnight care

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Secret Sushi, Inc to accomplish?

• Increase new client reservations through paid media

SOLUTION

How did you find Secret Sushi, Inc?

• Online Search
• Referral

Why did you select Secret Sushi, Inc over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Secret Sushi, Inc were assigned to this project?

1 Employee

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

Secret Sushi was tasked with optimizing our existing paid search and paid social accounts to generate new client conversions every month. This included creating or pausing campaigns, refreshing creative and providing overall strategy for us to follow.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our KPI's include the number of new client conversions per month and CPA.

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

Project management has always been timely, thoughtful and well-produced. We have been consistently happy with the results provided as MoM and YoY numbers continue to grow with each new strategy that's been implemented. The team is always quick to respond, and has an average turn-around time of about 2-3 days.

What was your primary form of communication with Secret Sushi, Inc?

Virtual Meeting

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

I am impressed with how this team takes initiative, is quick to respond (never leaves us hanging or waits for us to follow up), and produces high quality work that fits our brand.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Secret Sushi, Inc could have done differently?

None!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Cheif Dot Connector of Crankset-3to5 Club

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

peer-to-peer advisory and coaching

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Secret Sushi, Inc to accomplish?

• Organize our content into assets
• Generate awareness of our content
• Increase our membership

SOLUTION

How did you find Secret Sushi, Inc?

Referral

Why did you select Secret Sushi, Inc over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Secret Sushi, Inc were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

• Strategic Consulting:
  • Strategic marketing planning and ongoing guidance 
• Content Production 
  • Content Audit* 
  • Identify pillar topics 
  • Image sourcing and editing for posts 
• Writing blog posts 
  • up to 4 blog posts/month 
• Publishing 
  • Formatting and staging posts on website 
  • SEO posts (optimize each post for search engines) 
  • Scheduling/Publishing (each post) 
  • Up to 4 blog posts/month 
• Social Media 
  • Profile audit and optimization * 
  • Ongoing social promotion of blog posts with unique social posts. 
  • Ongoing resharing of evergreen content 3 x Twitter 1-2 x Linkedin 1 x Facebook 1 x Instagram 1 x Tik Tok 
• Repurposing Content Assets 
  • Repurpose content into other formats for sharing and marketing 
• Analytics & Measurement 
  • Website measurement 
  • Custom Performance 
• Tracking Dashboard 
• Landing Pages Design 
  • Landing pages - Design & creation Digital Plumbing 
  • audit, set up, and maintain analytics goals, paid social tracking, and retargeting audience building PPC Campaigns 
  • Channel strategy 
  • Ad management and optimization (Google ads) 
  • Campaign and ad writing and creation
• Programmatic Advertising Management (Display and Native formats) 
  • Programmatic Channel strategy 
  • Campaign and ad writing and creation 
  • Ad management and Optimization 
• Email Marketing 
  • Assist with list segmentation and email quality verifitcation* 
  • Email nurture sequence creation

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Organize content to generate income-producing assets: 
  • They organize the content and we now have free webinars and two paid courses. 
• Redesigned website to be more action-oriented 
  • Traffic increased 300% 
• Generate leads for visits to the club
  • generated 109 leads 
• Set up posting content for blog and social media to post 
  • Content and postings are set till February

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

Deeanna did a great job keeping us in the loop and, at the same time, being flexible to our needs and discoveries. They hit the delivery mark more times than not after a slow start in the beginning; things started to gain speed about three months in.

What was your primary form of communication with Secret Sushi, Inc?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We were thoroughly impressed with the team's research on our culture and company, as they provided highly relevant suggestions for our desired audience outreach. Their strategic insights were impressive and they successfully provided effective solutions for lead generation. The newly designed website really helps us with the call to action.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Secret Sushi, Inc could have done differently?

We initially estimated that it would take about 60 days to get everything up and running. However, it actually took between 90 to 120 days. Despite the delay, we were very satisfied with the outcomes. The quality of the work was excellent and we appreciated the strategic thinking that went into the plan.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Head of Marketing at the cybersecurity software company, Lucidum, which provides an attack surface management solution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Secret Sushi, Inc, and what were your goals?

We were establishing the marketing function and were in need of an agency partner who understood the unique needs of a B2B SaaS company marketing to senior IT and Security leaders. Secret Sushi offers all of the services we needed — from SEO and content strategy and development, to design and web development.

SOLUTION

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

We selected Secret Sushi primarily because of the breadth of their capabilities and how they aligned with our needs. They also have an excellent reputation and came highly recommended by industry connections and former colleagues.

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

We started our engagement with Secret Sushi by reviewing the current state of our marketing efforts and our needs and goals for the upcoming quarter and the remainder of the year. They then created a content and SEO proposal and completed an analysis of our website. We provided our input and prioritization, after which they came back with a details project plan which they started executing on.

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

Secret Sushi will scale up or down the number of team members we worked with based on the current needs and project. The core team we work with directly includes the account manager, who we would have weekly check-ins with and would act as our day-to-day liaison, and their primary web developer and designer, who we would work with as needed. We would occasionally interact with their primary content writer if we were working on a more extensive content piece.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our success with Secret Sushi has been very positive so far. Our web traffic has increased by 350% thanks primarily to the SEO and content work they have completed to date, but also because of the improvements they've made to our website. We have also been able to repurpose the content Secret Sushi has produced for demand generation programs that have contributed over $2.1 m in marketing generated opportunities so far.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow between the Secret Sushi and our team has been very easy. We have weekly check-in meetings where we get updates on progress, can prioritize or add the tasks for that week, and discuss strategy. We also use Slack as a way to stay in touch daily.

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

The best thing about working with Secret Sushi is how they approach the relationship and behave and feel like a natural extension of our team. They bring a wealth of experience to everything that they do and provide guidance that helps make our marketing efforts more impactful. They are very collaborative and happy to tackle any challenge we throw at them with impressive speed.

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

At the time of bringing on Secret Sushi we were using our own internal project management and planning tool. Secret Sushi was initially using their preferred project management tool, which we found to add extra work for our internal team and required additional tracking. After discussing with Secret Sushi they agreed to start using our internal project tracking tool for our needs, which is outside their usual client workflow. It made our lives a whole lot easier and we're appreciative of their willingness to go above and beyond for us even if it means additional work on their side.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a fitness goods retailer. We have an online store and sell through multiple vendors like Amazon, Dick’s, Walmart, and Costco.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Secret Sushi, Inc?

We needed help developing our website. We also needed assistance with conversion rate optimization (CRO) and SEO. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started by going through a month-long discovery phase with Secret Sushi. We discussed our website, our customer interaction, and our CRO goals. They analyzed our operations and gave us a six-month proposal on redesigning our website and improving our CRO and SEO. 

Secret Sushi then worked closely with our team and did keyword research. From there, they implemented improvements to our Shopify website. Our goal was to make the site more interactive and improve descriptions on our product pages. We also wanted an easier flow for our customers to get through the checkout process. Additionally, we were trying to maximize and improve our conversion rate.  

Currently, Secret Sushi is providing us with web maintenance services. They are implementing redesigns and resolving errors on our site.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with Adam (CEO) and Kira (Account Manager), but other developers and resources are also working for us behind the scenes.  

How did you come to work with Secret Sushi, Inc?

Another company recommended Secret Sushi to us. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since February 2021, and our relationship is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Thanks to Secret Sushi, we’ve seen a 0.5% month-over-month increase in conversion rate, which is very good. Our organic clicks are up by 200% compared to last year. Before working with them, we’ve had 100 organic clicks per month, and now it’s about 600 per month. Additionally, our first page rankings increased from 25 to 185. 

How did Secret Sushi, Inc perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate through Slack and Asana, and Secret Sushi answers questions instantly with no delays. Working with them is a collaborative process — they’re open to changes on the website, and they’ve also given their recommendations. They send weekly email updates, and we also have weekly Google Meet meetings. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We feel like Secret Sushi truly cares about our company. Unlike the other vendors I’ve worked with, they don’t have a one-and-done approach; they want to do things correctly. Even though we’ve gone through many changes, they’ve listened and did the work. They don’t complain or charge us extra — instead, they’ve been a responsive part of our team. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Voice your concerns, and they will address them. Be open and honest — when they do their work, they’ll do it correctly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a cofounder and principal at Lumicademy. We are a developer of virtual classroom technology that can be consumed, customized and integrated into existing learning platforms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Secret Sushi, Inc, and what were your goals?

We hired Secret Sushi to help refine our social strategy, SEO, core messaging both on our website and in the media and handle a variety of marketing tasks. Our goal was to increase leads and traffic to our service.

SOLUTION

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

Adam and the team at Secret Sushi came highly regarded by other Marketing professionals both inside and outside our organization. We looked at several companies, but Secret Sushi had the most polished strategy, took the time to evaluate our business and form a good initial understanding of how to attack our marketplace.

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

The team at Secret Sushi started by helping us refine our messaging and target audience. Then based upon those objectives they helped us with a complete website overhaul and modified our messaging to match. They helped us develop video ads and dramatically improve our SEO. They took charge over our social media spend with consistent reporting and measurement.

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

Not only was Adam involved, but other resources including an account manager, content writers, creative designers and more.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are still in the process to measure the full impact of Secret Sushi's efforts, but already we are seeing a significant rise in traffic to our website from all sources, including search and social. This has resulted in an increase of qualified leads to our sales team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Secret Sushi has a great team of people. Our account manager is always on top of things and works our account to achieve the objectives we desire.

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

I think the genius of Adam is what makes Secret Sushi special. He has a great ability to break down complex Marketing messages into focused tasks, takes the time to understand your business and stays focused on the results.

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

I have no complaints about the performance of the team at Secret Sushi.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Blackhawk Network, and at the time of the engagement, I was product implementation manager. I work specifically in the incentive category of our business, handling our gift cards. Companies use our gift cards to reward and motivate their customers and staff to do a specific behavior. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Secret Sushi, Inc?

Blackhawk Network had acquired another gift card company. In the process of trying to combine the two companies and going to the market as one larger and more capable company, we needed to develop a website that would lump in several of Blackhawk Network’s outlets. 

We were trying to take 3–4 different websites and roll them into one, more concise, one-stop-shop. We wanted to provide a better experience for all of our customers, as well as a more consistent outlet for our marketing and messaging. For this engagement, we needed help with our website’s content.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Secret Sushi complied, updated, and edited our websites’ copies. They took content from three different websites and rolled them into one — they created a new voice for this new website. Additionally, they also provided SEO enhancements. They didn’t just rewrite our copy; they found the most efficient ways to represent our brand online.

What is the team composition?

We directly spoke with three people. However, I don’t know if additional people worked on the project behind the scenes. 

How did you come to work with Secret Sushi, Inc?

We didn’t choose Secret Sushi; they were recommended to us by our web developer and designer. We didn’t look for any other agencies, and we just went along with our vendor’s recommendation. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $70,000, but Secret Sushi shared that with our web developer. I’m not sure how much they received.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement lasted from June–November 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were happy with the services provided by Secret Sushi. The copies provided were good, strong, and effective. They saved us a lot of work, which we appreciate, as we were a resource-challenged team. We didn’t have as much time to throw in the project as we would have liked. Secret Sushi’s support helped us to stay productive and keep the website development project moving.

Of course, we encountered industry-specific topics that they didn’t have the expertise to write about. That said, what they gave us was excellent — we only needed to tweak and plan instead of building from scratch.  

How did Secret Sushi, Inc perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated through regular, standing meetings, and we also used Google Docs and Sheets to track the content within our site’s pages. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Secret Sushi’s team is super friendly and easy to work with. We also highly appreciate that they were approachable, and we were always happy to talk with them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were a couple of guidelines, directions, and industry-specific information that we felt we had to repeat. We gave them the basics to make them capable of writing about our industry, and it seemed like we had to repeat those multiple times. By no means did we expect them to become experts in our industry, but it was frustrating nonetheless. It should have been straightforward. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’m happy to recommend Secret Sushi. Their future customers should overcommunicate, provide as much information as possible, and make the sessions collaborative. They should try to be more efficient with their time so that Secret Sushi can be effective, fruitful, and beneficial to the project.  

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Head of Marketing for a financial services company. For more than 20 years, our skilled team of over 2,600 foreign currency exchange experts has delivered industry-leading foreign exchange, risk management, and international payment solutions to any sized business around the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Secret Sushi, Inc, and what were your goals?

We've retained Secret Sushi for a number of services ranging from backend Website administration and development to end-to-end digital advertising campaigns to video production to content creation and marketing to name just a few of the overall mix we've been working on together. They are more of a highly skilled and accomplished extension of our marketing team versus simply a hired agency.

SOLUTION

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

We identified Secret Sushi thanks to an internal recommendation from someone who has worked directly with them before and been impressed with all of their strategic deliverables and successful analytics.

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

Without going too far into detail, we've been moving swiftly against many project deliverables on fast timelines--everything has been delivered timely and perfectly.

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

We've worked directly with Adam the owner and one of their key project managers, Kira, and he's pulled various team members into regular meetings when their direct expertise is needed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

General feedback is we are please with the ROI and strategic thinking/planning/execution for all of our project deliverables to date. We are working with a proactive team from Secret Sushi who keeps our busy internal Marketing team on time and in budget, a refreshing change in the agency world. With their assistance, we're tracking all the projects in fine detail and seeing impressive results for company growth thanks to Marketing efforts.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Seamless, as I mentioned before their team is more like an extension of our Marketing department rather than simply an agency.

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

Secret Sushi provides a 360-degree view into everything on/offline marketing to comprehensively execute our communication efforts. They've worked hard to fully understand our industry, product/service offerings, and buyer personas to successfully hyper-target our prospects.

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

Nothing I can think of, they've been on the mark thus far.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of platform marketing at Digital.ai, a software provider. We develop software to help companies optimize and complete their digital transformation activities, and we deal with Global 2000 large enterprises. The platform team that I manage includes all of our product marketing, corporate marketing, and analyst relations teams.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Secret Sushi, Inc?

We needed good-quality content fast, so we work with Secret Sushi to develop and repurpose content.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, Secret Sushi reviewed our website, and we gave them some of our existing materials. They also talked to our internal subject matter experts (SMEs). Then, they identified DevOps, AI, and digital transformation SMEs on their own and got them up to speed on our business so that they could provide a really nice external point of view.

Secret Sushi became an extension of our organization, helping us develop blogs, social media content, e-books, and our podcast. Basically, they help us with all forms of content.

We have ongoing meetings, and we include Secret Sushi in our regular planning sessions. They brainstorm both with us and on their own, and they come back with different ideas based on what we’re working on. Then, we review those ideas, and they work on them to deliver ready-to-publish content.

They’ve helped us get our podcast off the ground, and they create ready-to-post social media content. When they create a blog, they also give us some social media posts to go with it.

Repurposing content is another of the areas in which Secret Sushi’s involvement has had a great impact. We have a lot of webinars, but we were just posting them on our site and never using that content again. Secret Sushi now takes the webinars, breaks them into smaller format videos, and helps us repurpose those content assets for video blogs, targeted marketing programs, social media posts, and content for our website.

We just gave them the raw files of our webinars, and their team looks at them to come up with ideas on where and how to slice them. Then, they go ahead and divide the video, delivering ready-to-go materials. They don’t help us with video production yet, but I’m sure that they would help us immediately with that if we wanted to.

Additionally, They do the same repurposing for other types of long-format content. For example, they take our e-books and divide them into multiple content pieces for various purposes.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Adam (Founder & CEO) and Rai-mon (CMO), and they’re both really active in our account. Every week, we have a meeting in which Rai-mon is in, and Adam is available to us whenever we want. We also work with a project manager, and multiple writers are working for us in the background.

The beauty of Secret Sushi is that they pull in whoever they need; they have a lot of resources.

How did you come to work with Secret Sushi, Inc?

We brought together five different companies and merged them into a new one. Secret Sushi was already working for one of our portfolio companies; they ran their blogs and social media content. We got introduced to them and really liked them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $100,000–$150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Digital.ai started working with them in September 2020, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

One of the challenges about our company is that we brought five different technology companies together. Hence, we focus on various branches such as DevOps, security, Agile development, testing, and AI. Working with someone like Secret Sushi gives us the ability to tap into different SMEs as needed.

Our work is very technical and specific; we write about development and technical subjects for a technical audience. Our audience can easily identify useless marketing content. However, Secret Sushi provides substantial and substantive content that passes our audience’s approval, which is very important.

As we have limited resources, making Secret Sushi an extension of our team helps us extend our marketing reach to more audiences in ways that wouldn’t be possible without them.

How did Secret Sushi, Inc perform from a project management standpoint?

Secret Sushi’s project management is excellent — they keep track of everything. We have a weekly meeting, so they always know the status of things. The team is flexible and willing to reprioritize work as our needs change.

We exchange a lot of emails, we’ve integrated them into our Asana board, and they have access to SharePoint site — they’re integrated into our business.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Secret Sushi’s team is outstanding; they’re good at what they do, and they’re enjoyable and easy to work with. They’re also highly flexible, responsive, and very accommodating.

I’ve never heard them say that something is out of scope or that it will exceed the retainer; they just get it done. They understand our position and challenges — they're part of our team.

Bringing five companies together isn’t easy, so Secret Sushi has helped us bring order to our chaos and install a process. They're incredibly patient with us, and we appreciate that a lot.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very transparent, tell them exactly what you need, and bring them into your process. The more Secret Sushi knows the more they can help.