Clarity Quest Marketing

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of marketing at a high-growth company that specializes in health tech. We’re based in New York, and our primary target market is pharmaceutical companies and health payers. We have a very sophisticated platform that houses real-world data that pharmaceutical companies can use for a variety of cases, as well as payers for underwriting risk. My job is to position us against the competition to create consistent and sequential demand generation campaigns to generate leads.

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarity Quest Marketing?

We needed help to market and position our digital healthcare marketplace. We also hired them to help us with graphic design because we didn't have anybody internally.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Clarity Quest is an extension of our marketing team. We have a director of digital marketing. He manages all of our KPIs and tech stack, including Salesforce, Marketo, Drift, Outreach, and all the different applications that we’ve integrated to measure and track our activity. He also performs all functions that Clarity Quest does now, including managing the website, QA, Google Ads, and LinkedIn campaigns.

They’ve redesigned the homepage, and we're considering doing a net new website in 2022. We've changed our scope of work since May to go from the initial strategy and marketplace positioning to developing a content plan for us. We have a content marketing director who is an expert writer. Clarity Quest will start to supplement that with smaller pieces of content for our marketing campaigns.

Additionally, they’re working on key focus areas for us and helping us now with the full-on execution. We actually paused our Google Ads and are now focusing on LinkedIn Ads. Their team is doing all the graphics and recommending content, which we mirror on Twitter.

What is the team composition?

We have about four people on the team. Lindsay (Marketing Account Director & Business Development Director) is our overall account manager. They have a graphic designer, a digital marketing expert, and someone who’s an expert in Marketo and email automation.

How did you come to work with Clarity Quest Marketing?

They were recommended by one of my direct reports, who is head of inside sales and business development. Clarity Quest used to be the agency of his former company.

We reached out to Clarity Quest based on that. Initially, they shut me down because they were working with a competitor, but then that changed. The owner reached back out to me, and here we are today.

How much have you invested with them?

By the end of the year, it’ll be $305,625.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement began in May of 2020, and it's ongoing. If we keep having success, it'll go on into 2022.

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

They came back to us with the first wave results, and we definitely picked up some good-quality leads, but it hasn’t been game-changing. We just started the campaign, but we're already starting to see an increase between 5%–10% in sales and return on ad spend.

How did Clarity Quest Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They're very rigorous when it comes to schedule. Sometimes the expectations are a little unrealistic, but I'd rather err on them telling me that they need our feedback by the end of the day to stay on schedule than letting us know next week.

For the most part, we interact with them on Basecamp. Other tools we use are Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, phone calls, and emails.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their marketing expertise is outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their expertise can sometimes come off as a bit of impatience, so they should improve on that. Also, they can improve a little bit on attention to detail on certain things, like graphic design. Sometimes there's stuff that gets lost in translation.

Any advice for potential customers?

They're experts in different disciplines of marketing. Clarity Quest roots a lot of what they do in strategic foundations, and they're also experts in how to execute.

Also, the account manager is an expert in marketing and an excellent project manager. You don't feel like you're going through a junior person. Lastly, don’t be afraid of sticker shock because they're not cheap. However, they stick to what's in the contract and its timing.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a principal at ICQ Consultants. We do commissioning qualification validation for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. As principal, I’m part owner of the company as well.

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarity Quest Marketing?

We were addressing quite a few things with Clarity Quest Marketing. Our first objective was brand awareness. We also wanted to work on general marketing and getting our sales systems together — we use Salesforce.

What was the scope of their involvement?

On the brand awareness side, first, we walked through our site and looked at our  SEO terminology in efforts to drive more traffic. We had a tagline that was similar to our competitors so Clarity Quest Marketing helped us come up with something different.

They’ve been handling our LinkedIn by creating ads and posts. We’ve published a lot of white papers and monthly blog posts. This content flow is contributing to both our brand awareness and marketing.

For Salesforce, we were already established on it. Clarity Quest Marketing mainly focused on mass mailers and getting our contacts and everything else in order. Recently, they helped us integrate Salesforce with Act-On, which tracks everything including our website traffic.

What is the team composition?

We mainly work with two people but there have been one-off interactions with others behind the scenes. Our two main contacts focus respectively on the social media side and the blog content side.

How did you come to work with Clarity Quest Marketing?

We researched and interviewed a few different companies. Clarity Quest Marketing was the most aligned with our business goals and directives. What’s more, we really aligned with their personality and company culture.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in September 2019.

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

We meet monthly to look at analytics, and they provide quarterly reports about metrics. We’re satisfied with the results and have seen positive trends in our metrics. Their team comes up with great suggestions about different types of blogs. The white papers effort was their idea and that has driven a lot of traffic to our website. The metrics and suggestions they provide have been a good complementary effort with our team to keep things moving in the right direction.

How did Clarity Quest Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They keep us on track and help us post more consistently. Their team keeps everything running, all in a very personable manner. We communicate mainly through Zoom, emails, and phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed with the level of knowledge they bring to the platforms we use —LinkedIn, Salesforce, and Act-On. It’s clear they have wide experience and they constantly bring in new ideas. It’s nice that they have a team full of members with different expertise, as I mentioned with the one-off interactions. Clarity Quest Marketing is responsive and creative; they really know their stuff.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be upfront and straightforward. Don’t be timid and just let them run the show. It’s really a team effort. Not everything will go smoothly or perfectly, but they will hit it out of the park for you.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of business development for a biotech company. We’re the premier provider of immune cells for research. We source it ethically, and we provide these immune cells well characterized. We ship them all over the world.

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarity Quest Marketing?

We were a startup that needed help with digital marketing.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team at Clarity Quest Marketing is our sole digital marketing agency. They came in and evaluated our existing website, company name, and logo. They started with the branding of our company, working closely with our founder.

For development, they revamped our current site and coordinated the built-up of an e-commerce platform. Our current platform is very user friendly. Researchers can go online and buy it online and then add it to their cart. Clarity Quest helped us identify IT software vendor for us and provided client project management support. 

Their team also did the initial branding, re-branding, and digital marketing campaign work for us. In 2018, they worked with us to rebrand with our new name after an equity firm acquired our company and another company. This new brand was launched in May.

What is the team composition?

We were assigned one contact person. Three other people worked with us.

How did you come to work with Clarity Quest Marketing?

My founder met the principal at a conference in Boston.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent less than $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Clarity Quest Marketing started in December 2014.

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

They were able to grow our revenue five times during this period. It wasn’t just revenue. We were able to draw the attention of the equity firm. The rebranding and relaunch of our brand were so successful that we wanted to sell more products. We ended up selling our company.

The brand launch was so successful it got the attention of the industry and Wall Street. By the end of June, we had an offer from our new company that they wanted to acquire us, and we got acquired.

As far as the statistics, they were excellent. Every month, they’d give us a report where they tracked the website traffic, SEO, and how many of those clicks, in those digital product campaigns, we did turn into sales. They follow all the statistics for us. They are always working to increase those click rates and turnover rates.

How did Clarity Quest Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

We had one point of contact. We used Basecamp for document and communication management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What set them apart was they understood our business. They understood our product. They helped us set targets, and sometimes they even helped us think about our strategy. It was almost like they provided us a whole consulting service for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In 2018 or 2019, we used to send out blogs. These were ideas that came from them. They also suggested doing a video blog. That didn’t materialize because we were always being merged, acquired, or rebranding. If it were implemented, that would have been a very novel thing attracting our clients to stay on the site a little longer.

They provided a lot of educational tools that nobody else in the industry does. They’re not cheap, but they’re really good at what they do. I don’t think we would be in this position without their assistance.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would recommend the customers to be open to bringing ideas to the CQ team as they will quickly vet the idea and give you feedback on its ROI.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and president of KleenEdge. Our company focuses on bringing hospital curtain and protocol compliance software to market. Our solution helps medical facilities manage their curtain exchanges and aims to mitigate hospital-acquired infections due to infected curtains.

What challenge were you trying to address with Clarity Quest Marketing?

We hired Clarity Quest Marketing to help define our messaging, especially so surrounding our protocol compliance software.

What was the scope of their involvement?

It entailed them working very closely with us: Trying to define our exact messaging and zoom in exactly on "why" we were doing what we were doing. Their process was incredibly refreshing to our team, especially after us working on our solution for such a long time and subsequently realizing that our messaging was quite unclear.

they first helped us to get clear about why we were doing what we’re doing, why we’re so passionate about it, thus focusing on our value proposition. 

Secondly, they looked at our website and started analyzing it in terms of SEO and content. They subsequently started providing input on bringing the site to its next iteration. Lastly, they outlined a clear marketing strategy with us.

The team researched Google Ads and SEO looking at our specific industry. They wanted to ascertain where our marketing budget could be spent most mindfully.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Christine (President) and Melanie (Senior Marketing Consultant) directly. I anticipate that we’ll be working with additional team members in the future.

How did you come to work with Clarity Quest Marketing?

A dear friend of mine works in high tech in Seattle. They’ve known Christine for over 20 years, and have worked together on numerous marketing projects. About 12 years ago, he mentioned her to me, but it was too early in our development to retain them. It was always crystal clear to me that we would be going with her and her company when the time came.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent $19,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together on the first half from April to June 2020.

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

We’re on the cusp of implementing all of their recommendations, updating our website in terms of content and SEO. We also have our graphics team working on additional artwork for those pages. We expect to complete our work by the end of September and subsequently move into implementing our marketing campaign with Clarity Quest.

We set out with various milestones, which they either met or exceeded. Their deliverables were excellent!

How did Clarity Quest Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

I was super impressed with their process. It was organized, and their team quickly got us to the table to have mindful conversations about the messaging. They’re incredibly detailed and responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was really impressed with their organizational skills: From the first conversation to them submitting their proposal to them getting us set up within their Basecamp to their documentation, everything was just incredibly well organized and thought out.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I really can’t think of a single thing, to be honest.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would encourage them to fully embrace Clarity Quest's process. The input they require from you, giving thought to the mindful questions that they’re asking you about your business. They come to the table with a high level of introspect, encouraging clients to participate in the process.

To any company looking to work with Clarity Quest, I would say listen to their recommendations and do your homework. The resulting input into your company will be well worth it!

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Business Development/Marketing Manager for a Safety Management Consulting Company for the aviation and healthcare industries.

For what projects/services did your company hire Clarity Quest Marketing?

Our website needed to be updated, modernized and redesigned to create a clearer picture of who we are and what we do. We had the content, but needed a designer to take it to the next level.

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

Clarity Quest had redesigned our sister company's website who had a great experience working with them. I was impressed from the beginning by Chris's professionalism and commitment to our vision.

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

We had the initial meeting with the CQ team to discuss our vision, goals and objectives for the project. We discussed the timeline and schedule for all tasks. CQ set up a project on Basecamp for all communication, tasks and submissions which made the process seamless and extremely easy. Throughout the process, our team, David and Casey, were extremely easy to work with and consistent with timeliness and delivery. We liked where they took our vision and married it to our style kit making the website look like our brand. The website then launched on time and our team made sure that everything worked perfectly and that we were happy with the product.

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

Chris did the initial presentation and contract processing and introduced us to David as our project manager and Casey as our web designer. Everyone was great to work with!

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

We have received great reviews of the new website from our team, partners and clients.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Extremely easy and effective.

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

Clarity Quest does everything with such professionalism, commitment, creative energy and timeliness. I was confident throughout the project that they would help us create the website we wanted.

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

No