Emphatic

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Director of Agency at LinkedSelling. We provide B2B Lead Generation Services and Appointment Setting for small to mid size businesses. We also offer Linkedin Advertising.

For what projects/services did your company hire Emphatic?

We wanted to further our digital footprint and didn't have to the time to curate content or post it.

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

We found them through SEO. Ultimately their services were affordably priced and their website was easy to navigate.

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

Their website allows you to give suggestions on what content you would like to post. Then the emphatic team goes off and finds third party articles that pertain to your parameters. They also do short write ups on each piece for you. Nice touch!

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

I worked with Pat (Director of Products) and Jerret (Operations Manager).

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

Our team received an uptick of likes and shares on Linkedin from the content we posted. Although it's tough to connect that to any increase in revenue, we were pleased with the articles and write ups Emphatic produced.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very easy. You log in to their portal and see what content you have waiting for your approval. Once approved, it is automatically posted!

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

I love the review process of content. It allows you to give feedback, approve, decline as needed. Very simple system for customers.

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

Not that I can think of.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a small business consulting firm, and I work with small and mid-sized companies. I help them with everything from strategic planning to operational improvements and financial management. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Empathic?

My interest is in providing information and thought leadership in the small business strategic space. I want to promote and share information and articles that are written by other authorities. It takes a lot of time and research to do that and to see what’s out there, and this is why I hired Empathic. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

With Empathic, I tell the topic that I want to share, and they go out and search the web. They find articles about the topic, which I can see on a backend server. I can make notations on whether I want to share an article or not. The Empathic team also writes short captions for the articles, making them a little more reader-friendly and enticing. 

I only do 30–40 article posts each month. I can change the topic from time to time; if I want to talk about design in one week, they’ll pull those articles. If I want to talk about strategic planning in another week, they’ll consider articles on that topic in the next round of research. Basically, I tell them what I want and when I need it, and their researchers and writers take care of it. The information we post are from Forbes, Harvard Business School, and similar places. They contain articles that I never have the time to look for or the ability to write short captions for.

What is the team composition?

I work with one person. In the backend, there’s more than one researcher and writer.

How did you come to work with Empathic?

I found them on Google. I was searching for article writers and blog editors, and Empathic came up. I looked at them, and it looked like they were cost-effective. I thought that if the quality was there, we’d have a good partnership, so I tried them. They had large service packages; I could spend a thousand dollars with them if I wanted to. However, I started small and quick, and that was how we began.

How much have you invested with them?

I’ve spent around $3,600 on them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with Empathic in April 2019, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

We track success through the results that come from LinkedIn, and I’ve seen a change in the number of people that follow me on LinkedIn based on what I’ve been doing with Empathic. I had around 40–50 followers a year ago, and since I started working with them, my LinkedIn network has grown considerably. Now, I have 1,100 direct connections and 4,400 followers on LinkedIn. What’s nice about that is that the services are very cost-effective.

How did Empathic perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is automatic. Once I enrolled in their system, everything’s been fairly self-administered. I go into their system, tell them to write articles on a topic, and they write and bring the articles forward. 

For instance, if I ask them for 30 articles and I want 50% of them to be on marketing, 25% on strategic planning, and 25% on leadership, the articles will be under those particular topics. If I saturate my network with leadership articles for a month, I can switch gears and throw marketing articles after that. Each month, I get a notification telling me that it’s time to change topics. From there, I can go in and determine whether I want to change categories. If I don’t like the post, I can tell them to get another one. As a result, I’ve always been quite happy with their system. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Empathic is highly price-competitive. I’ve never actually found another provider for this work. Those providers should be more competitive in terms of pricing if they want me to consider replacing Empathic. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Empathic doesn’t provide any tracking or backend service support. If other providers do the same thing but also provide feedback and analytics, then that can add a little bit of flair to their offer. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Think about the topic that you want to communicate. Empathic can be really thorough in finding articles about a specific subject matter. If you’re looking to expand your recognition or professional appearance in a particular category, you should define that. The better you can do that, the better they can help you.