Growth Machine

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a reviews website and I’m the managing editor of consumer content marketing. My job is to create SEO content for the home services market and I need to do it in a large volume while applying SEO strategies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Growth Machine?

We were creating a brand new effort to address home improvement content and businesses that serve that market. We hired Growth Machine to be one of our content providers for our B2C content. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

The original agreement was to have Growth Machine craft 1,500–2,000 words of SEO-focused content and long-form articles on specific topics that we provide to them such as auto, pest control, and moving. They also do keyword research for us.

The team hires the writers who edit and produce the content for our main site. They also proofread all the content before passing it on to us. At first, we had an onboarding document style guide that we reviewed prior to any assignments we created. 

Since then, we’ve expanded their services to edit the content of other partner content providers. 

What is the team composition?

I’m in charge of managing the relationship with Growth Machine on a daily basis as well as reviewing, approving, and producing the content they create. On Growth Machine’s side, we work with Leilani (Director of Client Strategy) and communicate closely with Nathan (Head of Sales & New Client Strategy). Nathan deals with anything that relates to the contract, fees, restructuring, and more.

How did you come to work with Growth Machine?

An internal team member had an existing relationship with Growth Machine for B2B content and was very happy with them. As a result, we decided to partner with them to develop B2C content.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent approximately $4,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing work began in December 2020.

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

We’re very happy with them, and we’re looking to expand our relationship with Growth Machine. We’ll soon increase the volume of content they provide to us every month. Since Growth Machine is our content provider, we’ve been able to ramp up with published content sooner than if we didn’t have them on board. 

However, I can’t provide any metrics yet because SEO is a long game so we don’t have any hard and relevant stats at the moment. We’ve only started working with them a few months ago and sometimes, it takes six months or a year to see good data.

How did Growth Machine perform from a project management standpoint?

On the communication aspect, we have monthly meetings to make sure everything is on track and corrected. Growth Machine uses Asana, but we don’t; their statuses via that tool aren’t really relevant for me. Instead, I use Google Drive and my own procedures through Airtable to keep track of everything. However, overall, the team has an excellent project management process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been impressed with them from start to finish; they’ve always been good and efficient. They have a top-notch editing process, and all the content they show to us has always been very well done.

Growth Machine has been able to absorb any requests that we have for them, so at this point, there’s no need to look beyond for another agency. They’re the only agency we’re working with because other content providers are either publishers or independent content developers. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I only have minor things; I do find that some of the writers write wordy articles and I suggest that they should manage their writers strictly so that I’m not penalized for long articles. That conversation has come up when we talked about the fee they’re charging us.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Engage with Growth Machine. I enjoy and have a lot of respect for them. If you plan to hire them, you have to act together internally because the agency will be taking direction from you. If things go wrong and you didn’t give proper directions, it’s not their fault. They’re smart, and they'll push back and ask questions. However, if you have a game plan, and you clearly communicate your strategy, you'll be successful.

Additionally, if you’re one of the people who don’t understand how to create content but want to put them on your blog because it’s helpful for SEO, you might run into trouble. You have to have an expert internally who can manage the relationship and kickstart the onboarding process. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Populum, an online CBD brand. We sell premium CBD supplements, ranging from tinctures, capsules, to even topical and pet products.

What challenge were you trying to address with Growth Machine?

We needed Growth Machine to help us optimize our SEO strategies, audit our site, and continuously creating content to generate more organic traffic for our business. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve worked with Growth Machine for over a year now. Initially, they helped us audit our site, giving us recommendations on optimizing and improving site performance and making it more SEO-friendly. After the audit, they implemented those recommendations. 

Since then, we've had a continuous relationship with them on creating high-quality content, where we do research together on keywords that we want to target. Over the past year, they've helped us build out very robust organic content through our blog.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a variety of their team members, probably 6–7 of them. My initial engagement started with Nat (Founder), and we continued to work with Nathan (Head of Sales and New Client Strategy), our project manager. Moreover, Leilani (Director of Client Strategy) manages our account. 

How did you come to work with Growth Machine?

They reached out to us, and I was very hesitant initially as a small business with a constrained budget. We've been very cognizant and conscious of who we work with on the SEO site because SEO services are typically costly. They stood out for their initial quality of work, especially with the audit. Compared to many other agencies we worked with, their pricing was much more transparent and reasonable. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $40,000-$50,000 over the past year and a half. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working in January 2020, and we’ve been in an ongoing partnership for 16 months now.

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

In terms of metrics, we went from having very marginal organic traffic to about 56% of our traffic from organic SEO. This has been hugely beneficial in terms of generating traffic to our site. More importantly, we are happy with the quality of the traffic we're getting by targeting more longtail keywords and higher quality keywords. We've been able to capture audiences already engaged in our industry or in our product category, which obviously has helped with conversion and overall engagement on site.

The best impact has been on our customers. We have purchase surveys that found they discovered us through educational blog content. This has built credibility because the customers are learning about our product category before trying out our brand. This also helps with the quality of customers we’re getting. They’re more loyal, as we are a subscription model type of business.  

How did Growth Machine perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicate through Asana and use other typical tools like Google Docs and Google Sheets. Other than that, we just email each other. 

Growth Machine is very professional, easy to work with, and always on time. They manage everything and provide transparency getting all the updates and seeing which stage they're at, with all the different engagements we work with them on. We have a very seamless relationship in that regard.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It goes without saying, but Growth Machine stands out for their SEO expertise. For example, their experience and recommendation when we're building our content with them are impressive, and they provide us with their input on what keyword research would work better for us.

Since we’ve been working long term, we’ve been able to trust their judgment, which has been huge for the SEO side, where it's harder to find a trustworthy partner. Having a partner that we can trust when it comes to their advice has been very beneficial in keeping our organic traffic not only stable but continuously growing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not that I can think of. They’ve continuously kept us in the loop. Even in a long-term engagement, they've always been very on time and communicative, not like other businesses that stop prioritizing you as a client. I have no complaints with Growth Machine on that end.

Any advice for potential customers?

Before working with them, or any type of agency, set internal goals. In e-commerce, sometimes they misunderstand and think working with an agency means results right away. It’s important to go in with the understanding that it’s a longer-term commitment, and patience and trust are needed within partners. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

SEO mgr of digital Sales

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

content creation

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

cost, richness of materials, and ability to upgrade to a managed solution

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

Creation of rich content seo performance pieces

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

5

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

ongoing success

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

extremely

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

Growth Machine provides a rich palette of writing talents suited to your industry type. In addition to selecting from a talented writing pool, they emphasize the importance of optimized content providing robust performance pieces rooted in seo research and delivery. With that said, I was also impressed that they provide handpicked images with each content piece for the client to present materials that include "rich content". Scheduling, and management of their team of writers was a great aid to our organization, making the effort as seem less as possible,

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

no