Marketing Maven

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Creative Media Design (CMD). We handle casting and recording as well as audio posts in the voiceover market. Most of our work is for broadcast voiceover services.

What challenge were you trying to address with Marketing Maven?

We had recently moved into a new space in New York, and we wanted to get our name out there. We were bigger and more accommodating to clients so we wanted to get the word out to our industry.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Marketing Maven handled our PR and content marketing efforts. Their team helped us put content together and write articles. They connected us with certain media partners, usually online magazines or subscription-based services that people in our industry would see.

For the PR, they helped us strategize on what the content, messaging, and goals would be. After that, they sourced out some potential media partners that’d be open to carrying our story. We’d set up another meeting to strategize on content and write that content together. Marketing Maven asked our team a lot of questions in order to put the article together. They coordinated with us on release times and dates. We also discussed what we’d both do after it was released.

Marketing Maven connected us with blog and content influencers in our industry. Their team sourced those people so when we had an article published, those influencers would repurpose it on their blog.

What is the team composition?

I worked directly with Lindsey (CEO & President). She was our main point of contact along with Andreya (Marketing Analyst).

How did you come to work with Marketing Maven?

I met Lindsey about 7–8 years ago at our studios in New York. She and I started talking and spoke about some initiatives that might be good for us to do together. We kept in touch. When it was time to get our PR out, they were a natural choice.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement was from May 2017–January 2018.

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

We received new client requests from people who had seen the articles. We also got a lot of people who hadn’t worked with us for a while or noticed we had a new space with new services. Our team got a lot of feedback from people who told us where they found us.

How did Marketing Maven perform from a project management standpoint?

We had weekly calls with them. Their team was very communicative and well-organized. They always provided an outline for what we wanted to accomplish on our call. Their team was always great at reminding us if we needed to get something to them. Marketing Maven was really on top of things. I was impressed with how streamlined and organized everything was.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Marketing Maven was very professional. Every one of their team members I interacted with was professional. They had good ideas and found mediums in our industry to reach out to people that I wasn’t aware of. I was impressed by that because we’re a niche industry. It’s tough to break into or know much about it unless the person is in the industry.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I was very happy with the work they did. Marketing Maven was really buttoned up.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a goal and know what you want out of the engagement. Otherwise, it’s easy for a message to fall flat and not meet expectations.

Please describe your organization.

Our company is called Weddings Media, and we’re located in Los Angeles. We’re a production company with our own multimedia website basically directed at the bride to be.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Marketing Maven?

We needed Marketing Maven to help increase our social media presence.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

We have been with Marketing Maven for a little over a year now, and we have had two of their people on the account; one specialized in social media and the other in advertising. The main focus of their efforts was to build up our presence on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and so forth. Marketing Maven helped to design our ads and increase the number of our followers.

How did you come to work with Marketing Maven?

They were recommended to me through another advertising group I was working with. That group was helping me place my radio ads, and we were talking about doing television ads with them. Their head of digital marketing recommended Marketing Maven for our public relations [PR].

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

That is confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June of 2014. After about a year, our project ran out of money, so we have backed off from doing any further PR until our second round of funding comes in. Marketing Maven was a key part of our work during that year, while we were just doing a soft launch and feeling our way into the business.

Could you share any statistics, metrics or other feedback from this engagement?

Marketing Maven created our entire social media presence. They had nothing to start out with, and they built everything from scratch. We were really pleased with what they did for us. We had a goal of getting 20,000 Facebook followers, and I think within 12 months we were at about 17,000 and well on our way to meeting our goal. Some of our Instagram ads were getting impressions that were in the millions—like 1.4 or 1.5 million in two weeks. Marketing Maven has been very careful with how our money was being spent. Their interest in our project was very high, and we could tell by the ads they were creating for us and everything they were putting together.

What distinguishes Marketing Maven from other providers?

I thought it was very important that we had two key account people that we really liked. They communicated really well, and we had bi-weekly meetings to go over their reports. What I thought was particularly important was that their management did a really good job overseeing them, checking in with us and making sure everything was on track. It wasn’t like they just handed off the work to those two people and forgot about us.

Instead I got a survey from Marketing Maven’s management asking for details on how their people were doing. I like the fact that they were self-supervising. Other PR firms I’ve dealt with won’t do anything unless you tell them what to do, but everyone at Marketing Maven was very involved as a team, making sure the account was being well taken care of. They were an integral part of what we were trying to do.

Is there anything Marketing Maven could have improved or done differently?

We didn’t really focus much on our organization as a corporation. We focused on driving traffic to the website, which was our number one priority. At a certain point, I said it would be good if we could do more PR with the entertainment or technology part of our company, and we were just beginning to get more involved with those issues when I had to pull the pin because we had run out of our first round of funding.

It really wasn’t their fault; I didn’t give them the instructions to get in more tech-related publications. Our website is very intense as far as the technology that goes into it. It’s almost like a YouTube for brides. I wish I could have brainstormed more with them on what we could have done with that side of the business.

Please describe your organization.

We produce, market, and sell our product. We make a silicon holder for hot styling tools, specifically curling irons and flat irons. It clings right to your countertop or sink and allows for additional storage in a clever way, and is heat-resistant.

What is your position?

I am the CEO.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Marketing Maven?

We were just starting out. It was a three-person company, and we needed help getting the word out there. One of our specific needs was social media. We had tapped out all of our friend networks, and we were trying to determine how to get our product out to more people.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We hired them to manage all of our social media. We also wanted to know to we could crack into the print media, earned media, and editorial markets. As consumers up until that point, we didn't know how that worked. It was a two-sided approach. One side of the house did social media, and the other side did the earned media and PR promotion.

In time, the nature of the work we have them do has transitioned as our company has grown. We've brought more aspects of the all-inclusive package they offered in-house, so that leaves them to focus more on specifics. Right now, we have them focused on public relations and earned media, and we've taken back all of the social media side.

How did you come to work with Marketing Maven?

It wasn't a real defined process. We were at a trade show, and they stopped by our booth. We got to talking, and we saw that we had some similarities in the way we do business. We liked their approach, so that spawned some additional conversations, which led to a proposal, and we accepted their proposal.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I think we are allocated to about 28 hours a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started formally in September 2012, and we're still working with them.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Through a combination of content, establishing the different channels, and even teaching us all the different social media platforms, Marketing Maven was able to establish our brand across all the existing social media platforms, and then grow it through content and paid targeted campaigns. Within a year, we had 10,000 likes on our product page. Also, they're advising on our website on how to enhance, expand, and monetize what we were doing.

On the earned media side, they were 100 percent instrumental in getting us out to major news channels. We did some TV interviews. We landed some good publicity in publications, and our product ended up on "The Today Show." We got into Real Simple. They got the product into a couple of regional interviews.

A side thing that we appreciated is that they supported our trade shows when we were just starting out. They would either do before and after follow up with media leads and, sometimes, even attend the show and be in our booth to be our marketing and public relations representative.

What distinguishes Marketing Maven from other providers?

The thing that stands out most to me is the relationship. We're a growing company and don't know everything, and Marketing Maven has been very easy to work with. They understand that we don't always have all the answers, so they work around that. Because we have a small team, we can't be as responsive as maybe they would hope for, and they accommodate that. It's definitely been a working relationship. They seem to continue to bring in some big name earned media.

Is there anything Marketing Maven could have improved or done differently?

I think we had a bit of a rough patch this past year, and we were able to work that out. We switched up our account manager and have made progress in getting back to where we felt it should be. They were instrumental in making sure that happened. It was tough at the time, but it was a good process to work through. We saw that we could both resolve our differences.

Please describe your organization.

Our company is a beauty product company. We market a single product. It has been in the marketplace for one year.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Marketing Maven?

The main reason we wanted to work with a company like Marketing Maven is because of our unfamiliarity with social media, along with the nuances and the constant changes that are taking place in that world. We had careers in public relations [PR], but that was before the introduction to the whole world of social media. Also, our experience was not in the consumer product area—it was in technology—so we needed someone who could do social media marketing for us.

Please describe the scope of your involvement with Marketing Maven.

Marketing Maven is primarily responsible for social media, mainly Facebook and Twitter. They also do some blogger outreach and a bit of public relations. They prepare the ads for our ad program on social media and manage our social media accounts.

How did you come to work with Marketing Maven?

Marketing Maven was recommended to us, so we didn’t do an extensive search. They came highly recommended from the people who were doing our website.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Confidential.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around a year ago, and we’re still currently working together.

Could you share any statistics, metrics or other feedback from your work with Marketing Maven?

They have done a very good job in the areas where they have been working; they’ve been a real asset for us. They have managed our Facebook and Twitter campaigns. They’re also involved with Pinterest, where they have recently done some advertising for us. Their work has been very solid, and I think they’ve kept us relevant in the social media world.

Marketing Maven has generated a fair amount of business for us through Facebook advertising, which has been an important source of sales for us. All in all, they’ve done the job that we asked them to do.

What distinguishes Marketing Maven from other providers?

They have great social media skills and have managed those programs for us very effectively.

Is there anything Marketing Maven could have improved or done differently?

We have asked them on a few occasions to see what else they could do for us, to see how we could enhance or accelerate what we have been doing. They have been unable to take what we now have and project what we could have.

They need to be more aggressive and take a risk, stick their necks out and blow us out of the water with the results. Instead it’s been steady and solid, and that’s to their credit. We have a product that we think is quite special and it has huge potential. We have seen decent results, but I think we could do better.

Please describe your organization.

We are Bellybuds, LLC, located in the Beverly Hills area of Los Angeles. We have a fairly innovative product that consists of concave speakers with adhesives. They adhere to a pregnant belly and it allows them to play music to the womb. They plug directly into your mp3 player, such as an iPhone, or you can use a splitter, so the baby can listen at the same time as the mother.

What is your position?

I am a Senior Manager at the company.

What business challenge were you trying to address with Marketing Maven?

We are participating in the ABC Expo in Las Vegas, which is one of the largest children’s products expositions in the country. We sought out Marketing Maven to help us make a stand at the event, and to stand out amongst all of the other smaller companies out there. We’re much smaller than Greyco or Summer Infant, but we want to be noticed.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

It is the first time that we’re introducing our umbrella brand that’s going to house Bellybuds and several other products. We’re releasing it to the trade, and we really wanted to make a big splash at that event. They helped us put together a strategy to stand out from everybody else.

How did you come to work with Marketing Maven?

I had worked with them in the past, and I remembered that they were very active partners in marketing and helped us a lot. I really liked working with them. Despite this, we had also interviewed a couple other companies, but we felt that Marketing Maven was the best one since they had so much experience with the ABC Kid Show. Plus they’re already going to be there, and they know how it works. They could provide some really good insight.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We’re committed to $5,000 for a certain number of hours of work, and anything over that, we’ll discuss.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June, 2015, and we’re still working with them until the event.

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

So far they have been great. We have two calls a month where we touch base. Marketing Maven provides a full service Public Relations [PR] agency for us, so not only do they get the media appointments, but they also got us a celebrity guest for the show. Our event is a Q&A, so they’re working on all of the questions that we’re going to be asking during the Q&A, the photo ops, and how to handle the giveaways that we’re going to do. They’re also working on the formal invites, so the graphics behind that are being done by their internal graphics department. From a social media standpoint, they will be working with our digital media manager over here to get a Twitter party involved.

What distinguishes Marketing Maven from other providers?

I think that they are fantastic with media outreach. They already have all of these contacts in the juvenile and kid realm, and they’re able to reach out to these people and create the buzz with inviting them to our event. So on our end, we don’t have to do anything there; we can focus on the things that we can be helpful with, such as the Q&A part or securing the celebrity guest. As far as media, they have that worked out.

Is there anything Marketing Maven could have improved or done differently?

No, everything has run smoothly. So far they have been great partners.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a consultant working with a cosmetics company. Our unique formula, found nowhere else in the world, combines over 2,500 growth factors, proteins and cytokines.

For what projects/services did your company hire Marketing Maven?

We needed market research, pr, branding and social media and the program with Marketing Maven was a perfect fit for our needs.

What were your goals for this project?

Get a new product launched and brand recognition built quickly.

How did you select Marketing Maven?

We interviewed several marketing agencies, but I knew that Marketing Maven was the best fit based on previous experience plus their knowledge of the marketplace for our product.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

We started off with a deep dive that allowed us to all understand what the scope of the project was truly going to look like. The researched our primary competitors, and we were able to source out key words to use in our campaigns. Then we started the reach out through press kits and social media. We hold bi-weekly meetings to review and catch up in addition to regular calls and emails.

What was the team composition?

The owner is very involved as well as the marketing team and social media. They combine their knowledge and get things rolling quickly.

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

So far, we have had great progress from press releases. We have appeared on quite a few e-zine sites and had a number of interviews. Our social media reach is ramping up and growing steadily and we are using a diverse group of influencers.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We feel that there is excellent communication and involvement between our companies.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The quick turnaround on everything that they do. We seem to be operating in tandem.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We are very satisfied with the project so far and believe they have done an outstanding job!