Marsden Marketing

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was previously VP of Marketing. The company provides operational reporting and analytics to enterprise companies.

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

We hired Marsden originally for our digital marketing needs - to increase results with our SEO and PPC efforts.

What were your goals for this project?

To increase results with our SEO and PPC efforts - gain more lead conversions to increase sales.

How did you select this vendor?

We did an evaluation of 3 separate vendors in 3 different geographical areas. Marsden Marketing was referred to us by a prior colleague at another company. During the Marsden pitch, they clearly articulated how they would satisfy our digital marketing needs. However, in addition, they demonstrated how the company would grown with Marsden. As the digital marketing efforts began to prove out, we would want to focus on brand and product messaging. Marsden became the clear winner as we wanted a vendor who we could grow with.

Describe the project in detail.

As mentioned, we originally hired Marsden to assist with digital marketing efforts. They performed a detailed analysis of the results we were getting and analyzed why we were getting those results. We had weekly meetings to discuss the results we were receiving with the changes made. We leaned on their expertise for recommendations on strategies to try to increase our conversions. As the Marsden team became an extension of our team we then also used them for the messaging efforts of the introduction of a new product offering.

What was the team composition?

We had our Marsden project manager and the digital marketing contact that we worked with weekly.

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

As we met weekly with the team, we would analyze the results of our changes. If we were not seeing results, we would make modifications to our strategy. The Marsden team is very creative and worked collaboratively with our team.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Extremely effective. We had weekly meetings but in between those meetings, we would communicate via email and ad-hoc meetings. As mentioned previously, the Marsden team became an extension of our team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Marsden Marketing is not a single-threaded marketing organization. They truly understand the bigger picture of marketing and the multiple efforts that need to be a focus in order for a company to become a success. Additionally, they are extremely collaborative. They have their expertise but they listen to their customers and work with them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not in my opinion.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the chief marketing officer for a global cloud and network platform company. We serve mid-sized to large enterprises with secure networks and cloud applications.

What challenge were you trying to address with Marsden Marketing?

I've worked with them on and off over the years. In my current role, I brought them in to help with our whole lead generation program.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They've done everything for our marketing automation platform and other advertising. They set up our nurture campaigns, create webpages, and act as an agency for demand generation. Most of the work we've done together revolves around campaign development and web and digital work. They have a good understanding of the technology in this environment, and they know how to reach potential buyers.

In a previous engagement at another company, they came up with ways to humanize a fairly generic process. We did both online and offline campaigns. They help develop the content for storytelling, thought leadership, third-party surveys, web collateral, and sales enablement. We also did webinars and a whole series of events. 

What is the team composition?

I interact with at least five people, but I know there are other team members who work with my team.

How did you come to work with Marsden Marketing?

I found them through a mutual friend in the industry. The first thing I contracted them to do was in the Japanese market. They had global experience, and they understood a lot of the cultural nuances. The sales enablement elements were very strong, and we came up with forward-thinking interactive materials. From there, we continued working together on other projects.

How much have you invested with them?

At this point, we've spent about $200,000 for our most recent campaigns. This particular project is still fairly fresh.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've worked together at multiple organizations since 2007 or 2008. For this latest project, I contracted them in July 2019. They still work with me now.

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

Their flawless execution keeps me coming back for more. I can always prove a strong ROI. In one earlier engagement, we saw 200-400% growth in that product in relation to the campaign. Here, we went from zero inbound leads to over 1,000 within about 30 days. Their work consistently helps us grow revenue.

How did Marsden Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They're very strong project managers. We have weekly calls, and we also use Asana.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They really understand how to plug into our needs and act on the opportunities that arise from our campaigns. They are hands-on and nimble, and they're very reactive to our needs. They treat us like their most important client, and their executives give us personalized attention.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything they could improve or do differently.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about your objectives, and give them the opportunity to offer you their ideas. They often come back with recommendations or alternative processes. Every time I take advantage of their ideas, they deliver exactly the right solutions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of a strategic advisory firm. We explore futures—which ones are coming, how to understand a changing ecosystem, and how to generate plans and adapt successfully while also continuing the legacy executives have built. We help executives see around the corner and prepare for what’s coming.

What challenge were you trying to address with Marsden Marketing?

Our company had been around for 20 years after being founded by a futurist and author. As we started to look at the future of our business after the founder retired, we realized we wanted to maintain his legacy while also meeting the needs of the changing market. They’ve helped us go from a stealth-like marketing team without much outreach or a big presence online.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve made us an active entity in the market space through initiatives like refreshing message maps, our website, and strategic branding. They built the website from scratch, and everything is now managed through HubSpot. They’ve also helped us modernize some properties, including the colors of our logo. These helped us display a cleaner look and feel online and in our office.

Additionally, we host a biannual conference, and Marsden Marketing helped us put it on in a way that maintained the spirit of our founder's former practice of brining executives into his living room and having deep conversations about the future.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 5–8 people.

How did you come to work with Marsden Marketing?

They came as a referral to our CEO. They’re a small woman-owned business that had the right capabilities. Even though they’re located in Atlanta and we’re in Washington DC, we thought they could spend the time and visit with us. Being remote, they took the time to understand our needs initially.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $200,000–$999,999 over five years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2015, and the website and brand launched later that year. After a large event in 2016, we learned about certain market needs and forces and decided to update our message map. This involved changing our positioning and tag line.

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

In 2017, the revenue from our inbound lead generation through the website, cold introductions, and requests for information paid for all our marketing for the year. That’s a really good measure of the result of them getting buyers to us and us converting and nurturing and driving them forward to revenue. We’re continuing to try and replicate that year over year.  

How did Marsden Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Part of this is our fault since we’d never worked with a marketing firm before. We didn’t know how to engage with an agency, so there was a lot of learning in the first two years. They ended up giving us a more regular client success manager who’s helped integrate various marketing efforts (publications, updates to sites or assets to put into the marketplace). They’ve gone on to integrate into everything we do—the full spectrum of business operations, DevOps, and sales.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very attentive to all our requests. We’ve given them some challenges, but they’ve met us where we’ve been and coached us through, investing time in us as a client. We’ve seen the result of that in how we’re maturing. They don’t look at themselves just as a marketing agency but as an advisory body helping us achieve what we need.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Getting more, faster is always good. There’s a lot we want to do and achieve in expanding our market presence and capacity to deliver. That’s the next step in our relationships.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Get to know their people and their strengths and take time to share ideas and feedback. Listen to them; they know what they’re talking about.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and owner of a national property tac consulting firm representing companies who own their own commercial real estate, machinery, equipment, and inventory. We work to reduce the annual taxes our clients pay.

What challenge were you trying to address with Marsden Marketing?

We worked with Marsden Marketing to come up with a campaign that would target our specific market.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, we needed to determine what our target market was. Reviewing the data we collected over several years, we were able to determine that there are specific people, like the CFOs, finance team, and VPs of Tax, that we should target.

However, this group of people is less likely to attend meetings, and instead, are more likely to get their information online. Marsden Marketing used this information to help us tweak our marketing program to successfully stand out to this audience. In addition to creating a LinkedIn marketing campaign, we’ve also partnered with a financial website to deliver webinars for this audience.

What is the team composition?

We have an account manager that I work with directly and they communicate with the rest of the team.

How did you come to work with Marsden Marketing?

I Googled B2B marketing consultants in my area and found them. As a B2B company, I appreciated that B2B was their specialty.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in March 2018 and the project is ongoing.

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

Their work has resulted in high-quality leads. We’ve increased our followers on LinkedIn, and all of our posts are being opened and shared. Marsden Marketing has definitely helped us get in front of the right people, and where our business needs to be.

How did Marsden Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Our team travels a lot, but Marsden Marketing adjusted their marketing style to help us stay informed. Instead of sending me a ton of emails every day, they send me one with a list of everything they need from my team, which helps me stay on top of everything. Their management style worked well with our team because we could easily integrate their needs into our workflow.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re totally a relationship and solutions-based company. Instead of trying to increase their own revenue like other agencies I’ve worked with, I felt like Marsden Marketing was trying to create a better solution for our company.

It has been a collaborative partnership, and their team has been aligned with our goals throughout the project. It’s nice that they share our same goals and want to accomplish what we need. They’ve bent over backward to accommodate us, and have never missed a deadline. They’re a conscientious firm that really cares about our business’ success.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there’s anything they need to improve. When I suggest another direction, we always have a conversation about what will be best for the company before proceeding.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

When we began our partnership, I gave them more background information on our industry. I think that gave them a foundation that propelled our final solution.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CMO for Merchant e-Solutions. We’re a payment provider in the fintech space.

What challenge were you trying to address with Marsden Marketing?

The company is going under a transition—we’re starting to offer new services with a different perspective on how we approach our business. Because of that change, we’re looking to improve our creative and introduce marketing automation to our inbound sales program. We turned to Marsden Marketing for help.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We just started working with them on marketing, creative, and the implementation of our CRM. In fact, they’re in the process of setting up our HubSpot contact and getting our users on board. Once it’s in place, they’ll bring it over to our sales team, loading our initial campaign components for an initiative we have set for spring. Soon, we’ll be developing all the content, lead flows, and creative that accompanies the campaign. 

In the time we’ve been collaborating, we launched our first campaign in HubSpot. More specifically, they developed an email newsletter as well as a five-page microsite that works at warp speed. They’ve already helped us put together a new communication style and messaging that we can use in our marketing efforts. 

What is the team composition?

I directly worked with about six of their teammates. There were likely others working in the background.

How did you come to work with Marsden Marketing?

Several years ago, I was at another payment company that was merging with another business. We had to initiate new branding and HubSpot. I collaborated with Anne (Founder & Principal, Marsden Marketing) and her team then to help us. It went very well. As soon as we discovered the need for marketing automation here, it was an easy decision to call her again. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working on this project in September 2019, and it’s still ongoing.

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

They delivered a successful campaign for the company, working collaboratively to launch it. Simultaneously, they were able to work on our website and creative messaging strategy. We’re off to a great start—it’s like we picked up where we left off from my last engagement with them.  

How did Marsden Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They were organized and structured. We’re just getting started on this project, but in the past, I remember working with them using a project management tool. That allowed us to communicate and share materials entirely on one system.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very smart and have expertise on how marketing can support business goals. Their team also approaches our company striving to understand the business to the full extent. They want to know our goals and whether or not they’re realistic.

If our aims aren’t realistic, they ask the right questions to finetune our strategy to understand us more deeply. In their efforts, they’re able to simplify complicate business practices into something easy to understand and engage with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind right now. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They do their best work when I’m organized and clear about what I want to accomplish. My role is to make sure they have that clarity, so it’s important to come prepared with your vision to allow them to build upon it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a marketing manager at one of North America’s largest manufacturers of electrical wire and cable.

What challenge were you trying to address with Marsden Marketing?

We needed help moving away from archaic print-based, analog-based marketing to more digital marketing. But, we wanted to maintain our traditional marketing as well. 

So, we needed a hybrid to get us into the digital world while maintaining some of our traditional approaches.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were working hand-in-hand with them. They helped us create a digital advertising presence. Almost everything they did with us was digital, except for the occasional creation of literature handouts.

We ran digital ads on LinkedIn and industry-specific publications.  They also worked with several of our publications to create webinars. We sent out surveys with our publications to learn how to better reach our target audience. 

They helped us create a variety of landing pages or microsites. They also helped us create a variety of e-blasts to market ourselves. We were also able to create some digital infographics. We also sent out quizzes that reached our customer base. 

We ended up creating a database of viable leads, which we eventually put into Salesforce. 

What is the team composition?

I usually had direct contact with one account manager, Noah, for the majority of the campaign. If he was out, I would call his backup, which was David. When Noah left the company, I worked with David as I had a really good relationship with him. 

I don’t know how many people were working on different things in the background. But, the owners, Anne and Suzanne, were both always available when needed.

How did you come to work with Marsden Marketing?

We wanted to hire someone in the southeast so we could have face-to-face interactions if needed. I did online research and found several marketing companies I was interested in. Then, we had face-to-face interviews based on their portfolios and customer references. 

Marsden seemed very adaptable and willing to learn about our business. They didn’t come with any preconceived notions, which was amazing. They were willing to work with our price point as well.

Also, we wanted to find someone that could teach us about digital marketing while doing it for us, and Marsden was willing to do both. They were always willing to come up with new ideas.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $2 million and $3 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

They started working with us around January of 2016, and they still do some work for us. We’ve restructured recently and haven’t had to rely on third-party resources as much.

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

All of our campaigns were very successful. In particular, when we partnered with Marsden to do a webinar with another company, we had about 500 people sign up. About 450 of those got on the webinar, stayed, and listened to it all the way through. It was pretty amazing that we were able to reach that many interested people through email blasts.

During the first year for one campaign, our goal was to generate 2,000 leads, and we ended up going from nothing to 5,000 viable leads. At first, we measured success by how many leads we generated. Then, we looked at how specific tactics were working.

The email open rate for my business was usually over 50%, and that’s higher than the industry standard. So, we felt good about that. 

Marsden Marketing was really good about A/B testing and altering our tactics according to our open rates and click rates. 

How did Marsden Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They were always really good about project management. They were always on top of it. All projects were completed by the deadlines. 

I was always confident enough with them to say, “Here’s our end goal. You tell me what we need to do.” They would come up with a plan, and we would be able to tweak it. Unlike other big marketing agencies we’ve worked with, Marsden made us feel important and didn’t brush us off.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They take a personal approach to your business. They sit down with you and interact with you. They take pride in knowing that your success is also their success. 

With Marsden, you always felt like you had a partner. If they turned out results that we weren’t satisfied with, they said, “Okay, what can we do better?” It was a working partnership.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I really have no complaints about them. They could grow their team (e.g. hire more writers, designers, etc). They do a great job, but they’re a small company taking on some major projects. If they want to continue to grow, they’re going to need to hire more people. As their clients grow, they have to grow too.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should take the time to teach them about your business. Make sure you incorporate them as much as you can into your business. Have them come in and sit down with whoever you’re creating the marketing collateral for.

The more you can trust them and feel that they’re a part of your team, the better they’ll be able to work as your partner. If you do that, they’ll gladly take the reins, and they’ll learn everything they can to make your marketing campaign a success.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Corista LLC, a healthcare software company designing services and capabilities for pathologists. Over the last 15 years, digital capabilities are emerging to augment glass slides and microscopes, allowing Scanners to digitize a slide with tissue on it, store it, and refer to it without having to cart glass around. Our software focuses on how pathologists use the images and data for clinical review, research and education.

What challenge were you trying to address with Marsden Marketing?

We worked with a large, east coast hospital as a development partner from the very beginning of our existence. There was a technical validation process that was underway with the expert pathologists comparing the digital images created by a WSI scanner that we displayed to the original glass slides with stained tissue specimens. During the validation process, we were building our platform and determining the tools pathologists needed and wanted to use as they examined the images, collaborated with peers, and reported their findings.  We needed a website to illustrate what we were building and to communicate with the market. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

The website Anne (Founder and Principal, Marsden Marketing) built was in WordPress and supports video, audio, and digital images. Pathology digital images are an enormous challenge because, on average, they are large, 250Mb.  In the early days, publishing those images was a bigger challenge than is the case today. 

I thought she was just going to do a website, but she has made a much bigger impact than just the website. We realized you’re going to have to talk to your market and Anne pushed us to do that ongoing work and publish it in a thoughtful way. She also helped us with trade shows,  brochures, press announcements and the ads for trade shows. We do a number of trade shows, and they designed and directed the builds of our trade show booths.

What is the team composition?

Anne provides the direction, and she has team leaders that keep the work on track. There are also background support teams. We have somebody managing the hosting, LinkedIn and social media postings to build our following. On a regular basis, there are probably 5–7 people working on our team, but I connect with Anne, Jeffrey, and the graphic designer, Brian, most often.

How did you come to work with Marsden Marketing?

I had known Anne when we both worked at Sprint years ago, and I knew she was in this business, so I gave her a call.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent just north of $1,000,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since June 2008.

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

Our product is remarkable and very broad, but being able to talk about it in a direct, informational way is amazing. Pathologists are interested in a sales pitch, so Anne helped develop our educational and informative approach.

People knew who we were and recognized our ability. We're a small company, 40 people, and yet, in this area of providing software and connecting the functionality of a pathology department to digital infrastructure, we're the market leader. Anne has been instrumental in helping us in this effort, particularly in publishing articles and blog postings.  

The ongoing publishing is an effort that has paid off.  We had so much on the plate, it was an effort to get it going regularly. But she's very good about pushing you along and giving you the smackdown when you need it. It’s made such a clear difference. Her guidance has been helpful in building our presence, which has increased our visibility.

How did Marsden Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They do very well.  They sometimes have to prod us to move forward more aggressively, but they are good at setting the goals, meeting weekly to track progress and challenging us when more needs to get done for marketing.

What did you find most impressive about them?

A couple of years ago we had an unexpected slowdown and they were great to work with during that period. They came up with all sorts of good ideas to pick it up a little bit. On the marketing side, we had to train her about pathologists and medicine and some of the issues that we're dealing with. She's been terrific to work with.

There are characteristics in the pathology market that are always a surprise for them. Like, how pathologists aren’t big users of LinkedIn. She's taken the characteristics of the market to heart, adjusted well and developed approaches that work for our customers and prospects. She's been a great partner and part of that has been the consistent way they’ve set goals with us and gently encourage while pushing us forward.

Are there any areas they could improve?                

They keep trying to add value for us. We find that the information we're producing for these blogs is so specific to pathology that traditional healthcare writers struggle adapting.  She's done a really good job of letting us do the writing. It’s a easier for us to write these five to eight paragraph blog entries than for the writers to do it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It takes a lot of communication. Don't be surprised when they say you need to be writing more and you don't particularly want to do it. You have to speak the truth to them and not be afraid of doing that. They’re very responsive. We do argue, but it's a helpful process and the process has been very positive.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a principal consultant at Symmetrics Group, a sales performance consulting and training firm. I also manage marketing for the firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with Marsden Marketing?

We needed to redesign our website and update our messaging.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Marsden Marketing did preliminary research to understand our industry. They pursued keyword research to support SEO. The team also interviewed our clients to understand what differentiates our company, service offerings, approach, and impact. They presented this Voice of the Customer (VoC) research at one of our bi-yearly company meetings.

The Marsden Marketing team developed our site’s navigation structure. They made adjustments to our messaging and value proposition. Currently, they are putting together and testing the website structure, design, content, and imagery.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Anne (Founder & Principal, Marsden Marketing), Suzanne (Principal, Marsden Marketing), and Rachelle (Content Consultant, Marsden Marketing) in the project’s early stages. Suzanne and Rachelle pursued the VoC research and created our messaging structure. As the project has progressed, we’ve primarily collaborated with a project manager. Behind the scenes is a full Marsden Marketing team of programmers, designers, and copywriters working on the project.   

How did you come to work with Marsden Marketing?

I’m a member of Atlanta’s HubSpot User Group, and Marsden Marketing was a sponsor at one of our events. At the time, we were beginning to look for agencies that could do website redesign. Marsden Marketing’s offerings intrigued me. We ultimately chose them based on their capabilities and the cultural fit between our teams.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project took place in April–August 2017.

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

Being HubSpot certified, Marsden Marketing ensured that our content offers integrated with HubSpot. We have seen a steady flow of content downloads, including our e-book and thought leadership tools. The VoC research was extremely valuable because it allowed our entire company to understand what we do well and how we compare to other vendors. Our team found this research very helpful.

How did Marsden Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They were average on the project management front, although they did very well everywhere else. For content, we used Google Pages to avoid issues with version control.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Marsden Marketing worked incredibly well with my team. They were personable and made the day-to-day work effortless, despite a tight timeline and heavy workload. We appreciated their can-do rather than push-back attitude.

Are there any areas they could improve?

HubSpot is offering more out-of-the-box services, like website templates. This is more of a question than a suggestion, but I’m wondering if Marsden Marketing will begin to blend their custom services with HubSpot’s marketplace offerings.

Any advice for potential customers?

Meet as much of the Marsden Marketing team as possible, and then make sure team members on both sides are comfortable.