Northcutt

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the co-owner and creative producer at a video production company called P3 Mediaworks. We provide a full spectrum of services from creative pre-production planning through post-production support. We’re currently based in Chicago.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Northcutt?

We were looking for a company that could bolster our social media presence and provide guidance on overall digital marketing strategy.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve assisted in the process of creating a marketing campaign around an internal project we’ve been working on, which involves creating video content for collaborations between nonprofits and corporations. This campaign involves planning and creating various marketing materials, including an e-book that focuses on corporate social responsibility. The e-book is still a work in progress, and it’s been the most significant project of the engagement.

They’ve also helped us create a formal social media strategy and establish consistency across platforms. We provided them with an idea of the voice and tone that we were looking to achieve, and they send us content that we can approve or make changes to before posting.

What is the team composition?

We primarily work directly with our project manager, and she liaises with the rest of the Northcutt team.

How did you come to work with Northcutt?

I originally reached out to Corey (CEO, Northcutt) to inquire about the potential for collaboration, as we connect with a number of digital agencies in our own work. We had been considering the importance of marketing resources for some time, and his professionalism and authenticity during our first in-person meeting led us to discuss the services that his company offers.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $10,000-$15,000 thus far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2017, and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have specifics readily available, but Northcutt provides monthly reports and we’ve seen significant increases in engagement across social media channels.

How did Northcutt perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been excellent. We communicate primarily via email, and they’ve been clear and accountable throughout the engagement. They’re also very consistent in keeping us updated on various aspects of the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve really appreciated the team's professionalism and willingness to collaborate. They’ve been exceptionally easy to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind in terms of critical feedback.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The more information you can provide, the better your results with Northcutt will be. Effort is required on the customer’s end to maximize the value of the services that they offer.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Cyber Wurx, LLC is a co-location and dedicated server provider. I am the owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Northcutt?

We needed help managing our social media and increasing our SEO. The big target of all of that was trying to increase our sales leads from the website. They were successful with that.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were responsible for quite a bit in the beginning. They were doing all social media components. They were managing our Facebook and Twitter feeds. They managed our Google+ account and got that in shape. They also got us listed on Google Maps. They were also doing two or three blog entries per week. They went over a lot of basics on our website and rearranged some of it to make it position better. They helped us pick some contact forms that helped engage the customers better.

They asked me questions in the beginning and wanted to know if I wanted to give any input or if I trust them. We had maybe one phone call and discussed a few things. I just let them go with it. They came up with the content. They did everything that was addressed to our company and the market that we’re in. I trusted them with it all and they did very well with it.

They did work on the website and got some targeted keywords there and then they did a lot of link building as well. I already had AdWords going and they looked that over and modified it a little bit. We had some other advertising going and they looked on that and fixed that. Not a whole lot was done there. We already had that in place.

How did you come to work with Northcutt?

Corey [CEO, Northcutt] was a customer of ours a long time ago. I had come across his company just searching for marketing companies. I reached out and contacted him.

How much have you invested with them?

It cost $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2017 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was a significant increase in visitors to the website. From the sales side of things, we definitely have noticed an increase in people reaching out and calling us coming directly from the website. We definitely saw an increase in performance. I don’t have those numbers in front of me.

How did Northcutt perform from a project management standpoint?

They were excellent. They communicated really well. I had one main contact, but there were several other people that were cc’d on it and would give input. My main contact was Dan [Lead Strategist/SEO Specialist, Northcutt] once every two weeks. Once a month, they would send me a report and have a phone call to discuss what was going on. If they were making any changes or anything that needed my feedback, they would definitely reach out to me. Communication was really good. I talked to them several times through the month.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve had excellent success with them. They’ve been a great company to work with and we’re going to continue working with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I’m pretty happy.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is named Outscale, and we are a cloud infrastructure as a service company.

What is your position?

I am the vice president of the North American market. I'm in charge of technology and business development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Northcutt?

We were looking to market our brand and our services to the United States market. That's why we partnered with Northcutt.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Northcutt provided online marketing services for us, such as SEO [search engine optimization] and social media marketing. They managed our blog through HubSpot, which we use as our blogging platform. They helped us measure and analyze our marketing campaigns and communications to evaluate what marketing efforts were most effective.

How did you come to work with Northcutt?

They were referred to us by our web agency, who recommended we work with Northcutt to help create the right user paths on the site and to provide all the marketing required to draw the proper attention to our services.

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

We work with them on an ongoing basis. The cost of the retainer is less than $10,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our project with Northcutt is completed as we now have an in-house marketing department. We might reach out to them in the future, but we are not working with them at the moment.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The results of their work are very impressive. Our website traffic increased by almost 6,000% between February 2014 to February 2016. Our social media followers grew by almost 1,200%, and our social media impressions increased by 260%.

How did Northcutt perform from a project management standpoint?

Northcutt's project management was good. They were professional, and they had the proper level of expertise for this project. They met our expectations.

What distinguishes Northcutt from other providers?

Northcutt was very easy to work with, very approachable, and very available, which hasn't been the case with other companies I've worked with.

Is there anything Northcutt could have improved or done differently?

I can't think of anything they could have improved upon. We could have gotten more value out of it if we, as the client, had been more engaged in the project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company provides one-on-one tutoring, test prep products, and software for students going on to graduate school.

What is your position?

I’m the founder of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Northcutt?

We were looking to grow overall website traffic and optimize our position in search engine rankings.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

First, Northcutt did a website and mobile audit, and found various forward-facing and server-side things that we could optimize. They did some targeted link outreach to influencers by email and also by social media. They helped us install email catching software on our site that’s been pretty effective. Northcutt also worked on SEO strategy and on our website to make it more search engine friendly.

How did you come to work with Northcutt?

Corey Northcutt was referred to me by another entrepreneur group.

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

The project has cost between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

It’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The main result that I can share is that Northcutt’s work has increased email lead conversion by 34%.

How did Northcutt perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management and quality of work were great.

What distinguishes Northcutt from other providers?

The Northcutt team was really engaged with us. They did a fantastic job of listening to what we were really trying to accomplish and following through with the plan. They were in good communication as well. It just felt more engaged than other SEO projects I’ve done.

Is there anything Northcutt could have improved or done differently?

No, I thought they were great.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

The company name is Cartika. We've been a managed web hosting and infrastructure provider for 15 years. We have customers ranging from very small businesses to very large enterprises. Our primary focus is managed infrastructure.

What is your position?

I am the CEO of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Northcutt?

We wanted to experiment with an alternate route to market specifically what Northcutt focused on, and we realized it played a lot in our segment and in our industry space. We engaged Northcutt 18 months ago specifically to work on our social media presence, which is something we hadn't done previously.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Northcutt handled all of our social media marketing, focusing on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. They worked on content creation, curation and post scheduling for all three social networks. They did some SEO [search engine optimization] work on our website as well. They were also responsible for content curation on blogs, press releases, newsletters, and white papers.

How did you come to work with Northcutt?

I had heard of them. They play in our industry space enough, but the actual way I found them was through social media. I think they were targeting me, and the way they were behaving got my attention.

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

The cost of the project was in the $50,000 to $200,000 price range.

What is the status of this engagement?

It's ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Organic traffic went up a total of 109 percent because of Northcutt's work, which is fantastic.  A lot of the increased traffic – our baseline – was still there. They did some things that increased our baseline. We saw an increase across the board from the SEO work. We saw an increase in targeted keywords we're looking at. We saw an increase from blogs, which we didn't have before, so that was new. All the traffic from there can be attributed to their work. Then, there was the increase from various social media, which we had very little footprint before, so the majority of that was from their work.

How did Northcutt perform from a project management standpoint?

I'm really happy with them.

What distinguishes Northcutt from other providers?

I don't know if it's unique or special, but I really enjoy the resource who was assigned to our account. We have a great working relationship. It's gone well. I don't know if it's something unique to them per se because we run our business the exact same way, but maybe we got lucky. But, I can say the resource who we worked with specifically has been outstanding. 

Is there anything Northcutt could have improved or done differently?

One of our big challenges is maintaining our website. We switched it to WordPress based on their recommendation. But, they don't actually get into the website end of it at all. Many times, it's back and forth between two different people. We write them for the content and then somebody else for actually creating the pages and doing any customization on the websites. I think I'd like to see them offer a fuller range of services so it's more of a one-stop shop.

BACKGROUND

Could you provide a brief description of your company?

We are a hosting solutions provider. We provide comprehensive hosting solutions, which include cloud hosting, and dedicated server hosting.

What is your role at the company?

I’m the chief marketing officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were trying to address?

We have utilized Northcutt’s services for quite a few different projects. We have utilized their services for search engine optimization. We have utilized their services for content, which comes under public relations and content marketing. They did a lot of managed services, mostly online reputation services to help us with our marketing.

Is the overall goal to get leads or traffic or do you have a sales function on your website?

We have an e-commerce website with goal conversion, and we also generate and track sales and leads.

SOLUTION

How did you select Northcutt as your solution partner?

They have a very good reputation in the hosting industry because they work with a lot of companies. We had heard they are a good content company. We started very small. We gave them a few projects and they did a fantastic job. So we increased our budget and our account with them. They started to do much more than what we initially hired them to do.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in monetary terms or personnel work hours?

On average, I would say they work 40 to 50 hours on our account, on a monthly basis.

Is this completely ongoing work?

We have had this arrangement with them for a while. We don’t anticipate scaling back at any time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?

They’re very dedicated and they are very results-oriented. They’re more analytical than most other vendors. Their project focus is based on getting results. Whatever project they work on, the expectation is that we will get a quantifiable result that we can measure in the end. Marketing is hard to gauge, which programs work and which haven’t worked. Their focus is to provide me with services that provide results in a quantifiable manner. We are able to measure our return on investment with them. It’s very positive, and that’s why we’re continuing to increase our account with Northcutt.

When working with Northcutt, is there anything you’d consider unique or special about their approach or development methodology that distinguishes them from other vendors you’ve used?

I had mentioned quantifiable results. They also provide a personable service. It’s not like you get labeled as a number and not a person. They have a custom-tailored service. They have dedicated resources. They have specialized personnel that will take care of every specific task that you give them, which gives you a better return on investment. Each client utilizes resources on demand and they’re providing quality work, because those resources are very well qualified in those specific areas.

In retrospect, are there areas that you think they could improve on or that you would do differently?

If I had to go back, I would start out our account much bigger than we did. But, in hindsight, it’s hard to say whether they would work out or not. The service has been really good and I wish I’d known about them a long time ago.