Palmer Ad Agency

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the digital marketing manager at Blue Raven Solar. We're a nationwide solar installer of residential solar panel systems.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Palmer Ad Agency?

We contracted with Palmer Ad Agency for a series of automated marketing tasks.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Because the solar industry is still very much a door-to-door space, we have gathered a substantial amount of email addresses and other contact information. All of that information is housed in our HubSpot CRM, which Palmer Ad Agency used to develop an automated marketing campaign.

They formed a strategic action plan for drip emails, providing copy, creative, and images. They also designed the workflow to recognize when a visitor did specific things on our site. This would trigger different email campaigns based on the considerations of the HubSpot methodology.

Additionally, they assisted with our paid social campaigns, which primarily included Facebook campaigns in South Carolina and Colorado. They created specific landing pages for both.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with the agency principal, a senior account manager, and a HubSpot strategist. In a productive way, they’ve limited our points of contact so that it’s easier to coordinate the project.

How did you come to work with Palmer Ad Agency?

My supervisor handled much of the decision to choose them, but I assisted with the vetting process. The lead principal approached us after having success working with other small solar groups. He flew to Salt Lake City to explain what his company could offer.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2018. The work remains ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since implementing these automated marketing efforts, traffic to our site has increased by 20%. With every major initiative they have done for us, we have noticed some sort of bump in key metrics.

How did Palmer Ad Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is what sets Palmer Ad Agency apart. They consistently meet the due dates that they set, and, in the event that they don’t, it’s because they need more information or approvals from us. They never promise they are doing work behind the scenes; rather, they send us tangible assets to work with. With large projects, we have weekly meetings to make sure we’re always on the same page.

What did you find most impressive about them?

In addition to providing us with tangible solutions, they help us measure the results of what they've achieved. They also have great domain experts in their company, including HubSpot and paid social campaigns. Lastly, they are well-versed in solar, which fostered smart suggestions for our unique selling proposition.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’ve been extremely happy with them. They’re far and away better than any other agency I’ve worked with.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the COO and one of the partners of our B2B insurance business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Palmer Ad Agency?

We operate in the B2B marketplace and we’d saturated our territory. We needed to expand to new markets, which required help from an advertising agency that's familiar with the Bay area.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of our first initiatives with them was to go through a rebranding campaign, which they helped us navigate and do all the creative development for. They’ve produced a new logo, new signage, letterhead, colors, and other designs for us. We’ve developed a brand message, and our current focus is on the concept of “Dream big, worry small”. From there, we launched a two-year advertising campaign, predominantly digital-focused.

The advertising was built on the HubSpot platform, which we've recently moved to be the primary sales platform for our people. We're integrating that with our advertising approach, and Palmer is navigating those efforts.

We tried all the inbound approaches: utilizing e-books, paid social, and a fair amount of outbound email. From that, we've found that we needed to stay focused on our typical sales strategy—getting in front of and talking to people. We’re engaging people and building out individual sequences for each of them to more proactively engage people that are not quite prospects yet, but who have taken the time to look at something.

We’re currently analyzing a full scope of work in order to contract Palmer for a more in-depth sales enablement. Adam will integrate more tightly with our organization in order to help our salespeople develop their HubSpot utilization, specifically around some of the new, more forward tools available there.

What is the team composition?

I believe they have at least 20 people in their department and I’ve worked with at least 10 to 12 of them. They have a pretty focused team for creative e-development. We’re engaged with Adam (Director of Marketing, Palmer Ad Agency), who is the internal HubSpot expert. We also have an account manager and we work with Drew (Agency Principal and Owner, Palmer Ad Agency).

How did you come to work with Palmer Ad Agency?

My background is in banking and finance. I was familiar with Drew, who was working for a bank that was one of my competitors, so I was familiar with him. When we decided to commit some advertising dollars, I searched for him and found that he had expanded into the San Francisco market. The insurance space was new to Palmer, but I specifically wanted an agency with a fresh look, rather than one that would fit us into someone else’s mold. It’s been a fun experience; costly, but fun.

How much have you invested with them?

The ongoing spend is around $10,000 per month. We’re spending a bit below that figure now, as we’ve scaled back on some of our social expenditure. Some of our one-off projects cost around $40,000. I’ve spent over $220,000 with Palmer since the start of our engagement.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them for one and a half to two years, since the end of 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The advertising we’ve done has created some name recognition for us in the markets we’re trying to expand into. However, from a true results measurement standpoint, the results have not been at the level that we would’ve liked, based on what Palmer has historically experienced with some of their other clients.

Selling business insurance to a business is quite different to other sales fields. We’re still in the infancy of really figuring out what these tools can do to help us drive our sales to the next level.

Have I made enough sales to cover the cost of what we’ve spent? Absolutely not. Am I satisfied? Yes. However, the next six to twelve months really need to show some measurable improvement in what we’re doing. There are things that we couldn’t have done on our own, like the development of HubSpot, so, even though it’s hard for me to mention trackable metrics, the perceived value of what we’ve gotten for our money is high.

How did Palmer Ad Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

They meet their timelines, they’re focused, and they're thorough in what they do. If I tend to fall behind, they make sure to get me back on track. It’s good.

Over the last year and a half, we’ve had four different people involved with managing our account. We’ve not really developed continuity yet, so some of the scheduling is bound to fall through the cracks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Our style is open and low-key. Generally-speaking, the give-and-take, respect for each other, and the openness to learn from each other is fun. We’ve had an opportunity to learn a new way of advertising and marketing. Likewise, they've been able to learn a new business that they’d never worked with before.

They also have a good understanding of the digital marketplace—how to navigate it and position a company in front of the right potential prospects.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are always things to improve and we’re working on some of them at the moment. There was some slowness in fully embracing the need for us to transition to more of an outbound approach. Palmer are experts on inbound marketing strategy and was hopeful that would work for us. It was a little slow moving on that but it is now being fully incorporated with the inbound strategy and good results are expected. Generally, working a bit quicker and more agile would be good.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Let them do their thing, but don't be afraid to say if it feels like it’s not going to quite work in your industry.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of Rare Parts. We manufacture steering and suspension parts for automobiles. We also function as a secondary-supplier to a lot of automotive part distributors.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Palmer Ad Agency?

We’re a small family-owned operation and while we excel in many areas, marketing is not one of our strengths. Whenever we tried to design ads internally, they looked disjointed from our brand and didn’t reflect our core values. We approached Palmer to help us with consistent ad design and digital marketing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Palmer’s team redefined our brand identity through aesthetically pleasing designs. They modernized our marketing strategy by helping us bridge the gap between advertising in magazine publications to digital advertising and social media. At this point in the engagement, they’ve managed multiple marketing campaigns and delivered the necessary collateral to support successful efforts.

What is the team composition?

We typically work with 3–4 people from their team, but that number changes depending on the project’s scope. Tyler (Senior Account Manager, Palmer Ad Agency) is our primary point of contact. They also have various experts that get assigned to our marketing initiatives.

How did you come to work with Palmer Ad Agency?

I had a lengthy discussion with our company’s president before we decided to hire a marketing firm. Once we agreed to move forward, the president led the vetting process. He made several phone calls and eventually contacted Drew (Owner, Palmer Ad Agency). We met with Drew and quickly developed a good rapport. Once Drew brought the rest of his team forward, working together seemed like a good fit.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent under half a million so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2015 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we started working with Palmer, our presence in the marketplace has increased exponentially. Customers often contact me and me and ask who does our advertising because they see us everywhere. Palmer does an amazing job.

How did Palmer Ad Agency perform from a project management standpoint?

Tyler leads our account and he’s on top of his game. Communication is frequent and I’m 100% confident in his ability to provide us relevant information whenever needed. They’re extremely organized and also put forth the effort to build a relationship with us by visiting the office quite a few times. That’s helped them understand our company’s goals and enable them to pave the way towards our success.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Drew made us feel comfortable working with Palmer and Tyler’s competency only validated that perception. Their team’s ability to transform my vision into effective marketing materials is invaluable. I know exactly how I want Rare Parts to look, but often lack the words to accurately describe it to someone else. Every ad design they deliver is exactly how I want it to look. The only difficulties I have is picking which is my favorite. They’re easy to work with and I’m always happy with them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish they could work here full-time. That’d be the only way to improve our engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the marketing director at New England Clean Energy. We're an independent solar installation company, serving the New England region.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Palmer Ad Agency?

We were not using our website or Facebook ads as well as we could. We knew we had to move into the digital age, so we were looking for a company to help us develop a digital marketing campaign.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided many services: from brand developing to PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns and Facebook ads, managing the creative side, copywriting, and media placement. In addition, they developed pop-up forms and calls to action for our website, helped us get on HubSpot, and provided SEO services.

They also put together a lead nurturing campaign, which we had always wanted to do, but didn't have the right technology or the right expertise. Taking charge of both the implementation and the strategy, they created all assets that were needed for the campaigns: infographics, landing pages, and videos. Then, they monitored and analyzed the results.

What is the team composition?

We mostly worked with Drew (Palmer, Principal, Palmer Ad Agency) and Tyler (Palmer, Accounts Manager, Palmer Ad Agency). They have a very flexible team, so we also worked with designers, copywriters, and digital specialists.

How did you come to work with them?

We did an agency review and talked to three companies. A year before that, Palmer Ad Agency sent us a very nice email marketing piece, which I kept on file because I was so impressed with it. (I've seen a lot of marketing material, so it's not easy to impress me.) When we did our agency review, I pulled up that email and put them on the list.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2016 and the project was completed in December 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They definitely helped us increase out lead flow substantially. That was the first time we did a digital marketing campaign and our industry is changing from season to season, so it's hard to pinpoint exact results.

How did they perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very organized and professional and we appreciated their friendly and personable approach. They were always willing to go above and beyond to achieve our goals. We usually used email or conference calls to keep in touch, but they also used Slack on their end.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're willing to understand their client's business and needs. I had never worked with any agency as extensively as I did with Palmer Ad Agency. They have a very insightful and intelligent team that came up with a lot of excellent ideas and strategies. Also, they listened to us and got everything right the first time, which saved us a lot of time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing at all. We had one issue with one individual on our account, but after the person was removed from our account, everything went smoothly again.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have some freelancers and some staff members, so you need to understand how  your account team works.