Sage Lion Media

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of marketing and special projects for Pond King Inc. We are a lake services company, manufacturing equipment to enhance the enjoyment of lakes.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sage Lion Media?

When I came aboard at Pond King, we were trying to relaunch our site as an e-commerce store. It kept stalling, so I sought an outside partner to finish the project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We wanted someone to make a new e-commerce store for our site. They did some work on the branding, guidance on platform selection (we selected Shopify), and handled the bulk of the coding on features like our custom boat builder. We have an ongoing relationship with them where they help us manage our inbound marketing, HubSpot workflows, digital advertising, and PPC and Facebook ads.

What is the team composition?

Nick (Owner) was our main point of contact, and he had a team behind him. I have to commend Nick – he had some staffing changes but he ensured a smooth transition keeping our project on-time and on-budget.

How did you come to work with Sage Lion Media?

I found Nick through HubSpot.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $35,000 on web development, and our ongoing relationship costs $3,000–$5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began work in September 2018, and the work is ongoing.

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

Anecdotally, we’ve received a lot of positive feedback. The custom boat builder works and looks fantastic. Because of their work our online sales are up 80% in 2019, causing overall sales to rise by 20%. Our KPIs of new users and traffic are both up 100%.

How did Sage Lion Media perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great to work with, interacting with them is a highlight of my day. They’re collaborative and positive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They engaged us on a business level, trying to understand our business goals and relate all of our marketing to those goals. I appreciated that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I really enjoy working with Nick and collaborating with him. However, as a small business if he’s working with a different client it can be difficult to reach him. As they become more successful, they’ll need to build their team more.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re very good at what they do. We were able to communicate what we wanted and they came back with questions on how to best execute that vision. They came with suggestions that we went with. It’s like a restaurant — you don’t go to a restaurant and hand a chef a recipe. The same rules apply here, you hired them for a reason — let them do their work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work in the sales department at Niece Equipment. We’ve been in business for about 40 years and have 120 employees in two factories located in Texas and Kansas. We off-road heavy products in Kansas and make other products in Texas.

My position is kind of open. I’m involved in sales and have certain accounts I work with. For the most part, I take on assignments as they come. For example, I handle dealers for various products we make. Some of these are specialized beds to accommodate various carriers of off-road and on-highway products.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sage Lion Media?

We didn’t have a website nor did we understand the concept of inbound marketing. At that time, we were using old-school methods to get a business going. We’d get in the car, drive up and down the highway, and stop at every job site and office along the way.

One of our goals was to capture the email addresses of people who visited our website. This way, we could follow up with marketing emails about our products.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sage Lion Media handles our web development and digital marketing services. They’ve done a wide range of work for us. Their team added a credit application and basic product specifications to the website. I even submitted numerous photographs that I had taken and Sage Lion Media edited and polished them up. These photos were posted on the website under my direction on the specific line of products.

Their team has also produced videos for the website. They visited us and filmed on location before compiling all the footage together. Sage Lion Media also handles our email marketing and customer retention efforts. If a customer hasn’t had any website activity in a while, they’ll receive an email inviting them to take a look at our new products.

There was a technology learning curve on technology for us. However, over a period of time, they learned about our business and we learned about theirs.

What is the team composition?

Nick (Owner) is my only point of contact. Although, there have been a couple of others along the way.

How did you come to work with Sage Lion Media?

We met Nick at the Independent Equipment Builders Association convention. We were considering 3–4 other companies but ended up going with Sage Lion Media. They originally didn’t know a lot about our industry but were quick learners. This helped us decide to stay with them instead of breaking off and starting all over with another company.

How much have you invested with them?

We invest an average of $3,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began in January 2015.

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

Our website went from being nonexistent and getting zero hits to receiving 2,400 monthly visitors. What’s more, our sales have dramatically increased because people can find us now. All in all, our business growth has increased in significant strides, and that’s tremendously due to Sage Lion Media’s work.

For example, last month we had seven requests for truck rentals, two of which ended up going through. There’s a sizable percentage for the hits we get in sales. I’ve haven’t calculated the dollars that Sage Lion Media’s work contributes to our volume and profitability, but it’s certainly gotten us a lot of worldwide attention.

Nick knows our business very well, and the website runs very smoothly. His work with online traffic details and number crunching is amazing. He can take any click on our website and track it back to who it was. They’ve been absolutely great at this. We were also surprised at how well-received the videos were. They had a positive impact on the customers we received.

How did Sage Lion Media perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate weekly, if not daily. They’ve always met every deadline we’ve set. In fact, I’ve never had to wait on them, it’s always them waiting on me. Nick has taught me a lot about what they’re doing. I don’t give it a lot of thought; I just trust he knows that he’s doing. I’ve always seen positive results.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The way they know how to capture information about people who click on our website has been powerful. Because of that, we send out emails thanking users for visiting and then extend an invitation to do business with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sage Lion Media has visited us 4–5 times over the years. However, it’d be nice if we had the money for them to travel more to us. I think it’d help them learn our business a lot quicker.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Nick will lay out the expectations of what you’re supposed to do. He’ll teach you what you need as well as expect you to be on time and take care of your business.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Heaven’s Trail, a direct to consumer outdoor brand. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Sage Lion Media?

As a direct to consumer company, our sales are all online because we don’t have a brick and mortar facility. The last marketing agency we hired had an outbound marketing approach, which works better for a spontaneous purchase item — something you don’t put a lot of thought into. We sell quite expensive one-off items. After learning about inbound marketing strategies, I realized that that’s what I needed. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our e-commerce website is a Shopify platform and we also use HubSpot, both of which Sage Lion Media have experience in. The first thing they did after taking the time to understand our business and our goals was to help us map out a buyer’s journey using the inbound marketing strategy. 

They developed the Shopify website and now, we provide them the content, and they incorporate it into the website to help tell that story they want to tell. Recently, they’ve started helping us with a re-engagement email campaign in HubSpot.

What is the team composition?

Nick (Owner & Design Lead) is my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Sage Lion Media?

I interviewed about a dozen different inbound marketing agencies and it came down to two. After conducting in-person interviews with both of them, I ended up choosing Sage Lion Media.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2020 and our engagement is ongoing.

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

It’s hard to say because we’ve only been working with them for three months. Our products are seasonal and it’s not our season yet. The inbound marketing strategy does allow for more engagement, which is good. Since Sage Lion Media is a small company, just like ours, they’re able to turn on a dime. Moving from MailChimp to HubSpot hasn’t presented too much of a challenge and our bounce rates aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be. 

How did Sage Lion Media perform from a project management standpoint?

We have hour-long calls with them via Zoom. They go through weekly sprints and try to tackle all of the work they do. Sage Lion Media also gives me reports and answers any questions I have. So far, they’ve been great. Although I have to pay for it, I’m always able to send them tasks that are outside the weekly scope. They use Jira to manage the project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Nick does a really good job of listening to me, even if it’s something that he’s heard before from other clients. Heaven’s Trail is not the only client he has that’s trying to get more exposure and sell more products online. Additionally, we’re the first tree stand brand he’s worked with, but he’s acclimating very quickly. 

He’s also very hands-on and wants to learn more about our product while weaving in his brand development experience. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Everybody can improve on something, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have face-to-face meetings to get to know the whole team. That’s what helped us.

Please describe your company and your position there.

DirtLogic is an earthwork take-off and GPS modeling service provider for excavation companies. I am the owner of the business.

For what projects/services did your company hire Sage Lion Media?

Pay-Per-Click, Marketing Consulting/Strategy, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation, Customer Relationship Management

What were your goals for this project?

Lead generation & content development

How did you select this vendor?

Sage Lion Media has a strong presence and understanding of outdoor industries. They demonstrated expert knowledge in all things digital marketing and inbound marketing, allowing us to focus on the core business.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Sage Lion Media and their team has a very structured production team. The overall scope was to create new content for our website that could be distributed through different mediums (email campaigns, blogs, advertising campaigns & social media). Sage Lion's role was to help us create these things from scratch.

What was the team composition?

We had one dedicated marketing executive. Sage Lion Media assigned an inbound marketing strategist/manager, lead developer & content writer to our account.

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

Our small company has always had a simple, grassroots approach to promotion. Sage Lion Media has patiently walked us through the steps for building efficient and effective online marketing by helping us identify and execute top priorities for each quarter. Now that we have a company willing to provide the hand-holding we needed to update our marketing DirtLogic is seeing a considerable increase in online presence and lead generation.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Sage Lion Media is an agile marketing agency. Their project management processes and system is a game changer. On a weekly basis our agreed to set of hours were completed in a timely fashion and of high quality. Resulting in all work being completed to our satisfaction.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed by their openness and willingness to help. And ability to learn our business and industry very quickly.

Are there any areas for improvement?

N/A

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the owner of LaidBack Pads. We manufacture a custom blended memory foam camping pad

For what projects/services did your company hire Sage Lion Media?

Digitalmarketing

What were your goals for this project?

To create awareness and drive sales

How did you select this vendor?

They showed they understood the direction we wanted to go and provided a great roadmap to get there

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Digital marketing, web design, advertising

What was the team composition?

Nick Hoover and Jordan Goodman

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

It’s an ongoing project

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Seamless

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their knowledge, ideas and creativity

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not uet