Sagefrog Marketing Group

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the director of marketing for a cybersecurity consulting firm. We cater to B2B businesses, higher educational institutions, and tech and healthcare companies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sagefrog Marketing Group?

We’ve been working with Sagefrog for three years now, and we originally hired them as an extension of our creative team by leveraging their graphic designers and copywriters. A year into our engagement, we decided to take them in as a full strategic partner. We covered SEO, digital marketing, and paid advertising.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I didn’t interact with Sagefrog much during the early stages since it was my content specialist who found them and handled their initial graphic design projects. When we took them on as our strategic partner, however, I became fully involved as the head of the account. I onboarded them as I would with any employee of ours. 

We introduced Sagefrog to our co-founder, sales process, business intelligence data, and marketing strategic roadmap. They also participated in a four-hour workshop with high-level people from our company who oversaw sales, product management and solutions, marketing, and business intelligence. 

Now, their team is in charge of several things. For our website, they oversee the bounce rate, page per session, average session duration, traffic, goal completions, and conversion. 

What is the team composition?

We had two account representatives, one head of digital, and one digital assistant. They also had a copywriter and SEO specialist on the scene. 

How did you come to work with Sagefrog Marketing Group?

My content specialist was the one who came across Sagefrog. They were selected because of their experience and the fact that they were situated near where our employees lived. They also had a fantastic work culture, and we blended really well in that aspect.

How much have you invested with them?

For our strategic partnership, we’re spending at least $5,000 a month. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around March 2019. I’m about to leave my company, so I’m unsure of their plans to continue partnering with Sagefrog. 

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

Sagefrog has hit every goal this year for every task and metric that they’re in charge of. For one, they’ve achieved our goal of increasing the average time users spend on our website. It shows that they really know how to optimize our pages and website as a whole.

How did Sagefrog Marketing Group perform from a project management standpoint?

I would rate them very highly on this front. They’re really good at managing various projects. We typically communicate through email and our weekly status calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I think that there’s so much noise in the marketing industry, especially at a time when anyone can simply work out of a basement and call themselves a marketing agency. Sagefrog, however, really has a full-fledged portfolio and experience. 

They’re also fully invested in our success, unlike other vendors that we’ve worked with who had no accountability or ownership of the work. This team really looks into the data and compares it to industry standards. They’re consistent, involved, and knowledgeable about our line of business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think it would be beneficial for them to use Google Drive. Especially in our case where there are multiple people working on a single project sheet, this arrangement would be much better, logistically and operationally, than having to send copies to everyone involved. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to onboard Sagefrog as you would onboard an employee. Over-align with them but don’t under-communicate or assume that they know everything. Provide them with all the tools and information that they would need to really understand your business. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the marketing manager at Razor IT Solutions.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sagefrog Marketing Group?

We wanted to generate more leads for our sales team, so we were looking for a vendor to help us with web design and digital marketing. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sagefrog Marketing Group managed a lead generation campaign for us, targeting a specific audience for a specific solution. As part of the campaign, they did web design and added new pages to our current website. They also helped us with Google Ads, email campaigns, and SEO. They continue to give us strategic advice and bring excellent ideas to the table.

What is the team composition? 

I mostly work with an account manager, but there are also copy editors, designers, and developers working on our project.

How did you come to work with Sagefrog Marketing Group?

I evaluated a few marketing firms. Sagefrog Marketing Group is a local company, which is what we were looking for, and they're a platinum HubSpot partner. It was important for us to find a company that understood HubSpot, so we decided they’d be a great fit.

What is the status of this engagement? 

We started working with them in August 2017, and the relationship is ongoing.

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

We've accomplished our goal of generating more leads for our sales team. In addition, we've seen an increase in the number of new customers, so we're happy with the results.

How did Sagefrog Marketing Group perform from a project management standpoint? 

They meet all the deadlines and keep us up-to-date with the progress. Our account manager is always available to answer our questions and provides regular feedback. We used email, phone, and text to stay in touch, and they were very responsive. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're very knowledgeable and have a highly skilled team. There is a lot of jargon and technical elements in our industry, but they were able to pick up fast and get the job done. Also, they're very personable and pleasant to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. They did a great job. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open-minded and listen to their recommendations. We found their advice to be very useful.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Bracket Global is a technology and service provider that supports pharmaceutical companies. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Sagefrog?

We wanted to establish a more formal PR and marketing plan focused on our clients in the pharmaceutical industry. Another agency had helped us with marketing but, in the interim, we were managing it ourselves. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sagefrog provides digital marketing, product marketing, and content development, and they handled extensive public relations activities for us. We do email marketing and a lot of print for trade shows. We’re not a web-driven company, but we wanted to increase thought leadership for our products and service partners in this area.

How did you come to work with Sagefrog?

They were referred to us, and we went through a formal RFP process. Sagefrog had the best responses and were close to the best price that we received. I was impressed by their size and evaluation of the healthcare and life sciences market. Also, their references were excellent.

How much have you invested with Sagefrog?

I feel like we get a lot more for our money from them than we would’ve from someone else.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2016, and the work is ongoing. 

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

We did a large campaign last fall about our thought leadership in Alzheimer’s disease, which is an important service area for us. That included a lot of email marketing, social media, and print content. We generated 3,000 direct qualified leads through that campaign, which exceeded our performance on prior campaigns by 10-times.

How did Sagefrog perform from a project management standpoint?

They were highly responsive. The account management team is proactive and hands-on. They share detailed plans with me, and I generally just have to say yes or no. They’ve been extremely flexible. We have only 2 people in our marketing department, and they’ve been helpful in accommodating us.

What did you find most impressive about Sagefrog?

They are very flexible and easy to work with. I don’t have to go through many layers. They’re really transparent about billing and make sure all the work is finished on time.  

Are there any areas Sagefrog could improve?

We’re involved in technical and scientific thought leadership. Sometimes, their copy can’t keep up with what we’re doing. That’s a problem with every outside agency, to be honest. But, they do everything they can to give us what we need and let us complete the work.  

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Neta Scientific is a chromatography and life science distribution company. I’m the director of sales and marketing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sagefrog Marketing?

We were looking to change our brand identity and recreate our brand image in the market. We also wanted to define our corporate capabilities including our vision and mission. We were seeking an organization that could help us achieve that goal.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a statement of work that was in scope. Sagefrog did a great job of working with our executive team and myself to find out what our mission should look like. They helped us shape our branding initiative to a PowerPoint presentation and also through our corporate brochures that we use to support our customer base. We took the existing logo and Sagefrog helped us bring it to life. The legacy logo was something we wanted to keep true to. We wanted to make it more of a modern feel. They helped us redesign the logo, the colors, and the overall brand imagery that we needed. We are a woman- and minority-owned company so we wanted that reflected throughout the imagery that we incorporate into all of our content.

How did you come to work with Sagefrog Marketing?

I did the search myself. We interviewed multiple firms. Through the interview process, Sagefrog was the most transparent and easily engaged. We went to site visits to their location and got to meet their entire team and staff. They were also willing to come and meet our team and leadership. We all agreed that they were the most qualified as well as the most easily engaged. They were responsive, supportive, and encouraging. We felt they were the best fit for us. We attend lots of different trade shows and our search was multi-faceted. Some of the firms we looked at were from different trade groups that we support and participate in and also through Google.

How much have you invested with Sagefrog Marketing?

We contracted for a set amount of hours per month. We had a set fee that we wanted them to do for the statement of work. Then we committed to leveraging them for other areas of our business for a set amount of hours per month. The amount was well within our budget.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2015, and the rebrand was complete by the summer of 2016. Most of the time lapse was because of our own internal delays.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The feedback internally and from our customer base has been that the project was very well received. We have gone to market to promote our brand and started advertising in different magazines that we support. We weren’t advertising before. Our sales have increased since going through this process but I don’t know if I can tie it directly to Sagefrog. I would say it certainly helped.

How did Sagefrog Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management team is excellent. We have a weekly call. They have a timeline and agenda every week for us. We still work with them every week. They’re very helpful. We’ve had several of our own meetings that we have as a team that they’ve asked to participate in and we’ve invited them to that they supported outside of the scope of the project. That helps them understand who we are and what we do. Overall, they’re doing a great job for us. They’re very responsive and organized. Whoever is part of the project, whether a copy person, SEO, etc., they make sure they’re present for the phone meetings.

What did you find most impressive about Sagefrog Marketing?

Being in sales my entire career, I was impressed with being able to engage the leadership and actual principal of the organization. They were involved and gave us all the confidence that they could deliver to what our needs were. If there were issues along the way, they let us know they would be accessible. They were available anytime we had questions. Even to this day, if I need to get ahold of them, they’re responsive.

Are there any areas Sagefrog Marketing could improve?

No. They do a fantastic job. Any concerns we had were addressed immediately. We’ve been very happy with the relationship.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Core Solutions is an electronic health records vendor in the behavioral health, substance abuse, and mental health fields. We focus on all those three key markets and anything that falls under those umbrellas. I am a marketing manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sagefrog Marketing?

The biggest challenge that we were facing was that the market expanding a lot. Over the last few years, there have been a lot of changes, and it was an opportunity for our company to set ourselves apart from our competition in the field. We realized that we needed to focus on targeting our market and expanding our reach within behavioral health. We had just undergone a new branding so we needed a brand-new website to match the focus that we had created.

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the beginning, they did a brand-new website for us. From there, we took a look at our target market and the data that we had in our system. We took a look at our contacts and leads and we thought the best way to approach this market expansion was to develop buyer personas for our entire database. Sagefrog helped us do that entire process. They helped us decide what those personas should look like. We separated our market into three different categories and started a comprehensive, integrated content and email marketing campaign that we did through HubSpot.

They helped us through that whole process of transferring our contacts over and creating those categories of professionals that we wanted to reach out to. We started to build out a content calendar and decided what the content should look like for all three of those specialties within our contacts.

We built on our relationship from there. They help us work on doing graphic design that we put on our website or in our emails and our content marketing. We do lead nurturing campaigns now. We work on inbound marketing, marketing automation, and SEO. They help us a little bit with public relations and social media as well.

Sagefrog has been able to help us out with a little bit everything. I’m the only in-house marketing person at Core Solutions so I would not be able to do my job if it wasn’t for Sagefrog. I consider them an extension of my team, and I feel like I’m an extension of their team as well. We have a really great relationship, and we work really well together.

We also started a blog and Sagefrog was able to integrate that into our website. We use HubSpot for that. We’ve been able to grow our database with contacts of people that are signing up for those alert emails. Every time we publish a blog, we have an alert that goes out the day before to the people that are on our subscription list and then we usually have a lead nurturing campaign that is set up on our backend that’ll go to those three categories of people. The message is tailored to fit their needs but focuses on the content that we publish on the website. Everything is really streamlined and pretty well automated at this point. It’s been an easy process to kind of get that up and running and I feel like we have a really good cadence of content going out now. Sagefrog has been really helpful with that.

Who is your target market?

We have an interesting market. We target a little bit of everyone throughout the field whether it be IT professionals, the people that are actually integrating the software and working on the system architecture on the agency side of things. We also target clinicians and any other healthcare professionals that are related to the product. These are the people that are focused on the patient’s needs and those are the people that are actually interacting with our software on a daily basis. We also target upper management including C-suite level people that are the ones that are ultimately making the decision to purchase the product. They are the ones that tell their staff what product they’re going to spend their money on.

How many resources have been assigned to your project?

The thing that I liked the most about Sagefrog is you work with a team lead. It’s their account executive, and they have a right-hand man that is cc’d on all of the emails that you interact with them. Everything goes through them, but you know that you have a team of people behind them that work behind the scenes to get everything done. So, you’re not just getting that one on one interaction with that team lead; you’re getting the people on the back end that are working on your SEO and the people that are actually developing the website. You have the graphic designer, you have content writers, and people that can touch every single part of your business. They have an entire team of experts. Whatever I can’t do, they have a specialist on their end that is able to jump in and hit the ground running and help us develop something great.

What technologies did they use?

The site is built on WordPress. They were able to build some customized features through there. I have the ability to go in and edit pages as necessary too. I really like the template they use. It’s nice and clean and it’s easy to swap things around.

How did you come to work with Sagefrog Marketing?

They were hired before I joined the company. I believe they were officially on board a month before I was. Because of that, we were able to learn from each other and grow from there. We’ve been able to accomplish so much over the past two years.

How much have you invested with Sagefrog Marketing?

We have them on retainer and use them for a number of things every month. I worked on the agency side of things before I came into Core and started working with one client, and Sagefrog is definitely well aligned with everything that’s out there in the field. We actually get a really good deal with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2015, and the website was launched in August 2015. We started lead nurturing campaigns right away. What we were able to accomplish in two months was incredible. We continue to work with them.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Within the first five or six months, we saw an increase in our website traffic by 164%. The landing pages that we created have an 18% conversion rate. Our open rates for our emails has increased by 950%. Our click-through rate was a 400% increase. We increased our contacts in our database by 730% and qualified leads were up 600%. We were able to really clean up our contact database and increase our leads that were coming in through the website.

I have to directly report to my CEO and our board of directors and I remember Sagefrog coming along with me. I think I was only on the job a few weeks before we had to present to our board of directors, and they were extremely impressed and continue to be impressed. I believe that a few of them have other ventures of their own. It’s not their full-time job to be on our board of directors; they work for other companies. I believe that a few of them have actually enlisted in Sagefrog to help them with their businesses as well.

Before Sagefrog came on board, we didn’t do any sort of integrated marketing campaign, to be completely honest. I’m not 100% sure of everything that went on behind the scenes before I started there, but taking a look at some of the things we’d done in the past, everything is just so much more sophisticated now. It’s very clean, it’s very streamlined. It’s eye-catching. I think that Sagefrog is great to work with and I love working with them.

How did Sagefrog Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

What I like most about them is they are always available. Within working hours, if you send an email, you will hear back from them within an hour, if not less than that. They’re very on top of things. Even if it’s after hours, I can confidently depend on them 24/7 if I have any issues at all.

Are there any areas Sagefrog Marketing could improve?

I can’t think of anything. I know how the backend of an agency works because I came from that. It’s chaotic. Working with Sagefrog, I don’t see the chaos. They have their structure down pat. They are able to perform for their customers. They do phenomenal work. The results speak for themselves.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Head of Marketing Operations at a software company offering the only combined, one cloud solution for customers, employees and assets.

For what projects/services did your company hire Sagefrog Marketing Group?

We were looking to establish digital marketing, both paid and organic as well as generate new content

How did you select this vendor?

I have worked with Sagefrog at my previous company for many years.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

We were able to jump right in and get new content generated that matched our brand and create a foundation for paid advertising.

What was the team composition?

I work directly with the account management team, but also the digital marketing team.

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

We are working on creating lead generation and evaluating results. I have seen good progress towards our goals so far.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We have bi-weekly meetings to keep things moving forward and the constant movement is handled with ease.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are always professional, even when things get turned around and need to be revisited for performance.

Is there any area for improvement or anything that could have been done differently?

I would like to see some sort of portal or task management to show open tasks, files and status for internal updates on my end.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I the VP of Marketing for a Medical Apparel and Linen rental company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Sagefrog Marketing Group, and what were your goals?

We hired Sagefrog to updated our company messaging and website development

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

RFP process. Strategic thinking, creative development, account management.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Strategic development (2 months) Message development (2 months). Creative development for 360 degree communication (3 months)

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

5

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Increased website traffic, clickthroughs, lead capture and flow thru

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Microsoft project. Weekly phone calls. Very accessible for questions.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Strategic thinking. Creative development and execution. Account management. Very proactive and responsive. The agency drives value and maximizes our budget.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No