Straight North

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of customer care at an asset control solutions company. We manufacture and sell key management products to car dealerships, apartment complexes, hotels, jails, and other institutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Straight North?

We’re a small company of about 25 people, so digital marketing is an area in which we don’t have any expertise. We outsource this work to keep our web presence up-to-date and running smoothly. We’d been working with another company for several years, but they weren’t performing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Straight North maintains our organic SEO. They make sure our web pages have relevant content for our desired search terms on Google so that clients can seek us out. The team monitors all of our web forms; if someone fills out a contact form on our site, Straight North validates it and provides reporting. They also help us with some basic web editing.  

Straight North created and continues to maintain our PPC ad campaigns. Right now, they’re running a specific search campaign for a tradeshow that we’re doing soon. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve probably worked with 5–6 people over three years. When the partnership began, we had an onboarding specialist. Since then, we’ve worked with account managers, who serve as our main point of contact when we need something.

How did you come to work with Straight North?

I’ve met with Straight North since they began working with my company, but I wasn’t involved in seeking them out. A former employee at my company who maintained our e-commerce store took on the task of finding a partner. Straight North came highly recommended. My company vetted 3–4 other companies and, after initial meetings, felt that Straight North was the best option to help us with our SEO and PPC needs. 

How much have you invested with them?

My company has spent somewhere in the range of $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Straight North in 2018, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Compared to our previous provider, Straight North has been a big help in increasing our SEO and PPC presence. 

There are two things that we feel puts them above the rest. First, they have a dedicated portal that we can log into at any time. We can see our results in real time; we don’t have to rely on getting an email with results once a month. That was something we weren’t expecting, but it’s been great to have. Second, for someone such as myself who’s not familiar with the SEO and PPC industry in general, it’s hard to verify what’s actually being done. Straight North does a good job of providing monthly updates and relaying what tasks they accomplished on our website or blog sites. They give us quantifiable information that we can look at and see that they’re actively doing stuff to keep us high up in search engine results.

How did Straight North perform from a project management standpoint?

They seem to do very well. They’re easy to get ahold of. For the specialty things we’ve done outside of scope, such as the work for the tradeshow, they’ve been very responsive. They meet deadlines and do what they say they’re going to do, so we’ve been very pleased.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Even though they’re a national company, they’re very personable and make us feel valued; we’re not just another client in their portfolio. They’ve always been willing to have us come to their office, and they come to us when we need them to. Getting that personal touch goes a long way for us as a small company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wouldn’t say so at this time. Before, we went through a few different account managers, but our most recent contact made the effort to come out to our facility, look at our equipment, and learn our business. That was something that we felt was lacking for a bit, but they made up for it, and we’re really appreciative of that.

Any advice for potential customers?

It’s easy to lose track of their work and just assume that they’re doing everything, but it’s important to stay engaged. They make it easy to do so through the portal, which provides tons of great metrics and reports. You need to look at the portal on a regular basis so that you can learn how it works; this is how you’ll get the most out of their service. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We have 2 companies. One manufactures teeth whitening products and the other offers invisible aligners direct to consumer. I'm the CEO of both.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Straight North?

SEO for one of the companies and PPC management for both companies.

What were your goals for this project?

We were spending too much money and not converting enough on PPC for both companies. We also wanted to rank higher in the organic results for the aligner company.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

They sounded like they really knew what they were doing. They said all the right things.

Describe the project in detail.

We had a kick-off call. Then they proceeded to do basically nothing for the next month on SEO. They couldn't even get tracking code set up till around 30 days later when this should have been the first thing. On the Adwords front, they were doing a bunch of non-sensical things. They had told me they do single keyword adgroups, but they basically kept the same limited number of adgroups we already had.

What was the team composition?

I talked mostly to the project manager, who I don't think had a clue of what was going on most of the time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It seemed like they did almost no work, at least nothing of value. They did make a lot of changes to our Adwords accounts, but they didn't seem to make any sense nor did they seem to provide any improvements. It seems like they were making random changes that they couldn't explain or rationalize.

In one month of SEO all they did was put up 6 links in directories, which are worthless as far as SEO goes. Anyone can do that. That's ALL it seems they did as far as SEO. Not a single link anywhere that would provide real link juice. Not a single link in a good blog or anywhere other than those 6 useless, lowly ranked directories.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was really difficult to have effective communication with them. I don't think the project manager had a clue. After I started complaining and showing them that they didn't have a clue, I finally talked to one of the senior managers, but I think he left the company soon after I proved to him that they were doing either no work or useless work. I assume he was fired for the lack of performance they were providing.

After that, they put me in touch with one of the Partners, who said that he was very disappointed with my email explaining all their shortcomings, and he even offered to keep working for free till the middle of September (2 additional months of work for free), but I told him that the people they had working for them didn't have a clue and that I thought it would be a complete waste of time. They never refunded me anything.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Nothing, except maybe their sales skills in suckering me into hiring them. In my opinion, they are a bunch of con-artists that charge you and then probably do a minimal amount of work each month. Beware!!!!! I believe all the good reviews they have are from people that don't know anything about SEO or PPC.

They will show you reports and give you info that make it look like they are really helping, but from my experience, and I have a lot of experience dealing with SEO and PPC firms, this company cannot provide services that are worth anywhere near what they charge. Also, it is my understanding that they appear so high in the results on Clutch because they pay to have that sponsorship position in their listings.

Are there any areas for improvement?

They could try doing what they put in their SOW and what you pay them for.

Company Responses

The vendor responded on January 17, 2020.

Thanks for your review of the services that we delivered nearly one and a half years ago. While we appreciate your candid feedback, we disagree with a number of your accusations. We are sorry that we were not a good fit for your company.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a digital marketing manager at a Canadian flooring, rug, carpeting, and window covering company. We sell our products online and in stores.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Straight North?

Over the last few years, we’ve taken our business online. At the end of 2018, we decided to start marketing online and reworking our website. We were starting from scratch because flooring isn’t really something that’s been sold online, so we didn’t have any industry standards to work against. We hoped that month-over-month, we’d be able to see some results and start to build goals.

When we hired Straight North, we were hoping that their SEO and SEM services would boost our online business and help us get leads for the in-store portion of the business. We hadn’t been happy with the performance of some SEM services we’d used previously. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Straight North fulfilled a one-year contract for SEO, SEM, and PPC services. 

What is the team composition?

We had an account manager that we were in contact with for SEO and SEM. I believe she mentioned that there was a team of content writers. For the PPC campaigns, we were in contact with the director of online advertising. 

How did you come to work with Straight North?

My boss hired Straight North, and I believe he did some research. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent closer to the higher end of $100,000–$250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

My company signed the contract for SEO and SEM in January 2019. We didn’t start online advertising until April because we were implementing the SEO changes that they suggested for our website.  

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Unfortunately, we were never able to project goals or set standards because the numbers just weren’t there. The results of the cooperation weren’t very good. The return on ad spend ended up being 0.05, which was extremely low.

Although we’re a Canadian company, Straight North set up our Google Ads account in US dollars. That messed up all of our metrics and added another level of complexity in trying to convert the numbers. Our ad spend was $120,000 CAD, yet our return on the ads was less than $6,000 CAD. They also Americanized a lot of our text and misspelled our company name twice in the first SEO document that they provided. When we mentioned the misspellings, they never fixed them.

We told Straight North that our top priority was growing the e-commerce portion, but they weren’t really able to do so. Although they got some leads, growing our e-commerce business was an area that they fell short in achieving. We also suggested that they build business profiles in Canada as part of our SEO efforts, but they kept building them in the US and even Europe. 

There were a lot of things that we weren’t happy with regarding Straight North’s SEO and SEM services. When we raised questions and tried to get an explanation, they didn’t provide satisfactory reasoning behind what they were doing. 

How did Straight North perform from a project management standpoint?

The account manager was good. She communicated well and answered the questions that she could. There were a lot of ongoing projects, so we shared a simple Google Doc so that both of our teams could see where the projects stood. Our account manager kept on top of those tasks. If we had a question, she tried her best to find the answer with the tools she had. 

However, I think the problem lay in the answers themselves, as they weren’t based on numbers or facts. The answers they provided were incomplete and didn’t help us understand what was happening. For instance, they ran ads with our URL varying between .CA and .COM. We didn’t have a .CA domain, and when we inquired why they were using it, they said they were testing it out to see how people would react. We still haven’t received the results of this test.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The relationship started well in terms of our confidence that they were going to perform based on the reviews we’d read about them on Clutch. We also liked the project manager. Beyond the good communication and the good reviews, we didn’t find any value in working with them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

In order to understand our specific business, Straight North needed to learn a lot, and I don’t think they ever really did that. They didn’t seem to understand the online and in-store portions of our business and how they needed to approach the two separately. 

Any advice for potential customers?

It’s always hard to find the right agency for you, but inquire and have in-depth conversations with them before you sign the contract. They should demonstrate that they really understand the business that you’re trying to bring them into.

Company Responses

The vendor responded on January 17, 2020.

Thanks for your review. We understand that you were happy with the quality of service that was provided by our Account Manager. However, it seems that you were not satisfied with the results of your SEO and PPC campaigns.

During the sales process, it was communicated to us and documented in the contract that your company’s main focus was to drive sales leads. As you mentioned, the reasoning for this was “because flooring isn’t really something that’s been sold online.”

Since March 2019, over 1,600 leads were generated from organic search. Since May 2019, over 740 leads were generated from your PPC campaign.

We feel we worked with you over the course of 12 months in a positive and mutually beneficial relationship. While you communicated to us that the results were not as successful as you had hoped, they were positive, showed return and were appreciated. We did everything we were asked and everything that was documented in our contract.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the digital marketing manager at Wastequip, an industrial manufacturing company operating in the waste industry. We manufacture a wide range of trash can sizes and the garbage trucks that pick up the trash. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, we have eight brands under that waste group umbrella.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Straight North?

Our eight brands had eight different platforms and we had recently purchased a company based in California that hadn’t updated their website in years. We needed help migrating these websites to Drupal and fixing our organic SEO.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Straight North is moving our websites to Drupal. Thus far, we have launched two and expect to complete two more in 2020. Drupal allows us more flexibility and searchability, as well as being easily optimizable for organic search. The Straight North team understood the importance of organic search and optimized our sites. 

What is the team composition?

I have had conversations with four members of the Straight North team, including a writer, a designer, and a project manager. 

How did you come to work with Straight North?

I had done a lot of research into companies that worked with Drupal and sent out an RFP. After speaking with multiple companies, I recieved a word of mouth referral for Straight North from someone who had heard good things about them. We had two initial conversations before we decided to work with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested $40,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Straight North began in July 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have successfully migrated two sites to Drupal and our search ranking is better than our old site by far. We’re looking good for 2020, with two more sites to come. My main point of contact at Straight North has been phenomenal in guiding this process, making it enjoyable and easy to get through. They were able to cross out a lot of things I was specifically looking for,

How did Straight North perform from a project management standpoint?

The project went smoothly. In our initial meetings, they outlined the schedule of the project, which they’ve stuck to. My project manager was incredible and responsive. She was always there when I needed an answer. She and I would have weekly meetings to follow up on our progress. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Straight North is really easy to work with, it’s been a very simple process. They’re receptive to changes and understand that at the end of the day we know the content best. They take our feedback seriously.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One area they could improve is integrating a tracking tool for project management as opposed to tracking changes through paper documents.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Follow the schedule and be prepared. If you’re not prepared, you’ll be playing catch up. Make sure you’ve got your ducks in a row before you engage with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive for a software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Straight North?

We reached out to Straight North on behalf of our client. They’re in a very competitive market, so our objective was to improve their SEO.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our key metric was improving domain authority, so Straight North launched a link building campaign. They provided a six-month statement of work and outlined the process. They were supposed to build backlinks from reputable websites by creating contributed content for external blogs.

They also had their own dashboard that pulled information from Google Analytics and provided a list of backlinks they’ve created. They also helped develop onsite SEO practices.

What is the team dynamic?

I had a primary point of contact for the majority of the campaign, but I’ve spoken with 4–5 people throughout the project.

How did you come to work with Straight North?

I found them online and they were highly rated on Clutch. There’s a difference between SEO for a startup versus a large corporation, so we needed a team with enough resources to support the project.

I contacted a few companies, but Straight North was the only company that responded in a timely manner. I’ve worked with other SEO companies in the past, but they didn’t have the resources to work on a project like this.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $30,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in June 2019 and we plan to terminate the contract soon.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

After working with them for two months, we hadn’t received the major deliverables that were outlined at the beginning of the project. We did receive a few smaller deliverables, like links to sites with weaker domain authorities, though. I reached out to my main point of contact to express my concern, but there continues to be a delay.

For what our client is paying them, we expected the quality of their work to be better. Their team seemed to copy and paste text from the website for the content they were producing. As a result, the content was awkwardly written. Anyone could have done that. There was no quality control.

I provided feedback, but nothing I suggested was incorporated into this particular project.

On top of that, their team is more focused on building backlinks than increasing domain authority, which is our primary objective. I guess they want to increase traffic to the site, but we’re not aligned on what we need to get done.

How was project management handled?

Our primary contact did the best she could, but we needed a project manager to really direct the project. There were a lot of individuals working on different things, but they weren’t strategic and didn’t control quality.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They do have the resources they need to support a project of this scale, but don’t have the necessary skills to market themselves as SEO experts.

In what specific areas can they improve?

With proper leadership, like hiring a new SEO director, they could improve their effectiveness.  For now, though, the way they represent themselves is misleading.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

I would only use them in a strict marketing capacity.

Company Responses

The vendor responded on January 17, 2020.

Thanks for taking the time to leave your review. From our discussions with you, it seemed that you were happy with the quality of our copywriting work with regards to your product category pages along with the content asset and content-based links that we built for you. However, you were not satisfied with the timeliness of our service delivery.

We are confirming that 100% of the campaign deliverables are complete per the scope of work detailed in our contract. We apologize for the delay in completing work by the end of each month. To make things right we have offered to refund the last monthly payment for your campaign.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I handle marketing and online advertising campaigns for Sycamore Hills Dentistry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Straight North?

We were previously using a dental-specific SEO company and we weren’t happy with their cookie-cutter marketing. It was too generic for us. We wanted somebody who could bring a more personalized approach to our account and get better results.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They overhauled our website, working on content and optimizing pages for SEO. They redesigned the pages and the flow of the site, including updating all images. Other services included keyword analysis and ran PPC campaigns.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Natalie (Project Manager, Straight North) as my main point of contact. She handled everything with my website.

How did you come to work with Straight North?

I used to do marketing for another company and they used Straight North. I knew of their reputation and I was always impressed by the quality of their work and the personal attention they gave to each client.

How much have you invested with them?

We started working together in August 2019 and the engagement is ongoing.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve spent $10,000–$25,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’re driving traffic to our website and we’re moving ahead in PPC results and keyword searches. They bring a lot more to the table than our previous vendor.

How did Straight North perform from a project management standpoint?

Most of my communication has been with Natalie, and she’s always exceeded my expectations for managing our account. She makes sure I know what’s going on. Any issues have always been resolved very quickly.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Having worked with other agencies before, I’m really impressed with Natalie’s handling of our account. Whenever I talk to someone else at Straight North, they know who we are and what we’re trying to do. They’re personable and they make sure we know they care.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Find an account manager who’s really good at communicating with you and keeping you on the same page. We didn’t have that with other companies.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of Sol Green Homes. I flip houses; essentially, I am a real estate investor.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Straight North?

I was looking for a marketing company who could do paid ads on Google.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We discussed everything over the phone. They said they would set up new landing pages for me and do all the research about my business. According to them, it would take them two weeks to set up all the campaigns and initiate them.

Actually, it took more than four weeks, which was the first red flag for me. I sent several emails asking about progress and when they would be starting the campaigns. We kept going back and forth and they said they were working on it. At some point, I sent a final email letting them know it had already been more than four weeks, and that, at that point, I was considering hiring someone else so I could get ads running by the end of that week. It still took them another week to actually start running the campaigns.

In my initial call with the sales representative, they said they would run ads on both Bing and Google. I am a small business with a limited budget; I wanted to start small and asked them to focus on Google to start. Although I am not sure they ran ads on Bing, I am sure they ran ads on Google. They gave me access to the Google Ads account so I could see what was going on.

What is the team composition?

I worked with a sales representative initially, and, after I signed a contract with them, I was assigned an account manager and a customer care manager.

How did you come to work with Straight North?

I started searching for a reliable company with great reviews. I began my search on Google, and I knew about Clutch and found Straight North through the site. I wanted to hire a company that could do PPC and Google ads, but additionally SEO and Facebook ads in the future. Their profile mentioned they work with small businesses like me, with lower budgets in the beginning.

I contacted them, as well as two other companies with similar competencies from Clutch. Straight North seemed to be more flexible with their terms and I decided to go with them. The other two companies didn’t follow up or there were other reasons I decided not to go with them.

How much have you invested in them?

In total, they charged me around $2,100. It may not seem like a lot of money, but considering they charged me that amount and wasted two and a half months, it was. Someone with better expertise may have done the job better, and I maybe would have made some more money during that time.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May–July 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

They ran my ads for about a month, and for that entire month they set up a few ad groups and campaigns in one account. I had around 1,000 impressions, and 42 clicks. The click-through rate was 3.86%, and the conversion rate was 7%.

There were certain types of audiences they had to focus on rather than only driving traffic from people who wanted to sell their properties. All the conversions they brought me were irrelevant. Most of the leads who converted were people who wanted to sell their houses faster, and, in return, they had to sell at a cheaper price so I could sell it, fix it up, and make a profit.

How was project management handled?

They did communicate and were responsive to my emails, but when it came to fixing those things, most of the time they didn’t agree with me. Although they have experience managing Google Ads, from my standpoint, I know my business better and I gave them suggestions of what might work best for my business. They just kept doing what they were doing.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

One positive thing was their communication. When I would reach out to them, they would reply the same day, if not immediately. They scheduled calls so that we could discuss things.

In what specific areas can they improve?

For the money I paid them, they didn’t put in enough effort to fix things in the campaign. They just ignored most of the suggestions that I gave them to improve the performance.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

It seemed like they have quite a few staff members, and they should be doing great business if they have that many people working for them. I would suggest for people that are considering working with them to find out if it is worth it for a small business, especially if you don’t have a big budget to spend per month. Maybe a small mom and pop company that will put more effort into your campaign would be better than a large marketing company like Straight North.

Company Responses

The vendor responded on August 21, 2019.

Thanks for your review. It seems while you were happy with the level of communication our team provided, you were not satisfied with the time it took to build and launch your new PPC campaign along with the performance that was produced in just over one month.

Regarding the timing, the contract that you signed clearly stated a 17-business day timeline from the kickoff meeting to campaign launch. Our team delivered this in 20 business days. There must have been a misunderstanding on this, and we apologize for the three-day delay.

In response to the performance, PPC campaigns require data to be collected in order to make strategic decisions that allow us to improve the performance of your campaign over time. In 36 days, your campaign garnered 87 clicks and 8 leads. Unfortunately, at your monthly budget, this short timeframe did not allow for adequate data collection, which would have enabled us to make larger-scale changes to improve future campaign performance.

Please note that nearly 50% of your total investment went into building out a new PPC campaign that you now own. You are free to manage the campaign yourself or hire another firm to manage it for you.

We are sorry that we did not deliver on your expectations. In order to make things right, we decided to release you from a legally binding contract and the associated billing one month early.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive VP of a national recycling company. Our business handles recycled paper, plastics, and metals. We provided services throughout the US, operating our own network of plants in addition to brokering recycled products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Straight North?
 
We were looking for a vendor that could rebuild our website, which hadn’t been updated since 2011.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We tasked Straight North with creating a brand new website that would allow us to grow as a business. Our main goal was to obtain new customers, so the platform needed to be mobile-friendly. 

As for the content, we wanted to highlight who we’ve become as a company by integrating more interactive graphics. They also set up the on-site SEO for our target keywords and developed off-page SEO strategies. But, we haven’t gone live with those yet because we wanted to see how the first two months after launch would go.

What is the team composition?

We interacted with 3–4 people in total. There was the initial salesperson who pitched Straight North’s services. From there, we were assigned a project manager and a writer, who became our main contacts across the process.

How did you come to work with Straight North?

We were looking for firms in the Chicago area, and one of my personal contacts happened to mention Straight North. After interviewing a few companies, we felt the most comfortable with them. They truly understood what we were trying to accomplish, and, personality-wise, we meshed very well with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

The bulk of their redesign work lasted from January–July 2019. The goal, now, is to implement their SEO strategies over the next few months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t have any feedback yet because we’re less than two weeks into going live. However, in that short timeframe, we’ve definitely received leads more consistently than before. They did a fantastic job ensuring the site is easy to follow. It now more accurately represents who we are and helps portray our message quickly.

How did Straight North perform from a project management standpoint?

The team was easy to deal with. We had face-to-face meetings, and they were timely in their responses and willing to listen to our comments and questions. We used web conferencing tools to visualize what had been done. They did a very nice job of explaining the rationale behind doing one option instead of another.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciated how they worked with us as we tried to make something specific to our company. They acted like a partner that was willing to listen to what we truly wanted instead of pushing their own agenda.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we were very pleased.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients should voice whatever questions they may have. If things are going a certain way, just ask for an explanation—there’s usually a good reason why.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was updated by the client on January 14, 2020. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since the website’s launched in Early August 2019, we’ve seen a nice uptick in the number of visits to our site as well as the number of requests from potential customers and suppliers. We’re also getting positive comments on the look of our site. It’s professional, easy to follow, and impressive overall.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What’s impressed us the most is their timeliness when responding to our concerns. They’ll sit down and have a conversation with us to explain why something was done a certain way. And, as we all agree, they’re then able to assist us with making any changes that we might not have realized during the first iteration.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?
 
Make sure you ask questions so that you understand their rationale. At times, you might not see why something needed to be done a certain way—maybe certain pages were linked together or some other detail. Whatever the reason, don’t be afraid to ask any questions you may have.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the VP of marketing and digital strategy at Technical Solution Holdings. One of our portfolio companies is a leading provider of controlled environmental testing and certification services. They serve a variety of industries, including hospitals and healthcare, laboratories, pharmaceutical manufacturing, academic and animal research, and biotechnology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Straight North?

We initially engaged Straight North to develop a new B2B lead generation website that would be integrated into Salesforce. This would optimize the leads and allow us to score accordingly in Salesforce Pardot. Now, we continue to use them for digital optimization, SEO/PPC, and lead generation support. 

What were your goals for this project? 

The goal of the project was to deliver a best-in-class B2B website that brought in new customer lead generation. We wanted to have the platform integrated into Salesforce along with a user-friendly portal where we could track key performance indicators (KPIs) and lead generation metrics. We also needed to deliver an ROI on lead generation and track the original traffic source. In the end, we wanted to be able to duplicate the structure and strategy of the final model for other companies within our holding company portfolio. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found Straight North through a recommendation and vetted them with our statement of work (SOW) deliverables and lead generation strategy. Our CEO, president, and I oversaw the selection process. 

Brian (Senior Account Executive, Straight North) was the pivotal reason we chose Straight North. We had a lot of back-and-forth with him, and he brought in their web design and SEO/PPC teams for additional dialogue and strategy review. Straight North’s key differentiation was their methodology, transparency, lead validation, and real-time reporting. 

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Our previous site was nonresponsive and had broken links. The load times were terrible, and the trust and citation flow metrics were not good. Straight North was responsible for building out our new B2B site, collaborating with our team to integrate it into Salesforce for lead generation.

Since then, we’ve expanded their role to include digital marketing services (e.g., SEO, SEM, PPC). The team supports us on keyword research, site map updates, internal links, backlinks, and content creation. They’ve also given us access to their proprietary analytics portal called GoNorth Reporting. It provides real-time reporting on KPIs and lead metrics on traffic and SEO/PPC along with form lead details and phone lead recordings.

What was the team composition?

The team structure has been consistent throughout the engagement. Ann (Senior Project Manager, Straight North) acts as our account manager for web design, and Courtney (Account Manager, Straight North) is our lead for SEO/PPC. Both work with our project manager who coordinates with our subject matter experts (SMEs), senior management, and digital team. For ongoing support, we rely on their digital director.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve been very satisfied with the success we’ve seen in just over five months. We continue to see month-over-month (MOM) traffic growth and double-digit new lead generation customer conversions.

As for the website, numerous customers have complimented on our efforts. The site’s hierarchy allows our customers to move through our pages at a comfortable cadence. In addition, they’ve recognized the new content on our services, and we’re seeing more success when upselling additional services to existing clients.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our internal project manager works with their two account managers. During development, we had a very detailed timeline and expectations on deliverables.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We are in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, nanotech, and medical device industry space, so our services are very technical. Despite the complexity of our field, we’ve been impressed by Straight North’s patience and professionalism when creating content for such niche topics.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, I can’t think of anything. They did a great job and continue to do so for our PPC, SEO, digital optimization, and lead generation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the marketing manager of a construction company specializing in residential home remodeling in the Chicago area.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Straight North?

We engaged Straight North to make design and development updates to our website and manage our PPC and SEO campaigns.

What were your goals for this project?

Through this engagement, we hoped to increase web traffic to an updated website. We wanted to present ourselves better to our targeted audiences.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We initially met with Straight North in 2013, but we decided then that they were not the best fit for our company. It wasn’t until several years later that we became unhappy with our current website and the company managing our SEO. At that time, I reached back out to Straight North to see if we could strike a deal.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We’ve relied on Straight North to improve our website’s design and functionality. Further, they currently conduct keyword and backlink analysis as part of their ongoing management of our PPC and SEO campaigns. They also create search-friendly content for our website to drive additional traffic.

What was the team composition?

We initially met with a salesperson who presented Straight North’s services. Once we signed a contract, Straight North dedicated a project manager to our account along with a web designer, a content writer, and an SEO/PPC specialist.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Our online traffic has increased by 30% since the launch of our new website. We’ve received compliments about the site’s design from our team and clients alike. We are currently working with Straight North on SEO strategies that will include targeting specific locations and utilizing our blog section.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Olivia (Associate Project Manager, Straight North) ran the website update project very well. It was helpful only to have one point of contact. She was responsive and personable. She held her team accountable and made sure they were making progress toward our goals. They met all of our deadlines and regularly followed up with us to gather feedback.  

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed by their process. Straight North presented a thorough plan that mapped out all meetings and deliverables. They proved that they were prepared. We have a similar approach to projects with our clients, so to see that commonality was very reassuring.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I can’t pinpoint any areas that need improvement. So far we are extremely satisfied with our new website and Straight North’s performance with our other projects.