Volacci

Introduce your business and what you do there.

E-MDs is a medical software company that produces electronic healthcare records and revenue cycle management. We market our services to medical providers like doctors who purchase our EHR record software. We had a fairly large two and a half-million-dollar marketing budget when we worked with Volacci. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Volacci?

One of the primary initial issues was our limited internal marketing team. We were spending too much money per month on PPC ads on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo at the time. We reached out to Volacci to help us compile a list of target keywords and improve our website's SEO. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Volacci has the best reputation in the country for Drupal consulting. They provide best-of-breed Salesforce integrations with forms and marketing automation. After starting this project, thoroughly reviewed the Drupal site we’d built just prior to our acquisition. The team migrated and analyzed lead data from websites, phone calls, or forms users fill out. Based on data analytics, they instated a more appropriate method of tracking and targeting sales leads. Follow-up and remarketing tactics kept our business top-of-mind for customers who had left our site.

Our SEO keyword strategy is aimed at our key consumer base. Since our strategy was provider-driven, our keywords focused on specialists like dermatologists or cardiologists. The team built numerous landing pages for different medical specialists. To hone this outreach, they ran A/B testing and crafted unique content based on additional market research. Having them manage that entire process was a huge time saver. After compiling these assets, they tied several email campaigns together with the marketing automation piece. 

What is the team composition? 

We worked directly with an account manager. 

How did you come to work with Volacci?

My company brought Volacci on board before I joined the marketing team. From my understanding, the reason they were hired was being locally based in Austin. We needed significant web support for SEO and PPC. As they continued to support our company, we expanded our engagement to include more tasks and give them some creative latitude. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested between $200,000 and $500,000 in total on this partnership.  On average, we spent about $5,000 or $6,000 per month for their SEO and PPC management. 

What is the status of this engagement?

This collaboration began in February 2008 and ended in March 2016.

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

Volacci demonstrated an excellent ability to think outside the box and implement creative and effective new methods.  Their suggestions brought in leads we may never have had otherwise. They crafted a more targeted and effective digital marketing and SEO strategy that increased our lead generation by about 55% and lowered monthly costs from $30,000 to $10,000. 

Having them as a partner streamlined our focus and brought in a considerable amount of leads at a critical time.  When meaningful use was running out, the EHR market changed dynamically. They used every innovative way possible to keep attracting market-qualified leads for our sales team. Their expertise with PPC and use of best-practice methods helped us achieve success.

How did Volacci perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager was skilled and organized. We usually held either weekly or biweekly meetings to review their takeaway and suggested next steps. During our long-term relationship, a resource usually came in-house every month or so to review our Google rankings and keyword results. They had useful tracking tools and quickly updated us via phone, email, or in person.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I most valued their rapid workflow. If we said we needed a landing page up by tomorrow, they'd have it done within 24 hours. They would move whatever pieces necessary around to get things done. Dealing with our company's indecisiveness as an internal team, some of those tasks got dropped until the very last minute. They were very open to moving their own schedule around to complete our work as fast as possible. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No on the whole; that's why I engaged them to a smaller effective at my current company. Even though we're most budget conscious, I was impressed enough to keep them on after I switched roles. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that as a potential customer, you do your homework. There's a ton of fly by night SEO companies that will reach out to you. As an executive, I get constant outreach from illicit companies that disappear right after they invoice. Find a team that will be there for the long haul, which is hard in the SEO/ PPC space. While price shopping is important, there are more important variables to compare and the cheapest option won't always yield the best result.