Waypost Marketing

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the marketing manager at Leadec, a subcontractor for manufacturing services. We handle anything large manufacturing plants don’t cover, including machinery maintenance and industrial work, so they can focus on their core business. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Waypost Marketing?

We recently had a shift in our target market and we were looking to get our name out there by focusing on branding and lead generation in the new markets. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Waypost Marketing handles our advertising — our partnership started with a discovery meeting so they could get to know us better and set us up for success. They then began to handle our keyword searches and all paid search ads, including Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads. 

They also assist with email strategy. This past quarter Waypost Marketing spearheaded an email nurturing campaign — they reached out to potential customers we hadn’t contacted recently to check if they were still interested in our services. We also have a quarterly newsletter that goes out to current and prospective customers, and Waypost Marketing helps us create content and put together the newsletter.

What is the team composition?

Doug (President) helped us with the project kickoff and I work with Danielle (Marketing Strategist) and Larisa (Demand Generation Analyst) on the day-to-day work. 

How did you come to work with Waypost Marketing?

I’d previously worked with another company and didn’t like them at all because they didn’t understand the manufacturing industry. I learned about Waypost Marketing at a trade show and I was impressed with their portfolio because their past clients were in a similar industry as my company. So, I hired Waypost Marketing because they seemed like a good fit and understood what we do and what we wanted.

How much have you invested with them?

At the beginning of the year, we signed a contract for $40,000, which comes to about $3,500 a month, but we’ve just added another $1,000 a month to our Q4 budget. That brings us to $45,000 total or $4,500 a month for October–December.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership began in March 2020 and it is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Before we started with Waypost Marketing, our advertising efforts had plateaued but since our partnership started, overall engagement has spiked. Specifically, our CTR for our paid searches, advertisements and email campaigns has increased. Our impressions on our LinkedIn Ads and paid search campaigns are also up. 

How did Waypost Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Waypost Marketing has never missed a deadline and while I am occasionally the roadblock to work being completed, they are good at reminding me to complete tasks on my end. They are very timely with deliverables. We communicate virtually through email and Google Hangouts calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s hard to find a company that understands our industry, but Waypost Marketing really understands our goals, who we are, and what we do. Waypost Marketing takes a huge burden off of me. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would suggest that clients devote time at the beginning of the project to get Waypoint Marketing up to speed on their company and ensure that Waypoint Marketing understands the client’s goals and industry because it will make the project easier. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the co-owner and vice president of Carolina Painting Company, an industrial painting contractor.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Waypost Marketing?

We wanted to advertise our floor coating services to be known in our location.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Waypost Marketing conducted a discovery process in person to showcase our options and understand our business’ goals and key customers. They are developing a website with smooth UX, executing content marketing strategies, implementing SEO best practices, and ghostwriting social media posts to optimize consumer’s interest. They observe users’ interactions with our site and redesign it to visually stimulate consumers. Their team is also organically growing our web presence through PPC and HubSpot advertising.

What is the team composition?

I work mainly with their content writer, but also with the owner and project manager.

How did you come to work with Waypost Marketing?

Our third-party IT service recommended them to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested between $100,000 and $200,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2015 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

When we had no exposure, one of our competitors did not believe our company to be a threat. Due to our new marketing optimization efforts, they now see us as a serious competitor.

Waypost promoted us to stand out and organizations now contact us for business in reference to our social media posts.

How did Waypost Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

We appreciate their responsiveness and communication that pushes us to keep up with their updates. Waypost contacted us through monthly meetings and was always available for requests.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their transparency and honesty allow us to see what we can change to improve. They provide their expertise and knowledge to improve your business. Ultimately, they allow you to make your own decisions but always present a multitude of options.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t see anything they could improve.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a family owned technology company, serving architects, engineers, and contractors. It is a four-part business. We are a reseller of Autodesk products, which is a 3D design software, and offer consulting, implementation, and support with the product. Our manufacturing division is very similar. We sell 3D design and 3D printing into the manufacturing space, and then we offer the same software support for our clients. Our DPS division is document and print solutions. We assess how businesses can reduce their number of copiers and prints. Finally, our fourth division is the color lab and its large format graphics, including trade show display and various graphics. I'm the Director of Marketing. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Waypost Marketing?

We are a traditional outside-sales business. We don't necessarily sell a lot online but we generate an enormous amount of leads online that are then turned over and closed by our sales team. Essentially, we needed to adapt to the way that people buy today. People want to be able to quickly find your company for whatever service or product they may need, and Waypost Marketing helped us do that.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we started with our website and condensing our content. Having so many pages where the content always needed to be updated was too difficult. Waypost Marketing helped us go from about 400 pages to around 100, and made the content about each of our products clear and concise. Simplifying our sitemap was a huge step, as well as improving the website's navigation. They made the content visually appealing and created appropriate calls to action to guide people to a different section or product.

Once we had the website where it needed to be, they started to manage our Google Adwords. Waypost streamlined that process, and it has really helped in a number of areas of our business. They help us with two of our divisions in AEC and manufacturing. Every week our engineers post a technical blog for each of our AEC and manufacturing divisions and then Waypost will use our blog articles that we create as social content. Additionally, they will also create blog articles that help us rank for a SEO. We will come up with the topics, and they will make the article or the title of the article is catchy. They will write the article by interviewing the experts within our organization to complete it. We rely on them to do the keyword research.

They also help a little bit on the 3D printing side with social media. They make sure that the posts are consistent and done multiple times with different messages, and ensure that the hashtags, the links, and the calls to action are all consistent. They also do our press releases and publish them across various channels, which has been huge.

They will do small campaigns from time to time. If there is a new product release from one of our vendors, they will set up the campaign for us. We also bought HubSpot, and Waypost Marketing is a Hubspot partner. With their help, it has been very easy to track how much we’re spending, tie it back into our CRM, and determine how much each campaign brings in and how much each campaign cost us.

How did you come to work with Waypost Marketing?

We were not ranking on Google and we also knew that one of the main reasons was our website. I googled ‘'digital marketing firm Greenville South Carolina' and Waypost appeared first. Their website was very simple and clean. They offered exactly what I needed, but I figured that if I wanted to rank on Google then I needed to find an agency that was ranking on Google.

They were also one of the few that we talked to that were very programmatic. A lot of marketing firms just give you a blanket number of how much it cost for the year or the quarter, but I wanted action items for each month. I appreciated knowing that these are the items that I'm getting at the end of each month, and how much it was going to cost me. I also knew that with Waypost if I wanted to get reach my goals faster, I could always bump up to the next contract. It was just a very simple program and it has worked great.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend around $7,800 every month with them.

What is the status of the engagement?

We started working with them in January of 2016 and the collaboration is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of their work has been excellent. We consistently judge everything by new opportunities created for our sales team. We strongly believe that if this marketing is generating opportunities that the sales team can potentially close then we're doing our job. Our leads goals have been met, which in turn, allows us to meet our opportunity goals, so that our sales team have deals to close. Waypost has met it consistently since we've been working with them.

How did Waypost Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

It has been good. We have an account manager and we have a monthly meeting to go over the results from the previous month and then the plan for the next month. We communicate daily via email and then we just have the one meeting face to face each month. We regularly speak to four people in total on the Waypost team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Waypost gives you a timeline and the action items for the month, and then we go through those that have been completed. They also work within our budget. A lot of firms that I've worked with in the past try to push you to do more to grow your budget. In contrast, Waypost has been very diligent about working within our budget and sticking to the program, which I appreciate.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m 1 of 10 attorneys at a law firm that represents injured residents and small businesses across South Carolina. I’m in charge of our marketing efforts.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Waypost Marketing?

We were getting little work, referrals, or clients from our website. We wanted to increase and enhance our web presence. This was the first time we’ve worked with anyone for that purpose. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Prior to working with Waypost, our web presence was limited to a website. We had no social media presence or dynamic content on the website. Waypost analyzed our website and identified several improvements that could be made in order to generate relatively quick gains in our SEO. We needed to add some metatags, labels on images, etc. They also focused on developing dynamic content for the website, primarily in the form of blog posts to enhance our SEO traffic. We’ve also launched marketing initiatives on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Google Plus.

Once we had the first phase of our plan in place, we wanted to be more proactive in our marketing efforts. Waypost developed a dedicated Google AdWords campaign for our personal injury practice and general law practice. They also developed and implemented a display ad campaign that’s currently live. We experimented with a few targeted ad campaigns focused on local events in our area such as the Colonial Cup and Carolina football game. Waypost was 100% responsible for the keywords and AdWords program.

Is your target market local or national?

Most of our practice is focused in South Carolina. However, we have a veterans’ disability practice area team that represents clients across the United States and even overseas. This project focuses on South Carolina and our potential clients, but it indirectly affects our potential reach as far as nationwide clients.

What other features did they add to your site?

They added pages to cast a wider net as far as SEO returns. They were responsible for streamlining some of the navigation on the website. We collaborated with our graphic design team to get some additional landing images on the website that we can cycle through. They also created an email newsletter that we release every month to all of the clients in our database.

Were the blog posts created collaboratively?

The blog posts have been more collaborative. They write the posts, but because of our ethical rules and the nature of our business, all the content has to be approved by an attorney. I’m responsible for that, so I have to review and edit the content to ensure it’s consistent with South Carolina law, depending on the topic.  

How did you come to work with Waypost Marketing?

I found them through a web search. I knew that I wanted a company that would enhance our web presence and open more leads. I figured if I could find a good company using a relatively basic web search, they must be taking care of their own business efficiently. I wanted to work with someone in South Carolina. Based on my search results, I reached out to 3 vendors and requested proposals. I was most impressed with Waypost’s proposal as far as the level of detail and professionalism that they offered. It was really customized to our business and our needs.

How much have you invested with Waypost Marketing?

In total, we’ve paid between $90,000 and $100,000. Our first contract was $40,000 for the first year, and then we moved to $50,000. Our annual cost for 2017 is $54,000. That includes our contract with Waypost as well as our digital marketing coordination platform, which was a key addition to the package. They connected all of our digital marketing efforts via HubSpot.

What is the status of this engagement?

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

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our intake numbers for 2016 compared to 2015 increased by 26.8%. Our internet referrals increased by 2.5%. Those numbers are even better this year. When we first started working with Waypost, we had just over 1,000 visits in a month. This past month, we reached 3,400, which is more than a 3.5x increase.

I think the social media presence is probably stagnated right now. We recently launched some paid advertising through a targeted campaign on Facebook, so that may bump up some of those numbers. Most of our followers are other attorneys, and we do get some referral business from other attorneys, but only a few clients are following us on social media. I think that’s probably going to be an upcoming growth area.

There’s very little engagement with the blog posts. I think they still have value as far as the way they impact our SEO and keywords. But, as far as direct engagement with clients, we’ve seen virtually no results.

How did Waypost Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re incredibly organized. I was impressed by how professional they were in the proposal, and their project management has been just as professional. I’ve enjoyed working with the HubSpot platform as well, which they recommended. We have monthly chats on Google Hangouts.

What did you find most impressive about Waypost Marketing?

I appreciate the personalized plan they develop for each client.

Are there any areas Waypost Marketing could improve?

I don’t know enough about the sector to be able to answer that.