Welcome to a new series, the Client Chronicles. In the Chronicles, we will hear from Sapper’s finest Client Success Managers as they offer us a behind the scenes look at a client engagement. From strategy pivots to tangible results, we hope to offer a glimpse at the life of a Sapper client.
Onboarding
In December of 2019, I start working with a digital marketing agency that provides everything from SEO and paid search to conversion rate optimization and analytics. They wanted to build their sales pipeline and meet with more qualified prospects, hoping to achieve a consistent return on their investment.
Since I specialize in managing effective outbound email campaigns for marketing agencies, I knew exactly what we needed to do to make them successful. We guided the agency through Sapper’s streamlined onboarding process, including an onboarding call, content creation, custom targeting profiles, tech setup, and strategy development.
The Sapper tech team managed the setup of new email domain names for sending emails, creating inboxes to manage replies from prospects, setting up a platform to send the emails, and back end reporting tools to monitor progress.
Our content team wrote compelling copy for our email templates. These templates combine the agency’s unique value proposition with copy and subject lines that Sapper has seen perform well in previous campaigns with clients across many other industries.
Even though a digital marketing agency can do great work for almost any business, we built a strategy that targeted their most ideal clientele. Businesses that would benefit most from their specific combination of skills included prospect companies with a revenue of $1-250 million in consumer services and hospitality. We chose to target those who were experiencing the most pain from marketing obstacles while also having the power to make decisions for their teams; these included marketing, branding, and social media titles. Our list team curated individual prospects for the campaign, and in a matter of days we were ready to launch.
Until we weren’t…
After reviewing the initial email templates, the agency didn’t feel like the content we’d written aligned with their best features. We went back to the drawing board and implemented changes to the email copy. We leveraged our expertise to make sure the emails would still be high performing and effective without losing any of the details that make the agency so special.
In the end, we decided to create a location-specific segmented campaign. By leaning on local culture, we can help to remove skepticism or other barriers and create immediate rapport with prospects.
Strategy
After a few weeks of sending emails, the agency started to get a sense of our rhythm and a better feel for how our emails impacted potential customers. They gave us the green light to try any strategy we thought would work. We continued to tweak email copy and subject lines to create witty, value driven emails to intrigue prospects. By March, we were completely ramped up and seeing consistent meetings scheduled for the agency.
… enter COVID-19.
In March, no one really knew what impact COVID-19 would have on our economy, communities, or livelihoods, and expert forecasts of long-term economic impacts created uncertainty across nearly every industry. Our clients needed to know they could rely on their pipeline and keep their businesses afloat. At Sapper, we moved quickly to change copy and tactics for our clients so that the messaging would still land in the midst of extreme market disruption.
For this marketing agency, we shifted email content to include concepts of resilience, work ethic, and self-reliance. This positioning was specific to the culture of their geography and resonated. I also spent time brainstorming new ideas with them to expand our possible market. We created a new campaign that targeted smaller businesses at lower price points to gain wider traction. We focused on industries that weren’t hit as hard (some that were even thriving) in the current climate of COVID-19.
We also tried out a new “hook” to offer a free evaluation of the prospect’s current digital processes. A quick ‘pop of the hood’ for their digital marketing initiatives was an excellent low-risk, high-reward, foot in the door strategy that got the agency in front of the right prospects.
Results
Despite the turbulence of a pandemic, we managed to help create plenty of new opportunities and upwards of $24k/month in new recurring revenue. We consistently scheduled leads with qualified prospects to the point where we occasionally need to throttle back the number of emails we’re sending and book fewer meetings just so they can keep up with the workload and continue to deliver exceptional service to their clients.
Each of my clients is unique. We have a personalized relationship and a customized strategy to achieve specific goals. Regardless, my objective is always the same: to help you grow your business.
If you’d like help filling your pipeline with qualified leads, I’m confident we can get you there. Click here to learn more.
