A global energy management and residential electrical solutions company was preparing to launch a new circuit breaker product designed for modern residential applications, including HVAC systems, EV chargers, pool equipment, and other high-demand residential loads.

The product had a strong technical foundation and clear internal rationale. It was built for a market where residential electrical demands are changing, code requirements are evolving, and contractors are being asked to support more complex home power needs than ever before. Their team needed to turn that technical value into a message electricians, contractors, distributors, and channel audiences would actually understand.

The launch team had several potential product benefits to emphasize. Each had a role in the product story, but it was not yet clear which benefits would resonate most, which required more education, and which claims could create confusion if framed the wrong way.

Before going to market, the company needed to validate its assumptions with the people closest to the work. They needed to understand how electricians would interpret the product’s value, what language felt credible, what pain points were most urgent, and how the product should be positioned across sales, channel, packaging, and education materials.

&Marketing was brought in to conduct voice-of-customer research that could pressure-test launch messaging, clarify the strongest path forward, and help the team move into launch with more confidence.

&Marketing’s Approach

&Marketing designed and conducted a voice-of-customer research initiative focused on understanding how electricians think about product adoption, code changes, installation challenges, nuisance tripping, diagnostics, and breaker selection.

The work included 21 structured phone interviews with electricians across multiple U.S. regions. Participants included both company-provided and independent contacts, giving the team a broader view of how the market understood the category and where messaging could gain or lose traction. The research was designed to answer several critical launch questions:

• Which product benefits matter most?
• How familiar is everyone with upcoming requirement and code changes?
• What language feels clear, credible, or confusing?
• How do they evaluate new technology?
• What objections or adoption barriers could slow market acceptance?
• Which applications should be emphasized in launch messaging?
• What information would help them understand the product faster?

&Marketing analyzed the interviews to identify recurring themes, pressure-test internal messaging assumptions, and translate electrician feedback into practical recommendations for launch strategy, sales enablement, packaging, and channel communications.

Results

The research gave the launch team a clearer, more practical path for bringing the product to market.

&Marketing found that electricians were less motivated by technical innovation on its own and more focused on code compliance, reliability, fewer callbacks, and practical jobsite value. That insight helped shift the product story away from feature-heavy language and toward messaging that connected the technology to real installation and service concerns.

&Marketing’s voice-of-customer research gave the launch team a clearer, more defensible path to market before the product entered a high-stakes launch window.

The work helped the client move beyond internal assumptions and understand how electricians actually evaluate new products in the field. Instead of relying on the way the product was described internally, the team gained a customer-backed view of which benefits were most compelling, which claims needed more explanation, and which messages could create confusion if they were not translated into more practical language.

The research also clarified the messaging hierarchy for the launch. &Marketing helped the team distinguish between the product benefits that should lead the story, the supporting points that could strengthen the case, and the technical details that needed to be simplified for sales, channel, and education materials.

Just as importantly, the work surfaced potential adoption barriers before launch. The client gained a sharper understanding of where electricians might need more education, where skepticism could emerge, and how messaging could better connect product innovation to real-world jobsite priorities.

As a result, their team walked away with:

• A clearer, customer-backed messaging strategy for launch
• Stronger language for sales, channel, packaging, and education materials
• A better understanding of which product benefits mattered most to electricians
• Practical guidance on how to translate technical differentiators into field-relevant value
• A sharper view of potential objections, education needs, and adoption barriers
• Greater confidence that the launch story was grounded in buyer reality, not internal assumptions

The project helped the team move into launch with greater confidence, stronger customer-backed messaging, and a clearer understanding of how to position a technical product in a mature, code-driven category.

If your team is preparing for a product launch, entering a new market, or trying to turn complex technical value into messaging buyers actually understand, &Marketing can help.

The post Voice-of-Customer Research Sharpens Product Launch Messaging appeared first on &Marketing.

A Global Fortune 500 energy and technology company is facing massive industry disruption due to the rapidly changing AI boom that is both changing their business and reshaping their product offers and strategic focus. Their global CMO was concerned they might be assuming they were winning simply because they are a massive, established industry authority and they have a formidable competitor making considerable “noise” in the industry (through PR, product launches, events, etc). He needed a clear perspective to understand the landscape and a roadmap on where to focus resources.

In a category (and a digital landscape) being redefined by AI, fast-moving competitors can gain ground quickly. Leadership wanted an unbiased third-party view of the full competitive landscape to pressure-test assumptions and answer questions like:

• Where do we truly stand vs. the fast moving competitors shaping this category right now? (their existing benchmarks were largely internal)
• What does “good” look like today in a world where performance is changing quickly across SEO, AI search, paid, and fragmented channels?
• Who is building real category authority (not just brand awareness), and how?
• What should we track quarterly so we can see shifts early and act decisively?
• What content should we be creating that will be found via online search and resonate with our target decision makers?

They wanted a credible baseline and an executive-ready view of the landscape—both globally and by country — that is clear enough to guide decisions, and structured enough to refresh quarterly.

&Marketing’s Approach

We designed a foundational competitive benchmarking SEO and AI Search model that translated a complex digital landscape into a consistent, trackable view of category performance and positioning.

Across five priority markets and a defined competitor set, we built an apples-to-apples baseline spanning:

• Category visibility: whether the brand shows up when buyers research the topic
• Messaging and positioning: how competitors define the category, what claims they lead with, and which proof points they use (partnerships, innovation narratives, outcomes)
• Content footprint: who is educating the market vs. only describing products, and the impact
• Paid presence: whether anyone is actively capturing high-intent demand with category-specific messaging
• Regional consistency: how the competitive landscape changes across regional markets

We packaged this into a report their executive team could make near real time decisions that included:

1. a benchmark framework built for quarterly updates
2. a clear narrative: what the market is rewarding, which competitor is shaping perception, and where the client is exposed or advantaged—across SEO + AI search visibility dynamics.
3. a roadmap of recommendations by priority, including a content calendar, messaging inputs by decision maker, and technical / website updates to simplify the user journey.

Results

This benchmark replaced internal assumptions with measurable, decision-ready data that surfaced several high-impact realities leadership could act on.

• A smaller competitor was consistently outranking the client on core, non-branded category online searches. In our tracked set, that competitor held the #1 position for 3 of the 4 highest-volume category terms, and top-three placements on the majority of the category terms we monitored, meaning they were becoming the default discovery brand.
• The client’s brand was most present in searches closest to purchase, but not leading at the moments that shape preference (earlier in the funnel). The client ranked on most of the tracked category terms, but frequently outside the top 5, where visibility and click-through fall off sharply and buyer impressions get set by whichever brand appears first.
• The benchmark revealed real leverage the client can capitalize on quickly. The client already has strong proof points (capabilities, innovation story, ecosystem credibility); the issue was making those proof points discoverable and cohesive within the buyer journey.
• Category-specific paid competition was essentially absent. Across the competitive set, estimated category-specific paid activity was minimal, even though several category terms carry $5+ cost-per-click—a rare indicator of high-intent demand with minimal bidding pressure.
• Leadership gained a way to measure visibility quarterly. The team left with a repeatable scoreboard tied to category visibility, message consistency, and competitive momentum—so they can spot fast movers early and respond before gaps widen.

The impact: This client gained category-specific clarity on where they’re winning, where they might be exposed, and where to aim both their strategy and tactics to own this growth segment in an increasingly AI-altered landscape. They are currently in the process of implementing our roadmap of content, website, and localization recommendations, the results of which we will continue to track in future projects.

Want to know if a focused competitor is passing you by in the category you’re betting on next?

&Marketing’s competitive benchmarking approach gives you an executive-ready baseline, a repeatable quarterly scoreboard, and a clear roadmap for building category authority in a world where SEO and AI search are rewriting the rules.

The post Quarterly Competitive Analysis of Category Leadership in an AI-Shifting Market appeared first on &Marketing.

A long-established, mission-driven supplier with over $100MM in annual revenue serving highly-regulated stagnant institutional markets was seeking new paths to overcome flat growth with the long term aspiration of growing the business by 7x. Leadership had targeted one of the largest and most attractive categories but lacked confidence in where real opportunity existed.

Internally, the organization had developed market sizing and share estimates that suggested meaningful upside. However, the market had no syndicated data sources, so those estimates were built on partial data, legacy assumptions, and fragmented sources, which were difficult to validate or reconcile. The internal hypothesis was that the internal market sizing estimate was off by at least 20%.

The leadership team faced several unresolved questions:

• What is the true size of the market—and how is spend actually distributed?
• How much demand flows directly to institutions versus through indirect channels?
• Where does the company genuinely over- or under-index relative to competitors?
• Which factors truly influence contract wins and losses?

Without a defensible market view, the organization risked misallocating resources and pursuing growth based on incomplete assumptions.

&Marketing’s Approach

&Marketing was engaged as a strategic consulting partner, tasked with bringing rigor, transparency, and insight to a market clouded by complexity and incomplete/incorrect data.

Rather than starting from scratch, the team took a challenge-and-validate approach by pressure-testing existing models, integrating external data, and documenting every assumption to ensure leadership confidence and internal alignment.

Key elements of the approach included:

• Market model validation and refinement: Existing market sizing and spend assumptions were tested against population data, consumption patterns, channel dynamics, and proxy markets to determine where models held—and where they broke down.
• Channel and consumption analysis: The team clarified how products are actually purchased and consumed, distinguishing between directly purchased items and indirect purchasing channels that materially reshaped market dynamics.
• Competitive landscape assessment: Competitors were analyzed across pricing, positioning, portfolio mix, and relative scale to establish where the client was advantaged, exposed, or competing on uneven ground.
• Decision-driver identification: Early customer and market signals were used to rank the factors that most influence purchasing decisions—moving beyond assumptions to evidence.
• Methodology transparency: All data sources, assumptions, and limitations were explicitly documented, enabling leadership to defend conclusions internally and act with confidence.

Project Results

The engagement reshaped how leadership understood both the market opportunity and the company’s true position within it.

1. A materially different market reality

• Total category size proved to be significantly larger than previously assumed – 2.5x the assumed market size
• Annual consumption per capita was substantially underestimated – it was actually double that of previous internal models
• Indirect purchasing channels were revealed to be almost double the direct institutional spend, reframing growth opportunities and potential risk

2. Clearer share and performance context

• The organization’s position in core direct markets was stronger than believed, making the client the number one direct supplier
• At the same time, key indirect channel providers were challenging market dynamics and stealing share from direct suppliers (including our client)
• Competitive pricing analysis showed that the client was being squeezed on pricing by large indirect suppliers who had scale and smaller direct suppliers who were lean and/or willing to absorb lower margins
• Channel communications from client and competitors were very similar, creating a sense of “sameness” in the market despite the client’s clear competitive advantages

3. Sharper strategic focus

• Leadership gained clarity on which markets and channels deserved focus, and which did not
• Decision-making shifted from assumption-driven to evidence-backed
• Growth planning for the following year was grounded in a defensible, shared view of reality

4. Immediately actionable recommendations/tactics

• The analysis uncovered approximately $25-40 MM in targeted sales opportunities, providing almost immediate ROI to the commercial team
• Further, based on customer insights, &Marketing was able to provide input to better communicate the client’s unique value proposition in the face of intense competition and a cluttered marketplace
• &Marketing also identified opportunities to improve operations, consolidate product offerings, and sell current products into the larger indirect channel – all focused on cost efficiencies and revenue growth

Most importantly, the organization moved forward aligned and equipped with a market perspective it could trust, explain, and act on. This work gave leadership a shared, actionable understanding of where the opportunity truly lies and how to pursue it.

&Marketing’s consulting practice exists for moments like this: when the stakes are high, the data is fragmented, and leadership needs insight. If you’re facing a similar inflection point, let’s have a conversation!

The post Category Market Analysis Drives More Confident Growth Decisions appeared first on &Marketing.

Business Challenge Summary

Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, SuiteHop found itself at a critical juncture. While the events industry company had managed to recover from the halt in business during lockdowns, its growth had slowed considerably. Founder and CEO Todd Lindenbaum recognized that the experience had left him operating in a defensive, protectionist mindset that was holding the company back from pursuing growth opportunities.

The company needed strategic marketing leadership to restart its stalled-out growth engine, but as a small business, it faced resource constraints. With no dedicated marketing leader, the existing marketing team lacked the strategic guidance to execute growth initiatives.

Todd considered several solutions. Traditional marketing agencies had proven unsuccessful in the past, as they typically focused on commission-generating activities like paid advertising without developing a deep understanding of SuiteHop’s business model. Meanwhile, hiring a full-time CMO was financially unfeasible for a company of their size.

The Fractional CMO model was the ideal option, offering access to senior-level marketing expertise without the overhead of a full-time executive. “Being able to get some of a CMO’s time and all of his expertise made the most sense,” Todd noted. This approach aligned with his goal of maintaining profitability and stability while pursuing growth.

&Marketing’s Approach

• Expert Matching Process: SuiteHop received profiles of five pre-qualified Fractional CMO candidates through a streamlined matching process. After reviewing the candidates, one Fractional CMO’s background and experience immediately resonated with Todd, and an initial conversation confirmed he was the ideal fit for SuiteHop’s needs.
• Data-Driven Strategy Development: Their new fCMO kicked off the project by analyzing their business data. Using these insights, he developed detailed recommendations that formed the foundation of an 8-12 month growth strategy. The practical approach focused on breaking complex initiatives into manageable, actionable steps.
• Strategic Planning with Implementation Support: The SuiteHop team didn’t just need high-level strategy, they needed hands-on guidance around executing that strategy. This included detailed direction for specific initiatives like their win-back campaign. The Fractional CMO’s step-by-step guidance and mentorship empowered the internal team with the confidence needed to execute strategic initiatives independently.

The Results

1. Strategic Realignment

A comprehensive SWOT analysis provided a fresh perspective on SuiteHop’s strengths and growth opportunities. They developed a clear, actionable roadmap focused on 2-3 key initiatives and implemented a structured growth strategy with defined execution steps.

2. Organizational Development

They successfully recruited and onboarded a new head of sales to rebuild the sales growth engine, empowered the existing marketing team through mentorship and capability building, and established clear processes for strategy execution.

3. Technology and Infrastructure

They’ve created a long-term strategy for leveraging SuiteHop’s technology platform to expand distribution channels and identified opportunities for website and backend application improvements.

4. Business Partnership Value

&Marketing’s Fractional CMO established a trusted advisory relationship beyond a traditional consulting engagement, provided strategic thought partnership for the CEO during a critical growth phase, and delivered enterprise-level CMO expertise at a scale appropriate for the company size.

The post How A Fractional CMO Reignited Startup SuiteHop’s Growth Engine appeared first on &Marketing.

Business Challenge Summary

During the energy crises of the late 20th century, Entech’s founders engineered an energy-smart remote boiler control solution to cut down on the inefficiency of large-scale heating systems. Since then, they’ve continued to innovate, resulting in the most user friendly and precise temperature control system on the market. Today Entech’s controls are used by over 8,000 clients. 

As their leadership team looked ahead for new ways to grow their business, they realized putting a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (fCMO) at the helm could strengthen their marketing efforts and help them drive business in new channels.

Seeking a professional with experience creating and executing successful marketing across the entire sales funnel, they worked with &Marketing to select Heidi E., a CMO with a track record of building entrepreneurial divisions within companies from the ground up. 

The Solution: A Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy

With a positive brand reputation and presence supported by a well-designed website, Entech was in a strong position to optimize their marketing efforts. With an accomplished leader at the forefront of the strategy, they could create a more intentional and cohesive strategy to reach potential customers at all stages of the buying process.

Heidi E.’s first step was to develop a thorough understanding of Entech’s audience. She conducted internal interviews, reviewed what had been done in the past, and began building a marketing strategy that they began executing on in December of 2023. With Entech’s recent adoption of EOS and their highly driven and innovative team members, they’ve been able to achieve many individual project wins for the company.

The Results

The most critical win for Entech’s marketing strategy is the shift in thinking toward developing messaging validated by market research by allowing their customers to voice what’s important. 

As they’ve begun executing, with Erdmann-Sullivan’s direction the client has achieved several tactical wins to support the overall marketing strategy. They:

• Developed a cohesive content marketing strategy with consistent messaging across all channels that prioritizes what matters most to their audience. This strategy included a regular newsletter, a social media calendar, and a continuing schedule of engaging and informative blog posts and webinars.
• Redesigned the company website to speak directly to the pain points of the target audience, as well as the product features and benefits that they appreciate most. 
• Conducted the first ever client survey that brought in accolades from customers, helped them understand what customers most valued about their brand, and revealed that their monitoring service offering was well-loved and should be included in marketing messaging more prominently.
• Built the framework for a client success strategy aiming to expand their existing customer base by highlighting their highly-rated monitoring service and ensuring any at-risk customers are identified and supported. 
• Set the sales team up for success by creating competitive talking points, sales decks, collateral, and promotional campaigns to close more deals. The team meets regularly to pivot on their strategy and marketing materials as needed. 
• Provided a framework for future product marketing strategies/launches, including the company’s first ever pre-launch product webinar with accompanying content strategy, as well as a step-by-step repeatable plan for product launches.
• Embarked on their first programmatic digital advertising campaign focusing on reaching frequently traveling building owners and managers where they are most likely to get the message — on their mobile devices.
• Delivered a timely email campaign targeted at building owners who may face new difficulties due to local legislation, sharing educational information about the issue and explaining how Entech can help.
• Added trackability and accountability to projects with Monday, a project tracking tool, as well as ensured proper measurement and reporting of campaigns are in place to support continuous improvement.

Overall, Entech now has the framework and infrastructure to begin building on their strong brand reputation with a more impactful, focused, and strategic marketing presence. With an fCMO in place providing expertise across the entire sales funnel alongside a highly driven team supported by EOS, there’s no limit to the success this client can achieve. 

Looking for Help Creating a Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy?

Finding the perfect CMO is easy when you work with experts who vet, handpick, and recommend the best candidates by getting a deep understanding of your needs first.

Here’s how it works:

• We collaborate to define your goals and qualifications for the ideal fCMO.
• You choose from our network of 55+ experienced fCMOs.
• Your fCMO creates a tailored strategy, leveraging our marketing team if needed.

Ready to find your perfect match? Contact us today to get started with an expert fCMO.

The post Energy Control Experts Focus on Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy appeared first on &Marketing.

Model Match integrated a fractional CMO to implement a campaign for a new target market, generating a 56% increase in e-commerce revenue within the first 60 days of the launch.

Business Challenge Summary

Staying ahead of the curve in the mortgage industry requires constant innovation and adaptability. For Model Match, a company specializing in empowering mortgage professionals through talent acquisition and building referral relationships, the rapid changes in the mortgage industry posed a significant challenge. The company needed to evolve its business model to remain competitive and reach a broader market. However, this evolution required experienced marketing leadership—something they knew they didn’t want to invest in on a full-time basis.

The leadership at Model Match understood that their existing strategies would not be enough to capture a new, more diverse target market. They needed to rethink their approach entirely, from updating their branding and messaging to launching new technology that would resonate with individual loan officers, a segment that had been somewhat neglected in their previous outreach efforts. This need for change was clear, but without a full-time Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to steer the ship, they weren’t sure how to achieve their goals.

&Marketing’s Approach

Model Match turned to &Marketing, known for our unique approach to providing outsourced marketing expertise without the high overhead costs associated with big agencies or full-time employees. Our model is flexible, allowing companies like Model Match to access top-tier marketing talent and leadership without the commitment of hiring full-time. It was through this partnership that Model Match was introduced to Katie, a seasoned fractional CMO with a deep background in the SaaS industry. From there, we focused our approach on:

• Experienced Candidates: After interviewing several &Marketing candidates with extensive SaaS experience, Katie was on-boarded as their fractional CMO.
• Updated Website and Digital Ad Campaign: Katie led the development and implementation of a digital strategy, including website updates and an ad campaign.
• Customer Research: Katie researched the new target market, updated messaging, and determined an appropriate price point for single users (compared to their previous strategy).
• Launched New Technology: Model Match created new technology and approach targeting loan officers.

The Results

The impact of Katie’s leadership and the strategies implemented by &Marketing was significant:

1. Seamless Integration: Katie integrated into the team effortlessly, participating in important meetings and working closely with the executive team.
2. Increased E-Commerce Revenue: The new branding and digital campaign generated a 56% increase in e-commerce revenue within the first 60 days of the launch.
3. Increased Customer Base: As a result of the successful new marketing campaign, Model Match has continued to rapidly grow its customer base and increase its market penetration.

The post Marketing Strategy for SaaS: How Model Match Increased Revenue by 56% appeared first on &Marketing.

Premier Roofing Company leveraged fractional CMOs to rapidly establish a marketing department, generate significant leads and revenue, and transform company culture from door-to-door sales to a multi-channel marketing approach.

Business Challenge Summary

Premier Roofing, a PE-backed company, faced the challenge of increasing revenue quickly under new CEO Luke Marklin. The mandate was clear: achieve rapid growth and scale operations efficiently. The company needed to establish a strong internal marketing team. Transitioning from a traditional door-to-door sales strategy to a comprehensive multi-channel marketing approach was essential for achieving their ambitious goals.

Hiring a full-time Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) through a typical executive search process would take 4-5 months—time Premier Roofing didn’t have. They required immediate expertise to drive their marketing strategy and execution.

&Marketing’s Approach

After engaging with &Marketing, Premier Roofing realized fractional CMO services would provide a faster, lower-risk solution. This approach allowed them to quickly build a marketing team and start executing their new strategy through:

• A Quick Hiring Process: In less than four weeks, two fractional CMOs, Andrea and Bruce, joined Premier Roofing. Andrea took the lead in building the marketing team, while Bruce focused on developing their digital marketing foundation.
• Customer Research: Andrea and Bruce conducted extensive customer research to inform upcoming branding changes and ensure the new marketing strategies aligned with customer needs and preferences.
• Multi-Channel Marketing System: A robust multi-channel performance marketing system was developed from scratch, transitioning Premier Roofing from reliance on door-to-door sales to a diversified marketing approach that included digital, social, and traditional channels.

The Results

1. Integrated Seamlessly with the Leadership Team

Andrea and Bruce became integral members of Premier Roofing’s leadership team. They attended key meetings and collaborated closely with leadership and staff across the company, ensuring alignment and buy-in for the new marketing initiatives.

2. Increased Lead Generation and Revenue

The new multi-channel marketing strategy generated hundreds of new leads per month. Premier Roofing projected a significant revenue increase, estimated at $3-5 million for the year.

3. Experienced a Cultural Shift

The company experienced a cultural transformation. The sales and operations teams embraced marketing-generated leads, adapting to new processes and ensuring they could handle and convert the influx of new leads effectively.

The post Premier Roofing Company Transforms with Fractional CMOs appeared first on &Marketing.

Clozetivity Southeast PA is a recently launched custom closet franchise company that needed to produce new leads at a lower cost per lead. The client needed help generating more awareness to get in front of prospective buyers using a mix of social media and paid digital advertising. Knowing that content and SEO take time, Clozetivity Southeast PA needed to expand the ways they could target the market to generate awareness and leads more quickly.

Solution

The client turned to &Marketing to supplement their digital approach with a traditional marketing tactic, targeted direct mail, using Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) by USPS. EDDM strives to make direct mail more efficient and targeted by allowing you to select routes based on specific audience parameters: 

• Route: City, Rural/Highway, PO Box
• Residential or Residential AND Business
• Age
• Average Size of Household
• Average Household Income

Not only does this ensure mail pieces are seen by the right people, but at an average price of mailing that is less than a postage stamp. Users are responsible for the printing and delivering of the mail pieces to the post office, but the USPS does provide listings of certified available printers to use for both guidance and physical printing (see here). Mailings currently cost as low as $0.189 per piece (postage). 

After designing two different postcards to A/B test, Clozetivity Southeast PA partnered with PrimoPrint to print 6×9 postcards, select the routes of the audiences they were targeting (residential, high average household income, ages 25-55), and deliver the printed pieces to the USPS for delivery.  

Is direct mail marketing still effective?

Direct mail marketing maintains its effectiveness when strategically implemented, offering tangibility, personalization, and targeted messaging that can create memorable interactions. Although it can be more cost and time-intensive, direct mail stands out in less cluttered physical mailboxes, potentially building trust and capturing attention.

The integration of direct mail with digital strategies, alongside careful tracking and measurement, can enhance its impact. However, its success depends on various factors including the industry, audience, message quality, and design.

Direct Mail Marketing Results

After sending about 12,700 highly targeted direct mail pieces for $5,700, Clozetivity Southeast PA received four high-quality leads from Postcard A, two of which led to sales of over $10,000. This led to a Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) of 351%. Additionally, Clozetivity generated brand awareness among roughly 6,000 potential buyers. Though Click Thru Rate (CTR) was low (0.18%) by industry standards, the conversion rate was extremely strong (17%). This can be attributed to the brand being unknown and the testing of the creative pieces sent. As Clozetivity Southeast PA continues to improve its awareness online through digital advertising and content, the brand will use the lessons and success from this direct mail test to further expand reach.

What is the average return on direct mail marketing?

The return on investment (ROI) for direct mail marketing can vary widely depending on various factors such as the industry, target audience, quality of the mailing list, design of the mailer, and the offer presented. However, to give a general idea, the average “return” or response rate is anywhere from 0.5-2%. The exact ROI is going to depend on the type of campaign you’re running and what action you ask your recipients will take.

It’s important to note that this is a broad average and actual returns can be significantly higher or lower based on the specifics of the campaign. Well-targeted and well-executed direct mail campaigns have been known to yield ROIs much higher than the average, while poorly executed campaigns could result in a loss. To learn more about direct mail campaigns and decide whether they might be a tactic you should integrate into your marketing strategy, reach out to our team!

We’d love to learn more about your challenges and how a coordinated marketing approach might help take your organization to the next level.

The post B2C Closet Company Combines Digital Marketing With Direct Mail Marketing to See Big Results appeared first on &Marketing.

RB Solutions is a B2B point of sale software service, focusing on the pool and spa and chimney and hearth industries. In late 2019, RB began looking to further its overall awareness in the marketplace and generate leads to advance new business initiatives. More specifically, RB wanted to improve their SEO and develop a longer-term content strategy. At the time, RB already had a blog in place, but they believed those posts were not being leveraged effectively or seen by enough target decision-makers to drive leads. They needed to drive more brand awareness and get more eyes on their content and unique industry offering.

The &Marketing team worked with BUDDI AI to quickly understand our technology platform and develop messaging based on data and Business Intelligence. During this time of rapid growth for our company, they found a way to harness the power of our own data and leverage it to get in front of the right audiences and decision-makers. This directly impacted our ability to more than double our lead generation goals in less than three months.

Solution

&Marketing’s SaaS Marketing Approach

Based on the challenge of an insufficient SEO and keyword strategy, &Marketing provided a full Business Intelligence Analysis in order to create a detailed roadmap that would lead them to gain more traction and recognition online within their industry. This analysis outlined the following:

• Competitive keyword strategy for SEO, content, digital advertising, and social media
• SEO/keyword analysis to identify words and phrases for focus and to:
  • Identify technical SEO opportunities (i.e. page level SEO)
  • Inform SEO opportunities for content (long tail keywords or ‘people also ask’)
• Digital competitive landscape for key terms (traditional and nontraditional competitors)
• Opportunities to differentiate within the competitive landscape
• Monthly reporting and analytics set up with Google Data Studio and Search Console for monthly analysis and tracking (focused on traffic, SEO, and goal completions)

Based on our Business Intelligence Analysis, we created a monthly content distribution strategy, mapping it on one central calendar, to help grow their brand awareness. The calendar featured SEO optimized content, including thought leadership articles, testimonials, an eBook, a microsite, infographics, etc. to be created and distributed through multiple channels.

We enabled them to lean in on thought leadership, positioning themselves as experts in their field through the use of various pieces of content. Each month we provided two blogs and an email in order to help increase consumer engagement and awareness. This allowed them to compete better against online retailers sharing similar keyword search markets, creating an opportunity for RB to take a bigger share of the online share of voice within their industry.

Results

As a result of these actions, RB saw significant increases in their digital presence, awareness, and overall goal completions. We saw the following outcomes:

• Goal completions increased from 235% in entirety
• 2019 to 2021 – 235% growth in lead gen
• 2019 to 2021 – 100% increase in organic traffic
• 2020 —> 2019 – 25% increase in traffic
• 2020 —> 2019 – 6% increase in organic traffic
• 2020 —> 2019 – 204% growth in lead gen
• 2021 —> 2020 – 27% increase in traffic
• 2021 —> 2020 – 88% increase in organic traffic
• 2021 —> 2020 – 10% growth in lead gen

Are you facing challenges of your own in your SaaS marketing?

&Marketing can help improve your organic SEO strategy and increase your brand awareness through a combination of a comprehensive Business Intelligence (BI) Analysis and robust content marketing plan.

BI helps us get smarter about the strategies and tactics we choose, and how we execute them. It also enables us to demonstrate marketing ROI. Contact us to learn more.

The post Using Organic SEO to Increase Brand Awareness in Saas Marketing appeared first on &Marketing.

After purchasing a local franchise of a nationwide professional cleaning company, our client was disappointed at the quality and quantity of leads she was getting. When it came to figuring out how to promote a cleaning business, her goals were clear; however, she wasn’t sure how to get there. She enlisted the help of &Marketing to figure out how to stretch her digital advertising budget to successfully market a cleaning business in a way that generated qualified leads that turn into recurring business.

Prior to working with &Marketing, all ads were managed through the national head office. This over generalized approach led to sub optimal corporate-managed landing pages. Additionally, because they were managing at a national level, the ads were extremely broad and not necessarily in line with the needs of the local market. Unfortunately, local optimizations were impossible because the corporate office did not enable franchisees to access their Google Ads account, nor were they willing to segment their approach to be more inline with local markets. This meant our client had no control over the messaging being served to her target audience on behalf of her franchise. This resulted in a frustrated franchisee who knew her ads could be performing better but didn’t know how to work around the limited options.

The &Marketing team worked with BUDDI AI to quickly understand our technology platform and develop messaging based on data and Business Intelligence. During this time of rapid growth for our company, they found a way to harness the power of our own data and leverage it to get in front of the right audiences and decision-makers. This directly impacted our ability to more than double our lead generation goals in less than three months.

Solution

&Marketing’s Cleaning Business Marketing Approach

We started by transferring all the franchise’s Google Ads accounts to one our client could access. We then recreated and optimized the ads by building an SEO-optimized landing page with clear CTAs, along with the addition of implementing a call tracking system to make it possible to see which ads were resulting in leads. We then created ROI/ROAS models to track clicks, leads, conversions, and close rates.

We used these metrics to drive recommendations for:

• Weekly optimization of Google Ads based on local performance
• SEO optimization for landing pages
• SEO optimization for franchise landing pages (to be delivered by each franchise to franchise corporate marketing)

&Marketing’s analysis of the existing corporate-managed Google Ads account and historical data revealed significant opportunity to optimize the franchise’s Google Ads and local SEO performance by implementing the following on an ongoing basis:

• Reducing or re-allocating ineffective Google Ads spend
• Implementing a call tracking system to eliminate incoming SPAM or wrong-number calls
• Improving technical SEO
• Model and optimize Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) to ensure the total spend is leading to inbound leads and incremental revenue by optimizing cost per click, conversion rates, and close rates.

After pouring over the data and figuring out a way to work around the initial limitations, the answer was clear – the best way to market a cleaning business is to run targeted Google Ads with locally-optimized SEO. The results speak for themselves.

Results

As a result of these actions, our client saw significant increases in lead generation quantity and quality and reduced wasted ad spend. Results included:

• Overall positive Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
• 34% increase in form fill-outs
• 57% increase in conversion rate
• 28% increase in calls
• 80% increase in non-branded conversions

Wondering how well your ads are optimized for the best return on spend or concerned you might be missing opportunities for new leads? We’d love to walk through your approach to learn more about your challenges to identify how we may be able to offer concrete recommendations to guide your ad strategy.

Are you facing challenges of your own in your food and beverage marketing?

We’d love to learn more about your challenges and how a coordinated marketing approach might help take your organization to the next level.

The post &Marketing Case Study: How to Market a Cleaning Business to Generate Leads appeared first on &Marketing.

Cello Cheese is a growing brand of specialty cheese that strives to make the category of specialty and artisanal cheeses exciting and accessible to all. In the summer of 2020, Cello Cheese underwent a brand repositioning with the goals of increasing in-store sales, growing brand awareness, and increasing their distribution via an enhanced digital presence.

Cello Cheese had a clear vision of what they wanted for a new and improved website, but they needed food and beverage digital marketing experts to develop and implement an integrated digital marketing strategy that included an upgraded website, focus on SEO, better content, and consistent email marketing.

The &Marketing team worked with BUDDI AI to quickly understand our technology platform and develop messaging based on data and Business Intelligence. During this time of rapid growth for our company, they found a way to harness the power of our own data and leverage it to get in front of the right audiences and decision-makers. This directly impacted our ability to more than double our lead generation goals in less than three months.

Solution

&Marketing’s Food & Beverage Marketing Approach

Based on these challenges, &Marketing proposed a two-phase approach to accomplish these objectives:

1) Move all content to a modern WordPress site, with a chatbot functionally and a front end builder to allow future content updates to be made internally by Cello employees. This also included updating the messaging and layout by applying our Storytelling & Branding framework to provide a strong foundation, improve navigation and consumer experience, raise engagement levels, and improve SEO.

2) Create new content targeting Cello Cheese’s target audiences via a
monthly content distribution strategy (accompanied by a content calendar) to grow an active
online community based on data, audience, and market research.

After successfully migrating Cello Cheese’s website from SquareSpace to WordPress, we started phase two with a full Business Intelligence analysis. This work included:

• Recommendations for adding keywords to web page titles, descriptions, URLs, and on-page content to improve SEO.
• Identifying highly searched non-branded keywords to incorporate in new content.
• Identifying opportunities to differentiate Cello Cheese within the highly competitive digital landscape.
• Setting up monthly reporting with Google Data Studio and Search Console for monthly analysis and results tracking.

Based on our Business Intelligence analysis, we created a monthly content distribution strategy, mapping it onto one central calendar. The calendar featured SEO optimized content recommendations as well as content topics to highlight Cello’s expertise and position them as category thought leaders. This included creating SEO-optimized blogs and sharing them with their target consumers via email to increase consumer engagement and awareness, which served to also make Cello Cheese more competitive against online retailers sharing similar target keywords.

Results

As a result of these actions, Cello Cheese saw significant increases in their digital presence, awareness, and overall goal completions. Results included:

• 215% increase in organic traffic
• 214% increase in goal conversion rates
• 98% increase in goal completions
• 262% increase in where to buy goal conversion rate
• 128% increase in where to buy goal completions
• 48% goal conversion rate for email marketing
• 14% increase in pages per session
• 69% increase in average session duration

We built on this foundational work with ongoing support that included quarterly content calendar updates, drafting and publishing recurring content that touched all levels of the sales funnel, writing and designing a downloaded eBook, sending a monthly consumer email newsletter, providing content to update social media channels, and a sharing a monthly analytics report with insights and recommendations on how to improve and achieve their goals on a rolling basis.

Are you facing challenges of your own in your food and beverage marketing?

Want to learn how &Marketing can help you with your organic SEO strategy and overall website enhancements?? Contact us today to chat or download our simple go-live website checklist to support your DIY efforts.

The post &Marketing Case Study: Using Organic SEO to Increase Brand Awareness for Cello Cheese appeared first on &Marketing.

A cutting-edge healthcare technology company (BUDDI.AI), whose target audience includes C-level healthcare executives, was poised for major growth in 2021. However, they were playing in a fragmented competitive landscape that would require them to creatively “break through the noise” in order to build and maintain brand awareness, drive lead generation, and achieve tangible results. To become a true thought leader and partner of choice in the industry, they needed to enhance their digital presence.

Like many growing businesses, this client had neither the time nor the resources to hire an internal team to drive the level of marketing strategy and execution needed in order to achieve success. They also struggled with bringing an unknown concept to market and helping potential customers understand the value that it brings to their companies.

&Marketing’s Approach

Internal Discovery & Immersion

Due to the complexity and newness of the company and its product, a foundational “reset” was first needed, to create consistency and alignment within the company itself and ensure their positioning and messaging was delivered in a way that would resonate with their target audience. This discovery phase consisted of:

• A comprehensive review of backgrounding documents from the client
• Several internal stakeholder interviews and exercises
• Supplemental secondary customer research
• A high-level audit of competitor websites and messaging

&Marketing used this as fuel to build the following foundational outputs:

• Audience segmentation, customer research, and identification of pain points
• Brand voice and tonality/personality for each audience segment
• Value proposition and key message document, using our storytelling & branding framework
• The customer journey
• Alignment on success goals and KPIs (metrics)

Marketing Analytics

To identify digital marketing opportunities and create the building blocks for a comprehensive strategy and execution plan, &Marketing needed to first understand A) the target audience’s behavior online and B) the competitive digital landscape. To do this, we completed a full marketing analysis for this client to review and assess the digital online landscape:

• Keyword Striking Distance Analysis: Identifying top keyword opportunities based on current rankings
• Enhanced Competitive Analysis: Identifying competitor strengths and opportunities in which Buddi could steal their online market share
• Nontraditional Competitor Analysis: understanding where our target audience is going to consume information about our product/service that are NOT competitors.
• “People Also Ask” Research: Related online searches that may provide less expensive opportunities to rank or advertise for that reach our audience at each stage of the sales funnel

This research served as the building blocks for a future comprehensive strategy and execution plan that would include content, digital advertising, website enhancements, and SEO optimization.

Execution & Reporting

Discovery and Immersion combined with Business Intelligence data allowed &Marketing to create sophisticated, yet engaging content, automated email campaigns and highly targeted paid advertising on Google and LinkedIn helped to drive website traffic, lead generation efforts, and overall brand awareness.

Results

In four and half months, we helped BUDDI.AI generate 253 qualified leads at cost per lead of $121 – more than double their goal and all within their budget!

Additionally, we helped increase website traffic 434% compared to the previous period, furthering BUDDI.AI’s presence amongst the marketplace.

We continued to support this client as their business expanded with new products and audiences.A comprehensive marketing strategy was developed that included digital marketing, social media exposure, website and SEO enhancements, content creation, sales enablement, email automation, and a lead generation plan that expanded their brand awareness and accelerated their sales efforts.

The post &Marketing Case Study: Healthcare Digital Marketing Strategy Simplified appeared first on &Marketing.