How One Agency Creates Strategic Client Relationships
Highlights
- Better tracking of client behaviour
- Optimized client reporting
- Improved client relationships
Introduction
Top Draw is a successful marketing agency that got its start in 1993. To be in business for over 20 years, Top Draw adapted as client needs changed and technology evolved. Today, Top Draw is an internet marketing agency providing a breadth of services including website design and development, search engine optimization (SEO), Call Tracking solutions, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) management, authority building and more.
Problem
Top Draw’s ability to evolve as an agency has been the key to their success. They promote “creative online solutions that deliver measurable results” and, over the years, the definition of “measurable results” has changed. It was time to re-evaluate what “results” were being delivered to their client base.
For the past 15 years, “measurable results” were defined by acceptable industry standards that included the basic email campaign performance metrics like open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribes and others; websites were evaluated on the number of web page visits, sessions, bounce rates, time on site and more, and social media success ranked on the number of followers and shares.
Top Draw understood that, while historical metrics are still important today, marketing is evolving to where more value can be delivered to clients. If Top Draw were able to leverage the latest in technology to deliver value to their clients, they would create strategic client relationships that would retain clients while increasing and growing their business.
To create strategic client relationships that would retain clients while increasing and growing business.
Solution
The solution required that Top Draw shift their definition of “results.” Great email open rates and lots of website visits were only part of a bigger solution. As a marketing agency, Top Draw understood that people move through a marketing funnel. By understanding how people are moving through the funnel, Top Draw could guide and nurture prospects into qualified leads for their clients.
The solution required Top Draw to collect both anonymous data (i.e. web sessions) and details about specific prospects’ behaviour and interests. This data would be used to move prospects through the marketing funnel with the end goal of delivering clients with a high-quality lead.
How they did it
There are hundreds—if not thousands—of online marketing applications on the market today. Top Draw needed to evaluate the applications that would help them achieve a strategic client relationship. It quickly became evident that, while there were many well-qualified applications to get the job done, it would require a number of disparate applications working in unison to create a manageable solution. The problem was that applications didn’t work together seamlessly.
The solution was to move to an integrated marketing platform. An integrated marketing platform is a marketing application that manages and executes both online and offline campaigns, tracks all campaign activity and maps the activity to specific contacts, is able to identify when a contact becomes a lead, and finally, reports campaign and marketing performance metrics.
Top Draw turned to ActiveDEMAND—an integrated marketing platform designed for marketing agencies. With ActiveDEMAND, Top Draw was able to easily begin tracking specific contact behaviour and activity on their clients’ website. Built-in features such as ActiveDEMAND’s extensive Call Tracking solution also allowed Top Draw to track and report on clients’ offline print and display campaigns. Using ActiveDEMAND’s campaign functionality, nurture campaigns were created and executed to help nurture contacts into leads. These leads were then delivered automatically to clients for sales follow-up.
The ability for Top Draw to deliver qualified leads to clients was only a small part of the overall solution. The bigger element was Top Draw’s ability to effectively communicate the value their clients are receiving. To do this, Top Draw uses the full funnel tracking capabilities of ActiveDEMAND to clearly identify which Top Draw campaign each month’s client wins originated from, and how Top Draw’s efforts are continually providing value. The emails are branded with Top Draw so that clients are regularly reminded of where the leads come from. Top Draw also uses the built-in reporting templates to deliver highly detailed performance reports to clients on a regular basis. ActiveDEMAND supplies the data in an easy-to-understand format that highlights the value Top Draw provides to each and every customer.
Results
Top Draw has been able to accomplish what they set out to do—create strategic client relationships. ActiveDEMAND has been instrumental in delivering more value to clients—this not only makes it tougher for clients to look for a different solution, but Top Draw is generating additional revenue for integrating and using ActiveDEMAND to deliver their clients’ marketing programs.
About Top Draw
Top Draw is a web design and internet marketing agency that identifies and creates online opportunities. Through expert analysis, inspired design and proven search engine optimization strategies, Top Draw builds websites that generate leads and sales.
