Case Studies

Bottom Line

All marketers agree that messaging, collateral, and design are three critical components of any successful team - but if you asked those teams if they’ve ever set aside time to assess each aspect, you’d most likely hear crickets. It’s no secret that marketing teams often overlook this step because they’re measured on lead volume or MQLs. At all costs, the security of their job boils down to that. So, if that’s their measurement, why would they take the pedal off the gas for 3-4 months to test the messaging, personas, content, design, and sales collateral? Especially if they’re small and growing - a day not chasing MQLs is a day wasted. Right? No, not entirely. Marketing teams that take time to strengthen their foundational materials see (1) faster sales cycles, (2) better campaign targeting, and (3) better lead quality...simply put - more SQLs.

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Situation

To date, the company grew with a proven product and limited sales and marketing. They patched various marketing tasks together but never had a dedicated resource who could help out.

The CEO knew that to hit his growth goals, he needed to increase MQLs and demo requests month-over-month. He also understood that if he jumped into paid campaigns without reviewing messaging, collateral, and design, he wouldn’t get as high of a return from the marketing efforts.

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What

Before jumping in and allocating budget to demand campaigns, the team chose to verify their value proposition by vertical, build much-needed sales collateral for their new sales team, set a design standard that would elevate their brand in the marketplace, and update their website to reflect all that work. Focus areas included flushing out and revamping customer value propositions, case studies, brand updates, content strategy, keyword analysis, content calendars, website redesign, and the company’s paid campaign strategy.

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Key outcomes

• Marketing & Sales Collateral – We created a matrix that outlined all necessary collateral and organized it in a way that was broken down by vertical and value proposition. That way, the marketing and sales team could see what collateral already existed and what needed to be created.
• Brand – After the messaging was reviewed and validated, we improved the brand to better position it in the market. This included new graphics, typefaces, sales decks, one-pagers, and a new website.
• Demand – After all the foundational marketing projects were complete, we created campaign plans and a paid strategy that would set the team up with an easy to leverage plug-and-play outline.

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How

Always remember that these foundational marketing pillars are meant to increase the amount of return you see on your marketing spend.

To do this, make sure you are targeting the right customer verticals, the messaging is refined and disseminated to the sales and marketing team, important sales collateral is mapped out and created, and the brand is designed in a way that makes the company look bigger than it is.

A few things to consider in each stage:

Marketing and Sales Collateral

• Evaluate messaging across each vertical and make sure they’re highlighting your value proposition
• Audit your graphics against competitors in the market
• Map out which sales collateral you have and what you need. Consider:
• One-pagers
• Case studies
• BDR content
• Sales decks
• Testimonials and proof points
• Align your content strategy with your target verticals

Brand

• Assess the company’s brand, design new sales collateral, and migrate it to your website
• If your audience puts importance on review sites, evaluate your presence on them and develop a strategy to generate more

Demand

• Once messaging, brand, and collateral are all aligned, you’ll be better suited to turn on paid campaigns and generate more money in return