Steal my strategy: How I market a marketing company

At Done By Nine, my marketing company, we’ve just hit the three-year mark. So today, I want to share with you the top marketing tactics that I’ve found the most useful to market a marketing company. On this quickfire episode, I’m going to give you an understanding of what’s worked well for us and how you can also implement similar marketing tactics into your marketing strategy.

Hi, my name is Jordan McFadyen. Welcome to the Marketing Mindset podcast. This podcast is designed to challenge both you and I to always be reassessing our marketing tactics and to help us move away from random acts of marketing and start to use tactics and new ideas to help you build a more long-term marketing strategy.

And today’s podcast topic is really all about us, but it’s not just about us and our story, but it’s also around how and what type of marketing tactics we’ve found the most useful to get to where we are today. So just a little bit about us. Done By Nine, we kicked off in 2020. I’ve got a background in media and digital marketing well before that as well. Kicking off with a media career working for New Zealand-based media organisations, including NZME and MediaWorks, working on air on radio stations and behind the scenes and promotions and marketing.

It was around that time where the internet was, this is going to make me sound really old, isn’t it? But it was around that time where the internet was really becoming that source of video content and audio content. And so radio stations at the time, they were starting to adapt, they were starting to change and think about how they can reach new audiences online. So this is when podcasts started to become popular. Videos were becoming very popular, building the websites for the stations, and they became their own entities and their own teams. And so it became its own strategy and its own kind of core part of what we were doing in the station.

So not only just working on air, but working behind the scenes with the promotions. Obviously, back in the day, there would be all the radio station giveaways out in the streets and things like that. But on top of that, we were also starting to think about how we can develop our online presence. That’s when Facebook started coming around and started being really popular, really showing my age now. And how we could start to use tools like Facebook to be able to help publicise and find new audiences. So it really kicked off there.

After I went travelling and came back and did a bit more in the media space, I then stumbled into a role in a travel organisation. It’s based here in Taranaki, which is where I’m based now with Done By Nine, called International Volunteer HQ. And in that role there, I was working within the marketing team, and that focus on that team was digital. It was finding clients, and most of our clients and customers coming from the States, quite a few from Britain and the UK, Australia, and only quite a small portion actually coming from New Zealand, which is where the head office was based.

And within that travel company, I’d worked there for maybe six and a half, maybe seven years. And we worked with a lot of different strategies, our Google Ads, our Facebook ad strategies. We were looking at building up the website and the user acquisition, having a look at our conversion strategies, having a look at all the different types of tools that we could do to try and find our new customers. From video, we even started some audio and podcasting, as I’m still doing here today now, and even through to the actual product development, how we actually built that product to make it self-service and really easy for our customers to be able to do business with us and go and travel the world.

And I think that was a pivotal point in my career because it really opened up my eyes to the world of digital marketing. I was able to travel around the world and visit many different conferences like MozCon over in Seattle and Social Media Marketing World in San Diego, SearchLove Conference in London, to name a few. And they were, again, really pivotal because it was a chance to be able to learn from the best in the business when it came to digital marketing and social media.

And taking that experience is essentially how we started Done By Nine. It was at the time where COVID was beginning to become a real pain for everyone, as I’m sure you can remember back three years. And around March 2020 is when we launched Done By Nine, as the travel industry was putting a lot of pressures on the business that I was working in with International Volunteer HQ. And so I decided at that time it was time for a bit of a change, not knowing, of course, that we’re going to be going into a lockdown straight after that.

But I thought it was time for a change. And so I founded Done By Nine. But instead of just going out as a freelancer with my own name, I did have visions of being able to actually build a marketing company. So hence why I actually decided to start right from the get-go of developing a brand, developing a persona, developing a website, and developing a marketing strategy to actually help build up a brand.

And it wasn’t until probably around nine months into that journey that we actually started building out the team. The business was growing, and we just needed more team members to kind of help. At that stage, it was just me and my wife still working from home and building up this business. So around that nine-month mark is when we started to actually hire our team.

And if we fast forward today, obviously, three years into running the business, which we’re really proud about. We’ve been able to work with so many businesses that not only we’ve worked face to face with and actually implementing their strategies and working with them on their strategies, but also businesses that come along to our workshops, businesses that have viewed our webinars, and businesses that we’ve spoken to, well over 100–150 businesses that we’ve been able to impact in some way over the past three years, which has been a fantastic opportunity.

But what I wanted to reflect on today was not only about our story about how we’ve got to where we are over the last three years, but as we were sitting down doing a strategy day yesterday. So we brought all the teams. So we’ve now got a team that actually covers quite a bit of New Zealand. So we’ve got a team member based in Christchurch, a team member in Auckland, then our core zone here in New Plymouth as well. So we all came together in New Plymouth, sat down, had a bit of a look at the business, where we are, where we’ve been, where we’re heading to, all the processes, how we can make things better for our clients.

We had a look at our current marketing strategy, what tweaks we need to make there, having a look at our customer personas and reviewing everything around how we should be pitching ourselves and working as a unit in an organisation over the next 12 months as we kick into that third year. It was also a great chance to sit down and have a look at our processes, have a look at what we call our Marketing Blend.

And if you do work with the Done By Nine crew, you will know all about the Marketing Blend. The Marketing Blend is where we put all of the ideas and the tactics that we formulate as part of your marketing strategy, and is what we blend together each month to actually implement and track and analyse and build your marketing strategy.

And so the Marketing Blend is really important. So we’re having a look at how we can make sure the Marketing Blend is also working better for our clients so that it gives them more overview about what we’re achieving, what we’re doing, the ideas that we’ve got. And it means that our Marketing Blend is easily accessible and easily viewed from all members of an organisation, from the direct team members that we’re working with all the way up to board level or manager level, so that everyone has a holistic view about the impact that Done By Nine and our team can have on an organisation. So that was also a really pivotal part.

But I think the big thing for me was the strategy day in general really re-energised the way that we can look forward to what we have to come and some of the goals that we have for the business. But it also made me reflect on some of the things that have worked really well for us. And that’s essentially what I want to touch on here today as well, is just looking at some of those marketing tactics that have helped us get to where we are today.

And if I think about them now, and I think about me as a freelancer in those really early days of kicking off Done By Nine, the first thing that worked really well for us was building that brand and that presence online. And I think that’s really important. And so it’s really going through a bit of a checklist.

We’ve actually just run through a marketing strategy with a client who is launching a new kind of arm, a new product as part of their existing strategy. And the conversation came up about where do you focus first when you’re trying to launch? And one of the first goals that we’ve set for that client is really to build brand awareness. It’s really to make sure that people know you exist, they know what you do, who you serve, and that problem that you solve. And you need to start making a name for that business.

And I think that was the first thing that actually worked really well for us, is I was able to hack together a pretty, at the time, basic WordPress website. And that’s the thing I think the best thing for you to have a think about is what tools you have available in those early stages, but also just making sure that you are actually building that base that you can really use as your digital brochure, your digital home, so that people, when they do search for you or they look for you, they can find some information and they can start to really build that trust in you as an organisation based on what you can present online.

So that was the first thing. But when we actually built the website as well in those early days, I really tried to put as much focus into search engine optimisation as possible as well. People were searching for us and people were looking for us based on some of the other marketing that we were doing, which I’ll chat about shortly as well. But making sure that we had that home base so that people could actually contact us was really important.

And back in those early days as well, we didn’t get many enquiries through the website. Right now, we get quite a few of our enquiries, even if they are referrals, they’ll come through our website right now. There’ll be some that may contact me through email or other ways, but the majority is coming through the website. All of them that I spoke to would always reference having been to my website. “I liked what you had on your website and that kind of spoke to me”, or, “What you’re describing here on your website, that’s what I think that I need.” So those type of things were really important in those early days for us to even qualify our prospective customers at that time as well.

So that’s the first thing, is building up that website, but also really having a look at, and this is something that I still do now, is really auditing and looking at your online footprint. One of the challenges we had was I chose a brand name, Done By Nine, and I’ll tell you the story about how we come up with that brand name on another podcast. But essentially, Done By Nine was also and is still the name of an American band. So when you searched Done By Nine, sure, it was unique, but there was someone else that also was sharing that as a name.

Obviously, it wasn’t a massive issue because we don’t service clients in the States, but what we’ve been able to do, over time, is just make sure that any searches within New Zealand and Australia for Done By Nine brings us up. It doesn’t bring up the American band, which is great. And how we started with that was obviously having a search engine strategy. So that’s why I’d say having a search strategy in place is really important.

We also started with having branded Google Ads campaigns. So this is going into Google Ads and actually bidding on your own brand name, so that if someone searched your name, so for example, Jordan McFadyen for myself, or Done By Nine, they would see our website and our offering. So I think that was really important as well, and it’s also really cost-effective because you’re not bidding against anyone else. No one else is really going to be bidding for your name or your business name.

So that was a really good, effective way for us as well as to get some reach, was actually bidding in our own name based on all the other marketing that we were doing. If people were searching our name or my name, our website was at least coming up, and we could be really confident with that. And then filling in all those other things that Google gives us. Your Google My Business profile, really important. Linking that to your new Facebook page or your LinkedIn page and those type of things as well.

So as I said, something that I still do now is that digital audit. If you’re starting out or if you’re in business and you have been for a long time, I try and regularly audit all our different platforms as often as possible. For example, I was just going through our LinkedIn recently as well, and I noticed that the LinkedIn cover image had been updated. We had grown in what we were saying and how it was presented. So kind of updating those type of things as we go.

And so it’s really important that you make sure that all those different touch points, all those different digital assets that you have across that entire footprint that you have, is always kept up to date as the business evolves and it grows, and that the tone of voice is correct and that it all kind of fits there. So that was the first thing. Having that website, building that digital footprint was really key.

But as I’ve mentioned a couple of times already, a lot of people were searching just my name or our branded name. And that was due to me then thinking about how we could actually market ourselves on top of that as well. So here’s what we did. And here’s what I found really, really useful.

The first thing was social media is a great platform, obviously, to be able to be seen and to be seen cheaply. For us, we chose LinkedIn for our organic social media profile. I try to consistently write on LinkedIn, both personal and on the business page, as often as possible.

And we actually had this conversation with a client a little while ago as well around what is actually the best way to actually build up your potential LinkedIn leads. Is it best to go posting on your business page or is it best to post on your personal page? And for me and for a lot of the clients that we work with, the personal page is the way to go. The business page is obviously really important to build up that story, build up that trust, that authority, that brand story, that tone of voice to really show who you are. And I would reference that as much as you can throughout your posts that you’re doing.

But personally, if you can do some personal posts that are directed to your target audience, that are solving problems that your target audience is having, that’s going to be the best way to get cut-through. People like to hear stories from other people. They don’t like to be spoken to all the time from different brands. So I would honestly say that’s been one of the key things that I’ve been able to do, is really working on my personal branding across LinkedIn and trying to drive as much brand awareness about myself and about Done By Nine and about what we do, which helps us then drive some of that other traffic to our website. And that’s some of that Google search that I was talking about before.

If you’re going to decide between the two, I’d personally say try and focus on your personal branding as much as possible on that social platform that you’ve chosen. And like I say, for us, LinkedIn was a really great way for me to be able to build leads quickly and to make connections and to keep growing my personal little database. And look, I don’t have many people that follow me at all, but even our small following, it’s been able to help us grow. I wholeheartedly think it’s been able to help us grow the business and our client base that we have here right now.

And then over time, we kind of added to the different social media platforms that I was on, having a look at Instagram as we started to develop the team, when I got a designer on board. So when Renee came to the team, that’s when we saw a real pivotal change in terms of our design and how we looked and how the brand felt. And so it made sense for us to really double down on our Instagram strategy, being a nice visual platform to try and get across some of those new visual elements that we were starting to create.

We’ve found Facebook has been really key in terms of finding a cold audience, especially in terms of the advertising. Advertising can be much more affordable than the likes of LinkedIn, for example. So being able to actually invest into advertising on Facebook are a really good start for us at that time as well.

And that leads nicely into another tip that’s worked well for us from the get-go. And that has been, we’ve literally started advertising since day one and we haven’t stopped. And I think that’s been a real pivotal point for us. When I was doing research in our competitors, both locally and also around the country, about people who serve similar audiences to what we do and solve similar problems to what we do, not many marketing companies were advertising well.

And so I saw that as a really good opportunity to help us to really try and cut through a lot of that noise and to try and cut through that clutter by being able to have some always-on campaigns. And that’s something that we’ve always tried to work towards, especially with Google advertising, we’ve found has been really beneficial for us. People are going to Google with an intent, they’ve got a problem or a desire that they need solved, and they head to Google with that problem.

And over time, we’ve been able to develop the keywords that work well for us. What keywords are people putting into Google that then our ads should appear for? And over time, you work out and you develop what those profitable keywords are, and you take the keywords that aren’t as profitable for you and you turn them into negative keywords.

But the big thing with our advertising strategy as well is not only using it with our cold outreach and finding a new cold audience, but one of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve got about our marketing is based on our remarketing strategy. So once people have a touch point with us, once they go to our website or attend one of our webinars or they view one of our videos on LinkedIn or Facebook or on our website or anything like that, we retarget different messaging back to them so that we can remind people that we are here, we remind them about what we do. So if they’re still in that decision-making phase, we are still there and we’re still present and we’re still showing our value.

And also, it’s a great way for us to show and to demonstrate our own marketing techniques to our clients. And I’ve had it so many times where I’m on a sales call with a client and they say, “Ever since we’ve started talking, or ever since I first saw you on LinkedIn or been to your website, I always see your content now. I’m always seeing what you’re doing, and whatever you’re doing, we want to do the same.”

And so for businesses that one of their main marketing goals is brand awareness and being seen and building up that dear people and looking for those hand-raisers, that’s one of those things that they see. They see us kind of being able to achieve that on them and they’re kind of looking to do the same. So that’s also been one of the key things that we’ve had a look at as part of our advertising, that remarketing campaign, getting back in front of those people, reminding people that you exist.

For our type of business, we know that customer acquisition can take a long time. It’s not a type of product that you’re going to go to our website and then suddenly want to sign up and start working with us. It can take time to actually build that trust and authority with a potential client. So that remarketing strategy has been really key.

And that leads on to my last point. That’s been what I think has been the game changer for us as well, has been video. This goes back to the early days of when we first started the business Done By Nine. We started with video by appearing and trying to use connections to be able to get on as many webinars as possible. Remember, in 2020 was a time where a lot of different webinars and organisations were coming together to try and help and support other local businesses.

And at that time, the Chamber of Commerce here locally, they were starting to run a campaign around how they could support other businesses. And I was invited to speak on the webinar panel on that. And that’s what kind of started to build up that momentum in the local business community. But it was literally having the guts to be able to sit in front of a camera. And this is sitting in your own living room in those days. And being able to present yourself in a way that differentiates yourself from others in the market. And I found that using video was a great way to do that.

So that’s starting with the webinars. And then I started to develop interviews with local people who were in a position to be able to offer advice around different parts of business at the time. And then that started to move into being able to do webinars. And we turned them into lunchtime sessions as well, where we would meet with local businesses and local business owners and help them with their marketing strategies over lunch. And we recorded those and turned those into videos.

And at that time as well, literally using a mobile phone in the dining room of my home, I would record videos and tips and tactics similar to what we do still to this day with this podcast. But at the time it was just on a mobile phone, and we would just try and get that content out as often as possible. Obviously it can be difficult to fit everything in and do all those different tactics. But we decided to double down on video and try to post consistent content to the audience.

But the other big thing that we did that differentiates ourself, and I still don’t see it enough on other websites, not even in our industry but other industries, is we actually had videos on our website. Introduction videos. And I’m still on there today. Go to our website, donebynine.com. You’ll still see a video of myself introducing about who we are, what we do, the problem we solve, the type of client we work with, our process, our strategies, how we help clients, and what to expect when you work with us.

And what I found is having those videos on our website is so important. And we get so much feedback based on that, as when I do jump on a sales call, they feel as though there’s that connection. And they feel like they know a bit about who we are already and what we do. So it kind of takes away that whole cold intro thing when you do jump on a call with a new prospective client. So I’ve found that video has been fantastic in terms of being able to build that rapport, build that authority, and build that trust and that real personal connection with our clients.

And over time, we’ve even used video in different parts of our business as well. So when we actually finish a sales call and we’re sending a proposal to a prospective new client, we use video to present that using the service Loom. And again, it’s just a great way to be able to present sales pitches and our products and services in a way that is engaging to a user. And it’s also really hard to fake a video like that.

A lot of the proposals and quotes that I see from other agencies and other companies and other businesses, they clearly look so much like a templated thing that no effort’s been put into. And they’ve just swapped out the business’s name throughout it. But I think just adding that little personal touch on top of having a video explaining exactly everything that’s within that strategy, within that proposal, I think that’s been a real game changer for us as well. Because it shows that we’ve actually taken the time and the care to actually really think through whether this client is the right fit for us and what the best packages that we can actually provide and use with that client.

So I do think that those things have been the absolute key to being able to build where we are today. So the website, focusing on SEO, thinking about that whole digital footprint, focusing on your social media, the content, on LinkedIn, especially for us being in a B2B style business, trying to build the connections and build up that personal brand and try and generate talk, generate people to actually then go to Google and search for you. And then using video to convey those messages, both on LinkedIn, but also on the webinars back in the early days and the videos on our website, and try and drive that talk, drive people to actually go out and search for you as a brand.

And that’s what I’ve found over the past three years have been some of the pivotal things that we’ve done externally that have really helped us build our business and Done By Nine. And I do hope that’s been helpful to you. I know I’ve rambled a little bit, but I hope that the story that I’ve shared over the past three years, we’re definitely not perfect and we’re always evolving and we’re changing and we’re getting better and always trying to look to see how we can improve. But those things have always been the pivotal things that I’ve always focused on and which I believe have had the biggest impact on growing our business.

So I do hope that you’ve been able to take some ideas away from it, no matter what stage of business you’re at as well. It’s worth kind of re-evaluating and having a look at those tactics that are driving your marketing strategy and reassessing how you could use those tactics to actually help hit your marketing goals higher. So hopefully you’ve been able to get a few new ideas based on that as well.

And look, if you want to actually sit down and have a bit of a chat about how Done By Nine and the team can actually help you, want to see any more tips on how to improve your SEO, your website, or how to use video within your marketing strategy, you can find all of our details and all of our blogs and our articles and our podcast on our website, donebynine.com. You’re also more than welcome to email me at my personal email address, which is jordan@donebynine.com as well.

So I hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast. Let me know any feedback that you do have around some of the topics that we’ve been providing over the past little while. And if you can do anything for me today, the best thing you could do is literally click that follow button or give us a star rating on the podcast wherever you’re listening, Spotify or Apple Podcast. Either of those really does help us out. Gives me just that little boost to make sure that we can continue to invest in creating new pieces of content to share our knowledge of marketing.

And hopefully you can take away some tidbits well into the future around how to better market your business to be able to help you grow and succeed as well. So I’d love a follow or a five-star rating, or any sort of rating on the podcast would be really appreciated. But look, thank you so much for joining us on another episode of the Marketing Mindset podcast. We’ll see you again next Thursday.