Delivering the Works
- Inbound Marketing Playbook
- PR
- Paid Media Strategy
- Website Design
SmartBug was tasked with helping Eagle’s Flight with multiple marketing strategies, including web, inbound, paid search and paid social, and eventually, PR. Here is what we did with each of those strategies to transform how Eagle’s Flight was presented to the market:
INBOUND
SmartBug’s Amber Kemmis headed the team that took the inbound marketing of Eagle’s Flight from struggling to thriving. The first steps of the retainer were the discovery process and our presentation of an Inbound Marketing Playbook—a comprehensive resource detailing buyer personas, lead criteria, gap analyses, and everything SmartBug Media would do to deliver inbound success.
“The playbook was huge,” Bennett says. “It reframed in the mind of executives what marketing is and what marketing isn’t. There’s a perception for people who aren’t necessarily in marketing that marketing is all about writing ad copy and the website. It’s so much deeper than that. That process, and including executives in it, is absolutely key to getting buy-in for the initiative.”
We embarked on an aggressive blogging strategy that built thought leadership and made Eagle’s Flight more visible to prospects looking for the solutions the company offers. The blog has been so successful since its inception that Eagle’s Flight was able to dial back its paid spend because the organic content started bringing so many leads to the website—and keeping them there.
“That’s just a gift that keeps on giving … actually putting something of value out there for people, so that you do have thoughts and opinions on a given topic and you are a place to go to find this information,” Bennett says. “Not only do you get them the first time, you get them coming back, and it’s the natural progression of well-aligned content to the blog that is true magic.”
The thought leadership goal of the inbound campaigns was crucial for Eagle’s Flight. Geldart is a prominent expert in the experiential learning realm; marketing that expertise ultimately increased the potential of captivating prospects and leads. “Given the industry we’re in, thought leadership is incredibly important and abundant,” Bennett says. “We have to show we can really play well in that space.”
The campaigns and premium content SmartBug developed contributed to boosting the profile of Eagle’s Flight. A guide on customer centricity, a culture transformation toolkit, a team-building guide, and various other assets to complement content are among the outstanding resources our team provided that impressed and converted leads.
WEB
The old Eagle’s Flight website struggled with UX, organization, and keeping visitors onsite. The site had no logical flow, and calls to action (CTAs) weren’t being used. In Bennett’s words, “It was ineffective.”
We completely redesigned the website on HubSpot CMS, incorporating the few things from the previous iteration that worked and adding features and best practices to bolster user experience and increase conversions.
“It was a complete destroy and rebuild,” Bennett says. “SmartBug brought their expertise and insight to determine what wasn’t working on the old site and set the vision of what could be on the new one."
“The new site maximizes the impact of Phil’s thought leadership and Eagle’s Flight’s expertise in a way that delivers results for marketing and sales.”
PAID SEARCH AND SOCIAL
With a new website in place, paid search and paid social re-emerged as a priority. SmartBug’s paid team carefully analyzed, month over month, which paid efforts were working and not working, and defined areas where spend could be optimized. Initially, the new paid strategy SmartBug and Eagle’s Flight developed was geared toward bringing prospects to the website. Organic traffic needed time to build, and with paid search focusing on keywords, personas, and the top of the funnel, inbound initiatives could take the time needed to fully establish themselves.
On top of the traffic benefits, the paid budget that Eagle’s Flight was allotting delivered better ROI. Cost per click went down, and more qualified traffic was arriving on the site through paid channels.
With inbound efforts moving through HubSpot Marketing, public relations, and the new website on HubSpot CMS consistently attracting and converting leads, paid’s mission has evolved to focus more as a retargeting method toward the bottom of the funnel. “It goes to the integrative nature of marketing and sales,” Bennett says. “It all has to work together.”
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Eagle’s Flight had no public relations strategy before partnering with SmartBug Media. We immediately began publishing news releases on our client’s behalf, but Eagle’s Flight was looking for something more advanced. Rather than hiring an outside PR firm, Eagle’s Flight trusted SmartBug to take its public relations to the next level.
SmartBug's PR team began working with Eagle's Flight and immediately secured opportunities for guest articles with Phil Geldart’s byline to appear in top industry and business print and online publications. A crowning achievement on this front was an article—now up to three articles—in Entrepreneur.
“In terms of brand recognition, being able to get into Entrepreneur took us from being industry-related to the mass market,” Bennett says. “Seeing our name in a publication like that was impressive, and it made the buying decision easier for our clients who saw we were a thought leader in such a recognized publication.”
The article placements have steadily continued, and SmartBug also helped develop a media kit that can be found on the Eagle’s Flight website.
