IMPACT Grew Leads by 500% with John Bonini

John Bonini runs marketing at IMPACT Branding & Design and joined the agency in 2011, when it was eight people. Gray MacKenzie hosted this episode, number 2 of Inbound Agency Journey, and Andrew Dymski joined him for the recap. John covers the lead growth that got IMPACT noticed, why the agency narrowed its market, how it sells without a menu of deliverables, and the hiring problem that never goes away.

From eight people to just under 40

John studied journalism, saw where that industry was headed, and moved into content marketing. At IMPACT he started out managing content for clients across a range of industries, until Bob, the CEO, asked him to take over the agency’s own marketing and gave him full autonomy.

I built a marketing engine that I felt could sustain us over time and focused heavily on quality content and helped grow our leads by 500% in just two years. And what started as an eight-person company when I was here is now just under 40.

(Listen at 03:09)

Narrowing to B2B software and tech grew the agency

IMPACT started in 2009 as a project-based design shop and became a HubSpot partner in late 2011. Early on it took any client it could help. Gray asked whether the agency now specializes.

Early on, we would take on clients who we knew we could help, but over time we’ve seen patterns. And primarily now we work within the B2B space, but more specifically with software companies and technology companies and even consultative companies. And the reason is software and tech companies, their audience by nature already sort of lives online. They’re researching solutions online. You’re not really looking for cloud-based storage applications in the yellow pages.

(Listen at 04:59)

The target is also companies under 150 employees, because above that the marketing team and its hierarchy get hard to work through. The harder sell was internal.

We had partners here early on, I’d be like, so you guys want to narrow the focus, but continue to grow? And you sort of have to convince people that that’s how you grow, is by narrowing the focus and becoming experts and being able to have a wash, rinse, repeat method.

(Listen at 06:48)

No boilerplate packages, no deliverables up front

IMPACT sells consultatively and won’t quote deliverables before it understands the business. Prospects push back, because someone has to show a boss what the money buys. John’s answer is a case study from the same industry: the challenge, what IMPACT did, where the client is now.

To sit here and really tell you exactly what you guys are going to need before we jump in would be irresponsible. And, for lack of a better term, just BS. So what we do is we don’t really give people boilerplate packages, so for five thousand a month you’re going to get this and for seventy-five you’ll get this.

(Listen at 08:45)

The team starts with the client’s goals at six, twelve and twenty-four months and works backward, so a site with 250,000 visitors a month hears about conversion, not blogging. IMPACT tried a pre-call survey modeled on Marcus Sheridan’s pool-company ebook and dropped it because it cut out the rapport. Gray admitted GuavaBox had done the opposite: $3,000 a month to start, with a set list of deliverables built around what the agency wanted to do.

You find out sooner or later that the ones that do need a menu of deliverables like that might not be the right people for you… It’s hard to say no at the beginning, but you hope that you build the equity with the clients you do have, build a reputation, and hopefully you can scale to the point where you can say no.

(Listen at 17:30)

Hiring is the struggle that never goes away

Gray asked what IMPACT had struggled with. John didn’t hesitate.

Without a doubt, it would be scaling and hiring talent. As a company who’s grown from 8 to 40 people within a two-year time span, and we’re not in New York or Boston, we’re right in the middle… you actually lose a lot of people because they’re attracted to the big city environment.

(Listen at 18:09)

Growing that fast means the client base is growing too, and nobody can learn on a live account. The hiring process has been rebuilt several times: about 30 phone screens to bring three people in face to face. Onboarding is run by Natalie, IMPACT’s chief people person, and had been in place about two months at the time.

They kind of bounce around and learn from client service, they learn from marketing, they learn from sales. There’s a whole process built out for them. Every day is accounted for. They’re learning from different people every day.

(Listen at 20:39)

An entry-level marketer shadows for a month or two and is hands-on with clients within 60 days. Someone who has already run accounts only needs to learn IMPACT’s processes and meet their clients.

Stand-up meetings, and a manager who wants to be disagreed with

John’s mornings start with a literal stand-up with his team: what are we working on, what’s not working, what do you need from each other today. Standing keeps it short.

I work very well when people are disagreeing with me. That sounds weird, doesn’t it? I work well when people are disagreeing and bringing ideas to the table and we’re collaborating. I’m not the type of manager or supervisor that passes my ideas down and that’s how we’re going to do this.

(Listen at 26:00)

His tool picks were Trello, HubSpot’s Sidekick and CRM, Gauges (live visitor data for about $7.99 a month) and Crazy Egg heat maps. He uses the live data to time emails, since IMPACT’s landing pages spike around 11 a.m.