Finding the Right Marketing Partners

From startups to major corporations, businesses need help getting in front of potential customers, whether it’s hiring an internal marketing executive or outsourcing to the myriad of marketing and communications firms. Whether you’re a harried small business owner or a marketing executive for a large company with too much on your plate, finding the right marketing partners is critical.

Businesses can find a marketing firm that meets their needs, whether it is a large full-service firm or a boutique firm with a specific focus. 

Joanne Randall, owner of Leap Year Marketing Strategies, is a marketing veteran who offers business coaching and strategic planning that helps clients shape their positioning statements (a description of the product, target audience and how it fills a market need).

One of her first clients was “all over the place,” Randall says. “She had a million ideas and was a very hard worker but was not organized at all.” They met once a month, and Randall created a structure with her client complete with a homework assignment at the end of every meeting, including a list of things to do. “Small business owners are willing to do what they need to do but don’t always know what to do next,” she says, explaining that goals, objectives and timelines are crucial. 

Another client who was an electrician wanted to grow his business, she says, but was undercharging his clients. “I said, ‘you’re not charging enough for your hourly rate,’ and he said, ‘but I don’t feel right charging more than that,’” she says. “At that point I had to step out of the consulting role for a minute and go into the coaching role.” 

Randall asked the man what had happened to him in his life that made him think he should undervalue himself. It turned out he had grown up in a city where his friends were struggling to make a living, and he wanted to make sure the people he served could afford him. “But those people were not inner city, they were country-side people in New Hampshire. I explained to him that if he didn’t charge at least the going rate, people would assume that he was not as good quality, and he would get fewer customers,” she says. 

Randall says she has a “super soft spot” in her heart for the small business owner. “They often need a lot of help, but they’re not always sure where to go. Once they’re clear on who they are, what they do and who their customers are, they are ready to put together an effective marketing plan.” 

Most of the time, small businesses need help with tactics such as email marketing, blogs and social media campaigns, says Randall. “Once the positioning statement is done, this is where I turn to [businesses] like Do Something Different Media.”

Rhiannon McHugh, who co-founded Do Something Different Media in Manchester with her husband, Peter McHugh, in 2008, says, “We found a niche in helping businesses bring themselves on-line in a way they weren’t comfortable with or hadn’t done before.”

The couple assists a variety of clients, including a pest-control product manufacturer. Do Something Different Media served as the company’s transition marketing team. “We learned a lot about that industry and helped them create the assets they needed to market to homeowners who are afraid of exposure to chemicals,” she says, adding that once the company grew, they hired an in-house team. “We took the training wheels off, and off they went.” 

Do Something Different Media focuses primarily on marketing support, website design and email marketing, McHugh says, adding that she works with between 11 and 15 subcontractors to meet her clients’ needs. “For a lot of small companies, we’ve found marketing falls off the list. It’s something they want to do, but they’re too busy to handle it.”

McHugh says her clients are small companies that need marketing support but only want to pay for it when they’re getting something out of it.“When you’re working with an outsourced marketing company, you only pay for it when you need it,” she says. Randall says an outsourced marketing company like McHugh’s allows clients to buy a la carte or a package depending on their budget. 

Over the last 10 years, McHugh says her company has grown a team of freelancers for their project-based work. Among the partners she has cultivated is Kyle Battis, co-founder of NH Strategic Marketing in Concord, who specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) to help clients find a steady flow of leads. 

Battis, who has been involved in advertising and marketing since 1999, has a background in website design, direct marketing, online media buying and has years of experience working on marketing campaigns for small and large businesses. He started his marketing agency in 2012 and has clients in 26 states.

Most of Battis’s clients provide home services such as landscaping, roofing, remodeling or electrical work. “What most of those clients need is for their phone to ring with people that are looking for what they do,” he says. “They can close the deals and have no problem selling it or fulfilling jobs. They often just don’t know how to execute finding the clients.” 

Unlike McHugh’s business, Battis says his company doesn’t build websites or do social media postings often. “We’re getting [our clients] a steady flow of leads, and these are people that are actually looking to hire them for what they do, which is what they want.”

When Marketing Execs Need Help

McHugh and Battis say many large companies that have their own in-house marketing teams will tap boutique marketing firms to focus on a specific marketing need. “Typically, we create the content and then hand it over to an in-house team,” McHugh says. “Often the in-house people are stuck in meetings or planning what needs to be done [and] don’t have the bandwidth to then create that content.”

In the last six months, McHugh says she has signed four new monthly clients that are using her company as an extra set of hands. 

Adds Battis, “They may have a central person, the quarterback of marketing, but they don’t have either the skill sets, or the knowledge or the time to wear all the hats and do all the pieces of it, so they’ll bring in a team like us.” n