Client Type: IT Staffing Agency
Client Size: $30 million ARR
Presenting Issue: “Fix our CRM and move us to a new software so we can make more sales”
What Made Them a Great Client: They understood that their specialty was technology and sales, and trusted that my expertise was making them look supremely valuable to their ideal clients
The Presenting Issue:
Before I got involved, they had no offer except “we’ll staff whatever you need in all theses industries”. This is how many staffing agencies work, and while it can work if your sales is good, it’s very hit-or-miss. And that’s what this client saw: sporadic sales, lots of prospect resistance, and low project deal sizes. Their sales outreach was going to spam, and they felt they needed a new email system that would support their sales outreach.
What I Saw When I Evaluated:
As with all clients, I take the first 30 days to deeply evaluate their existing messaging, sales processes, tech stack, offers, and more. What I learned was that their marketing messaging was entirely run by sales except for some portions, which were run by the sole marketing team member, a brand guy. So the messaging swung between brand ads like “We save you cents” and really spammy “we’re so awesome!” cold email outreach led by sales. Their social media presence was sporadic and featured the same “we’re the #1 agency” messaging.
They had a solid sales process and a sales team of 5+ people, but the messages were too generalized and spammy to be effective.
What I Did (In a Nutshell):
Took a client’s goal of “we want more sales” to a million dollar IT project, which eventually led to them get acquired.
First, I systemized their preexisting approach to IT staffing. They had a unique methodology for using agile, documenting their knowledge, and spinning up/down teams which made them incredibly efficient. This was a selling point that was absolutely nowhere in their marketing. I turned this approach into a unique mechanism that fuelled their named offers.
Second, we chose 3 of their primary offers for 2 verticals, and then named each of those offers:
- Big Data
- .NET and Java Developers
- Project Management
Third, I fleshed out the Marketing Factors for each of these offers by interviewing the executive leadership, sales team members, and senior consultants and project managers to really understand:
- The use cases for each service
- The types of pain points and “jobs to be done” clients experienced
- The before and after of using these services
- What working with the agency team was like for the client
- And so forth
Step 2: Website Refresh + Marketing for a Year
This messaging, the offers, the testimonials, and so forth were published on the website in the form of service pages. I also highlighted all of the authority I could find for them, including their partnerships, their training and certifications, and more.
I also made sure that their executive leadership was visible on their website, so it was clear that real human beings worked at the company.
The designer and I also worked together to update the design of the website to better reflect the up-market, enterprise-level clients they were going for. We added many new pages and updated old pages so that the value of this agency’s approach and services was reinforced on every page.
I created a dozen+ blog posts and case studies which supported their offers from the interviews and research I did.
The designer and I alsoecreated several lead magnets to support demand generation marketing, inlcuding awareness-based content, downloadable PDF guides, a checklist, and my favorite – a service catalog which had an executive intro, a page for each service the company provided, a “how we work” process section, and testimonials and case studies intermixed throughout – all designed with the new branding that the awesome designer came up with.
Finally, the Book a Call Page was created and updated from a mere contact form to an opt-in to learn more about the company by downloading the “Info Kit”… with lots of proof and information on the page. The thank you page invited them to book a call, as did the 10-email follow-up sequence I wrote.
(TECH NOTE: We also switched from a DTC-focused CRM to ActiveCampaign to have better control over sales and marketing flows and be more “white hat” about our database, as well as purchased a new domain because they burnt their old email address with spam outreach.)
Step 3: ABM Push
We then launched an ABM push that was different than what they were doing before. Before this push, their sales consisted of:
- Spamming purchased lists with cold email pitches
- Spamming C-level executives on LinkedIn
- Posting things like “We’re the number one staffing firm in the country” on LinkedIn
- Spending thousands of dollars on LinkedIn ads with creative like “We save you cents”… the same creative they also used on Google display for retargeting website visitors
Here’s what we tried instead:
Curate the List Carefully
When I started working with the client, they wanted to work with everyone. As part of our ABM push, I had them identify merely ONE THOUSAND companies they wanted to work with in this particular industry who could have need of the types of staffing services the agency offered. The company wanted to do more, but I insisted that there was no way they could meaningfully connect with one thousand companies times the 10-100 employees that we would be targeting.
From there, we built lists in Sales Navigator and LinkedIn Ads to form the basis of our eventual sales outreach.
Note that we used LinkedIn and human searching to form this list, rather than letting AI tools do all the work. This allowed us to really ensure that we were targeting the highest quality opportunities possible. Closing even one of these would be a big win — as you’ll see when you see the initial 90 day results.
WARM UP FIRST, Pitch later.
Once we had the list, instead of cold pitching first, I advocated for a “warm up” strategy. We separated out our sales people and executive leaders so that each internal influencer “owned” a service. For the sales people, this naturally corresponded to what they sold anyway. So Salesperson A only posted about Big Data. Salesperson B only posted abou tproject management. VP 1 posted about .net development. And so forth. And the company just boosted all of it.
Posts were a mix of a) topical blog posts, b) client testimonials/stories, c) direct pitches about the service that influencer ‘owned’. Except for a few confident team members, all posts were automated through Buffer to each individual’s LinkedIn profile. We also ran posts on the company’s Facebook page.
We did that while also adding a second component to the ‘warm up’, which involved visiting, following, commenting on, and liking posts by employees at the aforementioned target 1000 companies. Each influencer had a list of companies they were ‘targeting’ based on the area they owned.
Again, we did NOT have them connect. Just follow, like, and comment. That is to say – be human.
Finally, we also ran display ads on Google to visitors AND LinkedIn ads to that uploaded list of 1000 companies. We had to fix some LinkedIn pixel issues but that wasn’t a big deal. In our targeting, we went for middle management on up, knowing that it’s often the middle managers, project managers, and senior consultants who would be advocating for external staff members to the budget keepers.
BEGIN outreach AFTER warm-up… not before.
When I told the sales team they had to WAIT to pitch prospects until we warmed them up, they weren’t too happy. However, they were on board with testing y hypothesis that “cold” leads who saw the agency everywhere for a few weeks online would be more likely to respond to a direct offer ad or cold messaging. We basically manufactured brand awareness through exposure.
Once they got the go-ahead, the sales team used automated software to send email campaigns I wrote and the sales team personalized to contacts at the companies. I don’t have the data for it, but I know that these campaigns began to get bites pretty quickly.
Launch Ads More Strategically
Finally, we launched direct offer ads on LinkedIn to supplement the retargeting ads on Google. I think they were lead form ads, but I wasn’t in charge of the build and I didn’t keep all those details. (Sorry.)
The ads were super direct, like:
Hire nearshore .NET developers in 2 weeks for your [Industry] business:
- $25 per hour to start
- [XYZ] certified and English speaking
- Starts within 2 weeks
- Scales with your needs thanks to [xyz] approach
Fill out the form for more info
We tested both form ads and display ads. Those who filled out the form were told they would get an Info Kit, which was sent via email thanks to integration between the form and the CRM.
The Results
As with most of these projects, results began rolling in as soon as we pivoted. They saw several meetings booked pretty quickly, and the VP received and closed a one million dollar staff augmentation project within a few weeks of speaking.
THAT is the power of making sure that your messaging across the funnel was CONGRUENT, reduced friction, and addressed objections. That’s the power of giving people what they want, treating sales like a conversation, and nurturing your leads.
We didn’t have to wait months and months to get results and ROI. Once we launched, the action started picking up right away, and this client closed well within the first 30 days.