The “All-in-one marketing agency”, and all-in-one marketer: a well-rounded perspective on demand generation
In our latest installment of the Marketer Showcase feature, we caught up with the President of marketing agency 190west, Tom Prendergast. Staying true to their mantra, Tom can’t help but personally align with the “All-in-one” mindset of his agency brand. His perspectives on marketing are energetic and adventurous but supported by methodology and measurement. In this Marketer Showcase, see what Tom and 190west bring to the table for marketers looking to smartly drive demand using a multichannel approach.
How does Content Marketing fit into your overall marketing strategy?
Content plays a huge role in all of the client strategies we develop. Finding the proper channels to promote the developed content is crucial for us to hit our goals.
What are your top performing pieces over the past year and what are the KPIs used to measure performance of those assets?
We have seen extremely good success with short pieces such as a “top 6…”, but also insightful/leadership pieces. The KPIs we focus on relating to content is traffic to the piece, quality of that traffic, engagement metrics (average time on site, average sessions/page views, bounce rate, etc.), and ultimately leads. These pieces are really the bridge between interest and opportunity.
How has content marketing evolved over the past few years?
There is a lot of noise out there, so it becomes harder and harder to get content in front of the target audience. Unlike years back, we are spending more and more time analyzing the possible promotion channels and monitoring their success to be sure spend is spent wisely. Because most of the channels have a cost-per-lead model, it is extremely important to understand the quality of the leads being generated.
This model helps us to plan budgets for our clients to match spend with their lead generation goal number. This is certainly nothing new, but we have experienced a need for more time dedicated to this than in years past and with so much more noise, we need to not only be extremely targeted in our efforts but also choose the most impactful channels.
In addition to using NetLine, what are your other strategies for lead generation?
NetLine has provided quick return due to the specific targeting capabilities, database size, and process to ensure the pieces we promote get to the target audience. In addition to NetLine, we leverage SEO (long-term and great ROI opportunity), email (quick return with quality lists and segmentation), PR, Paid Social (seeing great success with both short and long term) are other tactics used for lead generation.
How has content syndication affected your approach to lead generation?
It is a big part of all of our clients’ success because without content syndication and successful channels, then their target audience would not be exposed to the content that has been produced when needed. Organic exposure will work but takes time, so by the time the content is found it may be too late as that prospect might have already made a decision.
Describe the normal path a lead follows once it has been captured via a one of your gated assets.
When a lead is captured, they enter into a nurture workflow that guides them to reaching out to sales in many cases. These workflows may be several steps long and others may be quicker depending on the type of asset and funnel stage of the lead.
Of all the marketing approaches available, which has staying power in your strategy?
SEO is still the long-term sustainable play as it is always working whereas others might produce results quicker, they are only working as long as they are active.
Any words of wisdom to share with your marketing peers?
Always explore new ideas, channels, options, etc. but don’t move completely away from the tried and true…
In your marketing career, what has been your biggest marketing success? Why?
Helping three clients from inception to acquisition. Normally agencies tend to not like to see this happen as it usually results in the clients moving on but in our case with these we have continued and developed opportunities within the acquiring companies.
Describe your workspace.
Organized, inviting, casual
What productivity tech/app do you rely on the most?
Teamwork, Skype, Outlook, Dropbox, RingCentral Meetings, LastPass, Buzzsumo
Who are your greatest marketing influences?
For me the influences that I consider to be the greatest are not on the marketing side, but Sales leaders. I have always felt that good, effective marketing is a flavor of sales, as the goal for sales and marketing is lead generation that results in sold revenue.
Coffee or tea?
Coffee
When are you at your best?
When I have several projects going at the same time because it allows for the creative juices to flow…
Tom Prendergast:
As President of 190west, Tom Prendergast has been instrumental in establishing the agency’s reputation as a digital marketing powerhouse. Infusing behavior-driven tactics and measurable analytics into every campaign implemented, Tom has distinguished 190west as an invaluable partner in your buyer’s journey. The real-time insight supports sales by increasing brand and benefit awareness, qualified leads, and producing quantifiable results from your digital marketing initiatives
190west helps companies that are looking build better customer relationships and develop leads that grow sales pipeline. Our team of professionals can translate our deep sales and marketing experience into agile solutions that cost-effectively deliver results. We have a specialty helping those in the HR, IT, and E-commerce markets.”