Power Digital Marketing

Please describe your company and your position there.

I operate as the head of web & digital (and digital transformation) for a private college in the Chicago suburbs. My responsibilities range from web infrastructure related to UX/UI, the brand's digital reputation/presence, and all traffic/leads related to marketing activities.

For what projects/services did your company hire Power Digital Marketing, and what were your goals?

We relaunched our brand in 2019 and needed executional support at the enterprise level for PPC/Paid Social and SEO.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I researched/interviewed 15 vendors looking for 3 important characteristics:

1. Innovation (backed with evidence)
2. Trustworthiness (authenticity)
3. Willingness to work to form a long term partnership

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and marking tools used.

3 year capital project starting heavy with brand awareness moving to heavy lead gen. Scope covered PPC, Paid Social, Web Audits/Optimization (SEO), and Content Strategy (SEO).

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We have a dedicated account manager, an executive sponsor, and each channel leveraged has a direct client-facing rep. At times, up to 8 team members were interfacing with us at one time, but that doesn't include multiple teams in CRO/Analytics/UX that jumped in for support of various initiatives.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Our SEO Content Strategy produces avg.'s of thousands of % increase in traffic PoP, with hundreds of % increases MoM. We've captured traffic to our site that would have never come had it not solely been for the SEO Content Strategy implemented, with new strategies leveraging reoptimizations and increased content production with their writing teams.

Paid (PPC and Social) is constantly growing, evolving and driving leads with efficiency - and the best part, PDM isn't scared of 'bad' data. A lot of agencies would shy away or attempt to sugar coat a bad month, but if there is a bad month - there is a list of attempted strategies their team proactively takes to mitigate the issues - and constantly pivots to capitalize on opportunities. It's the most valuable aspect of their support to me now that we trust one another.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It's great. PDM has gone above and beyond to create tracking documents shared between our teams, reporting dashboards, board presentations, etc. There is never a 'no' - it's always 'how much time do we have, we'll get it done.'

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Every individual is a rockstar. You can tell they are supported as employees, and that true passion is allowed to be explored/developed. Our strategies are successful due to their proactive and hands-on approach to channel management, and their desire to be authentically transparent so we can make actionable change in our strategies has been paramount to our success.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Every single area of improvement I have brought to them, they have addressed by exceeding my expectations. They are incredibly responsive. So if I have any statement here - it's that client work is unique since every client has unique requests - but their team listens, engages, and then produces damn impressive results. If they keep doing this, there won't be options for responses for this question since they are addressing everything that comes up.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director of marketing for a skin care brand — Shani Darden Skin Care.

What challenge were you trying to address with Power Digital Marketing?

We partnered with them to run an influencer marketing program.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Power Digital ideates, recruits, and negotiates influencer campaigns on our behalf. We share our objectives, expectations, and the type of influencers we want to target for campaigns. We normally work with Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube influencers. Their team then comes up with a strategy. After we agree on it, they execute the strategy.

What is the team composition?

We primarily communicate with McKenna (Digital Marketing Coordinator) and Lizzie (Influencer Marketing Manager).

How did you come to work with Power Digital Marketing?

We found them through a referral because one of our colleagues previously worked with one of their team members. Our colleague connected us with Power Digital, and they understood our brand and needs. Their team was sensitive to some of the brand’s nuances, which was important to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $150,000 on their services so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership began in August 2020, and we’re continuing to work with them.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Power Digital supplies us with ROI data and engagement reports on all of the influencers, so we’re able to track the general success of each campaign. Their team normally recruits between 30–40 influencers for each campaign.

How did Power Digital Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Slack, Google Sheets, and Google Slides to communicate. We also have a biweekly meeting with them. They have a proprietary reporting tool, and we have an account in it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re attentive, so their team quickly responds to us. Power Digital’s also detail-oriented and feels like an extension of our team. They know the answer to questions on the spot, so we don’t have to constantly bring them up to speed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Right now, we’re happy with them. Power Digital only needs to grow their influencer database and the breadth of their partners. That’s an area in which they could improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be specific with your scope and treat them as an extension of your team. The more information you give them, the better they’ll be able to perform.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of marketing for an online platform that serves anyone who wants to change their relationship with alcohol.

What challenge were you trying to address with Power Digital Marketing?

As a relatively new company, we were looking to identify new organic growth channels to sustainably grow our business.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Power Digital Marketing works with us in two key ways: SEO and email marketing. We’ve decided to invest early in SEO, partnering on both technical on-site optimizations and content generation. Their team works closely with us to deliver high-quality content that’s optimized for search. They also bolster our site content through internal linking strategies, keyword analysis, and backlinks from third-party websites.

On the email front, we’re working on creating email sequences for different segments of our audience to share content. It’s a way for us to educate people on our offerings with the intent of driving conversions. 

What is the team composition? 

I work with at least six people consistently. 

How did you come to work with Power Digital Marketing?

Our head of product received a referral for Power Digital Marketing, and we were impressed by the holistic view that they had around search. We appreciated the knowledge, expertise, and thought leadership that they provided in our industry (telemedicine and healthcare).

What is the status of this engagement?

The partnership began in September 2020 and is ongoing. We enjoyed working with them so much that we ended up adding email marketing to our initial scope about midway through, and they’ve been working on that since.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve seen a substantial increase in organic search traffic since the beginning of September, with real progress being made in the last two months. I recognize that search is often a long-tail endeavor, so we’re confident that the work will yield significant results in the next six months, too.

How did Power Digital Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m blown away by the level of communication from their team. We primarily communicate via Slack, which is our preferred communication channel. At times, I even have trouble keeping up with the output, but that’s more on my end.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their attention to detail is exceptional, and the team’s responsiveness is definitely unlike what I see with most agency partners — they’re well-integrated into our group. They also have a generally great attitude, which doesn’t go unnoticed. That “one team, one dream” mentality is not always easy to achieve in external partners.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve been really happy with the work so far, so I don’t know if there’s anything they’d have to change. If I had to pick, I’d say that it’d be helpful for them to prioritize tasks with us. There’s so much output in Slack that it’s necessary for everyone to consistently prioritize, both to manage our teams and to make sure that everything is moving forward correctly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Power Digital Marketing has a very robust set of expertise, and I appreciate that they bring new ideas to the table around how to optimize for search. Clients just need to understand what their own goals are as well as making sure that they have the internal bandwidth to support what will be a very high-output team.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m co-founder and CEO of an indoor cycling studio franchise.

What challenge were you trying to address with Power Digital Marketing?

We needed to evaluate our SEO and lead generation for franchise sales processes as well as social and organic marketing and branding.

What was the scope of their involvement?

In the beginning, we helped Power Digital identify which parts of the market we wanted to target. Our team also educated them on which subjects we believed our target audience would search to inform content clusters. We closely worked with Power Digital to create those clusters.

For organic social initiatives, they strictly work on Instagram and Facebook. Their team helps to build our corporate brand image through organic and social platforms. They handle the brand voice and physical branding. Power Digital also created a content calendar. Their team’s responsible for creating, scheduling, and deploying content on various platforms.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with the same account manager who Power Digital initially assigned to us. We typically work with a team of 1–3 people, which changes depending on the marketing initiative.

How did you come to work with Power Digital Marketing?

I knew their CEO and that’s how I found the brand. Their team was the reason that we chose to work with them. When we started working with them, we were a smaller startup. We found their mix of professionalism, scrappiness, and creativity interesting. Power Digital didn’t have a cookie-cutter approach.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000 on their services so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our ongoing partnership around January 2018.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Their work’s metric and KPI driven. We internally track metrics such as social and organic engagement growth. For content clusters, we measure whether or not there’s keyword movement. Power Digital’s top-quality. We can only give the highest accolades to their company, their work, and their execution.

How did Power Digital Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Nova for project management and reporting, and Power Digital uses their own internal tools. They’re great communicators, which is one of the biggest factors in our success. If I ever need something, I can email, text, or call them. They’re always open and responsive. That has made project management successful for both of us.

Back in the day, we met in their office quite a bit. Now, everything’s digital. We have a lot of webinars and calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their team deeply cares about their partners, which is hard to find. Power Digital cares and shows it in many ways.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the early days of our partnership, data delivery and reporting were their areas for improvement. Power Digital built their own tool that fixed any issues and improved their reporting.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you want to build a good relationship, it’s a two-way street. It’s important that you care about them because their team actually cares about you.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Marketing Director for Big Nerd Ranch, a professional services company doing digital product development and training work for some of the world's most iconic brands.

For what projects/services did your company hire Power Digital Marketing?

Power Digital is helping lead us to a better SEO position as well as optimize our paid digital campaigns.

What were your goals for this project?

We are an inbound organization so lead generation is vital. We hired PDM to optimize our paid campaigns spreading the good word to new logos and keeping us top of mind to those with brand awareness but not actively working with us right now.

We also needed to tighten up our SEO strategy so that internal supporting initiatives could be more intentional and focused to support larger goals. Ultimate goal = ROI on marketing activities and spend

How did you select Power Digital Marketing?

Word of mouth referral and lots of Googling. If you are positioned as an SEO expert, you ought to be very findable. They were - every way I searched, they appeared. That was a great demonstration of their skills sets in action.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Digital clean up on existing website SEO optimization recommendations and assistance Management of paid campaigns

What was the team composition?

Specific subject matter experts in each area we work. I really like this as this is such a detailed craft and they recognize and specialize accordingly. Executive sponsor and oversight Project Manager

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

As a client, we have high expectations and have been very happy with their work. The PDM team has really become an extension of my internal team. We are learning from them and quite happy with their work. This will be a long term relationship as they add value to our digital efforts.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication is easy, comfortable and seamless. Hard conversations are productive and I genuinely feel like they understand our business and want to help.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Big Nerd Ranch is a high performing, client obsessed, organization. We value honest direct communication and have found very similar values in the PDM team.

We actually looped them into a project of ours as a subcontractor which says a lot as we are committed to delivering world class value to those that we serve. We trust and value PDM expertise and our relationship with them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Keep doing your thing. It is fun to watch their well earned growth and success.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Bloom Hemp. We provide hemp products such as CBD tinctures, CBD lotions, hemp hearts, and hemp food.

What challenge were you trying to address with Power Digital Marketing?

Our e-commerce site was struggling, so we hired Power Digital Marketing to increase traffic coming to our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our original site was on Magento, but they’ve redeveloped the platform from scratch on WordPress. We had a general idea of how we wanted the site to look, but they revamped the design. Then they improved functionality, built product pages, added rewards programs, and implemented chat features to help with customer experience.

They also developed an on- and off-site SEO strategy to improve how our product pages rank online. They identified keywords to focus on and provided a Microsoft Excel sheet to help us track them. Now they’re helping us build backlinks to increase our domain authority. On top of that, they use Klaviyo to help with our email marketing campaigns.

What is the team composition?

John (VP of Technology & Web Development) was my main point of contact, and a delivery team reported to him.

How did you come to work with Power Digital Marketing?

My accountant introduced me to them. We decided to work with them because of their professionalism and experience within the industry. We were impressed with their presentation and how intelligent they were. They clearly knew what they were talking about.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2020 and we’re still working with them.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The first couple of months were a little slow, but traffic, conversion rates, and sales have increased recently.

How did Power Digital Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They created a system that houses all of our project management tools. We have bi-weekly calls and they provide weekly updates on Mondays.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been impressed by their communication, organization, and responsiveness. When we need something fixed, they always come up with quick solutions. I’ve been able to contact John to fix problems on our website at 9 p.m. before.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’ve been really happy with their service.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important for new clients to have a plan in place before meeting with them. By outlining action items, Power Digital Marketing will be better prepared to help them meet their goals.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is a real estate services company based in San Diego, California. We cover all of Southern California, from Santa Barbara to San Diego. As the senior director of marketing, I oversee all things digital, design, content, and leads. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Power Digital Marketing?

We rely on Power Digital Marketing for their digital expertise.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Power Digital Marketing develops our digital strategy for SEO and search engine marketing (SEM). They monitor our website to ensure that it continues to perform well, reporting on our progress in a weekly call. For any of our larger SEO projects, they report to us on a monthly basis.

What is the team composition? 

We have quite a few people assigned to our account. Currently, there are six people who work on the various initiatives with Britney (VP of Operations) being our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Power Digital Marketing?

The relationship has existed since before I started my position. Of course, I’d worked with other agencies prior to coming to Berkshire Hathaway, but I’d heard such great things about Power Digital Marketing from our executive stakeholders that I decided to adopt their services.

Over the course of the last two years, I’ve gotten to know Power Digital Marketing better. They’re a bright organization that’s doing great work for us, which is why I continue to keep them on as a vendor.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent about $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I’ve been working with them for the last two years starting in January 2018, but they’ve had a relationship with us since before then.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

In terms of SEO, the data speaks for itself. We can see how our site is ranking as well as the number of visitors we get through Google Analytics. We use that information to determine how successfully the relationship is going. 

How did Power Digital Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been very strong in sticking to our deadlines and communicating through Zoom. Prior to COIVD-19, they used to come to our corporate offices and present their progress in person.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a young, creative team that’s made up of very bright specialists. Depending on which initiative we’re doing, they assign subject matter experts to us who are really sharp and articulate. And, as I said before, they rarely miss deadlines if ever.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When I compare Power Digital Marketing’s work to some of the other agencies I’ve dealt with in the past, those other agencies had stronger creative development skills. Having said that, Power Digital Marketing remains stronger in terms of executing our initiatives.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t know if I have any advice to give since they do such an excellent job of managing client relations. You’ll be lucky to be a client of theirs!

Please describe your company and your position there.

I manage the partner relationship. We are the leader in managed WordPress Hosting for both SMB and enterprise brands.

For what projects/services did your company hire Power Digital Marketing, and what were your goals?

With the crazy year that 2020 was, brands have had to really up their online game. In many instances, brick-and-mortar-only businesses had to quickly pivot to an online strategy to stay open. They struggled driving traffic to their sites and convert that traffic to meaningful engagements between them and their customers.

How did you select Power Digital Marketing and what were the deciding factors?

We work with Power Digital in a joint fashion to help brands and businesses have a great web presence leveraging WordPress, the leading CMS for the web. Power Digital's clients come to them because of their expertise in campaigns designed to drive traffic to their SEO optimized business and ecom sites. Power Digital trust that WP Engine will provide a great managed hosting experience.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

A typical scope of work includes campaign creation, a WordPress site, a commerce component and ongoing enhancements to the campaign and site. Deliverables include the concept, design, campaign for digital marketing, a brand site, landing page and any further pages using WordPress as the CMS and other marketing technologies to track and provide metrics.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I work closest with the development side of Power Digital. That consists of 2-4 members of the team depending on the project.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Over the past year since late 2019, we have worked together to deploy or support more than 5 new client projects.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

The team is very professional in their communication. When launching a site on our platform, they are very familiar and are primarily self-sufficient which makes it great for them and their clients. It removes the additional effort to align schedules. When our assistance is needed to launch, they always come prepared to deploy the site with minimal effort on our side.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They take the time upfront to understand the challenges and goals of their clients. This time and understanding leads to better outcomes. They are experts in their space.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

From my perspective as a vendor/partner, they really do a great job. If there was anything I could be critical of, it would be that we don't get to work together often enough!

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a hospital located in Tijuana, Mexico. I’m the director of development.

What challenge were you trying to address with Power Digital Marketing?

We hired Power Digital to provide us with digital marketing services. As most of our patients come from the US and Canada, it’s important for us to be online for people to find us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Power Digital created a new website on WordPress, and their team still helps us with all of our digital marketing activities. We pay for Google Ads, Bing Ads, and Facebook Ads. In addition to PPC campaigns, Power Digital manages SEO initiatives.

What is the team composition?

They assigned a team to us that handles different tasks. Most of the time, we have around eight people on our team working on paid ads, content, and SEO campaigns.

How did you come to work with Power Digital Marketing?

It was time for us to find an agency to meet our goals. We wanted to hire a team of professionals to help us with digital marketing. A colleague recommended Power Digital, and we liked what we saw.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $5,000–$10,000 per month on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around April 2019, and we’re still working with them.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Power Digital has obtained great results. Their SEO campaigns quickly led to growth. Our rankings for all of our keywords have increased too. They’re performing well throughout all of our different channels.

How did Power Digital Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly meetings, and Power Digital updates Nova on a weekly basis, so we’re able to see all of their pending tasks. We also have a CRM that tracks the number of leads generated through different channels. They present statistics about traffic and leads every month, so they're always evaluating data.

We’re happy because their team’s proactive and responsive. Any time I contact them, they respond the same day. I can contact the entire team. If there's an issue, I'm able to communicate with their team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a team of young, smart individuals who're casual and professional. Their team demonstrates their knowledge, so I’m confident working with them. It’s not only their personalities but also the results of their efforts that set them apart from competitors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’ve obtained great results.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of e-commerce at an organic food company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Power Digital Marketing?

Power Digital Marketing provides ongoing digital services for our business.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

We originally hired Power Digital Marketing to assist us in managing and growing our Amazon business through Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) as well as our paid digital marketing efforts (e.g., Google Ads). 

Before we started, the team put together a forecast for the Amazon side of the project, outlining a media budget for 2020. They’ve since ramped up quickly, in large part due to the pandemic, and now assist in troubleshooting a lot of our operational and catalog issues. For example, we run our business across many channels and have to consider them all when dealing with our Amazon business. 

Power Digital Marketing has really helped us wade through those waters to figure out solutions for those frequent challenges. They’ve been great partners on that front by managing and optimizing our content. The team makes sure that our products show up as best as they can on Amazon’s digital shelf.

Currently, we work with them more on branding and digital through Google. Our goal is to drive direct-to-consumer (D2C) business through brand support. They also help catalog some of the operational and administrative pieces related to their work.

What is the team composition? 

Josh O. (PPC Paid Media Account Manager) is our main point of contact, but everyone there is genuinely nice to work with. I particularly like that they have a very tactical support structure. There’s the typical account executive who oversees all of the projects and then a senior executive sponsor who has more of the strategy chops.

How did you come to work with Power Digital Marketing?

It was through my professional network. Power Digital Marketing worked with another brand that one of my contacts knew, so they referred me to them. 

Out of the proposals that we’d heard, their team had the smartest pitch. They seemed to fully understand our business objectives, grasped how we’d benchmark performance, and went above and beyond to do the forecasting work. Not every agency will do that, especially for businesses of our size. Finally, their pricing was competitive and within our budget.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked with them since January 2020. We’ve scaled back some of our Amazon work this year, but they’re still working on our SEO. 

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Everything we talk about is based on data. We take a ROAS-focused (return on ad spend) approach that goes through a crawl, walk, and run. That is to say, we start in one place, prove that it works, and then invest in it or move on to the next thing. We’re carefully watching our key performance indicators (KPIs) to make sure we’re seeing the right ROAS.

Power Digital Marketing has been phenomenal in maintaining that viewpoint as they’ve worked with us. Whereas other agencies I’ve worked with have pressured me to spend more to see returns, Power Digital Marketing has really understood that they need to prove a strategy’s profitability and understand what it’s doing for us before even gently suggesting anything else. The team is performance-driven, and I trust them to keep an eye on our campaigns and make revisions that are in our best interests.

When it comes to SEO, we track our performance through our page rankings, SEO-based traffic, and sales to see how they change over time. 

How did Power Digital Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

We have monthly meetings to track our top-line results compared to our forecast and keep a weekly eye on our ROAS performance. There’s also a shared Google Doc for our strategy and timelines, and they use Slack for communication. The team is honest in telling us when things aren’t working so well, which helps us make adjustments. In those cases, they follow a formal process to track the constant changes and updates. 

Beyond that, they’re willing to come forward with additional opportunities as they see them. There have been several instances when we’ve engaged in additional projects because they’ve come to the table with smart, interesting proposals that have made sense for our business. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a sharp group of marketers who are a pleasure to work with. Power Digital Marketing really tries to understand our business and brand before pitching ideas to us. That allows them to see where opportunities are, which makes for good business between both parties.

It’s also refreshing to have someone from their executive leadership participating regularly on our calls. That’s not something we’ve seen regularly with other agencies. On occasion, I bring up broader business challenges that I haven’t fleshed out yet, and their leadership sees through those ambiguities to translate them to his team. They then come back with potential solutions. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

In terms of our creative projects, we didn’t quite get off the ground with them as much as we would’ve liked. Their design aesthetic was a bit different from the brand-specific guidelines that we had in place. Granted, that could've been more symptomatic of the fact that we were going through some branding changes internally at the time that they couldn’t have known about. Our creative director ended up taking over those responsibilities.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just like with any agency, you need someone on your team who can stay on top of their work. I trust Power Digital Marketing with our business, but they’re not as entrenched in our brand as an internal member would be. You’ll get so much more out of the relationship if you stay engaged, ask questions, and poke holes in the reporting.