iDrive Logistics offers eCommerce transport and achievement options, together with entry to the perfect transport charges by their software program (out there to each 3PLs and types), warehousing, returns, freight, price optimization, service contract evaluation, and extra.
The iDrive group has deep roots and data from corporations corresponding to UPS, and has negotiated greater than $5 billion in transport spend since their founding in 2008.
They leverage economies of scale and their deep expertise within the transport business to get the perfect charges out there from FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, the Amazon Delivery Community, and extra.
iDrive additionally works with clients to optimize their transport cart UX and has a community of 20+ warehouses that make the most of iDrive’s aggressive transport charges.
In April 2024, iDrive Chief Working Officer Brett Haskins reached out through my web site contact type to get some assistance on the advertising and marketing aspect, and we agreed I might step in as their fractional CMO to get the group and processes arrange. On the time, I wasn’t out there to get began immediately, so we kicked off 2 months later in June 2024.
Right here’s a testimonial from Brett as of January 2025, six months later;
Merely put, Rachel is a “employed gun” for early to mid-stage tech advertising and marketing corporations. There may be no substitute for her expertise and familiarity with the strategies and instruments required for contemporary advertising and marketing. Her community of contractors and area consultants helped us execute shortly and decisively on our roadmap milestones.
As a COO, my position spans departments and disciplines. I depend on extraordinarily good, competent folks in key roles to offer know-how and management and Rachel is not any exception. She shortly gauged the place we have been and what wanted to be achieved and began to implement her playbook to construct a strong advertising and marketing basis. She works shortly and communicates successfully. Regardless of having a strong playbook, she adapts nicely and thinks exterior of the field to unravel distinctive enterprise issues.
If there was one space that Rachel could possibly be a bit of extra educated in, it will be AI, however that being mentioned, realizing her aptitude for studying, I think about she might be an knowledgeable at that too very quickly. In abstract, Rachel is a uncommon breed of marketer and a panacea for these fortunate sufficient to search out her.
Right here’s what the primary six months of setup appeared like, adopted by what’s left to come back.
Onboarding the group
All through the seven months (up to now) I used to be with iDrive, I onboarded the next key roles.
- search engine optimisation advisor – Technical and ongoing on-page search engine optimisation
- Freelance author – Articles and internet copy
- Multimedia company – Case research packages, branding (ie. webinar decks), and content material repurposing
- Electronic mail outbounds infrastructure advisor – Arrange outreach inboxes and course of for gross sales, repaired inboxes with excessive spam scores
- PR advisor – PR technique and administration
- Editor and content material mission supervisor (in progress)
The important thing factor that enabled me to construct with principally contractors was that they already had a full-time, on-site advertising and marketing supervisor who was on prime of all of our processes, cross-team interactions, and clients. She additionally knew find out how to handle our complicated buyer database in HubSpot, the nuances of various information factors, and the way every motion reacted with different groups. For instance, there was a buyer property that needed to be tagged a sure method to make sure the gross sales group didn’t contact somebody already in a advertising and marketing sequence.
The advertising and marketing supervisor was instrumental in getting the whole lot operating easily, as she was the particular person I labored with to arrange the processes and brainstorm technique (she had deep perception into what would and wouldn’t work based mostly on the corporate arrange and politics). Shifting ahead, I consider she is well-equipped to maintain the group operating easily with the sources we’ve put in place.
Constructing the fundamentals
The primary one to 2 weeks of my contract was spent spent interviewing inside group members, attending to know the instruments and processes in play on the time, and lining up buyer interviews. At this stage, earlier gross sales calls weren’t as related as iDrive was shifting their mannequin away from being a transport price supplier to nearly a 4PL.
Nevertheless, as an alternative of incomes on providers, iDrive earns when manufacturers decide to ship with our charges, which are sometimes essentially the most aggressive choice out there (and the way our charges find yourself being chosen). Our margins are already constructed into the charges that manufacturers see, so after they select an iDrive label they know what they’re getting.
Then we started working organising the inspiration for the advertising and marketing group. This included:
- Establishing Asana as our mission administration software
- Shifting to HubSpot from their former disjointed CRM
- Finalizing the WordPress web site (extra on that beneath)
- Establishing GA4 and the HubSpot experiences dashboard
- Constructing a welcome e-mail sequence, and launching the e-mail e-newsletter
Tech stack
- Asana – Venture administration
- HubSpot – Electronic mail, CRM, analytics and KPI monitoring, touchdown pages, varieties
- WordPress – Web site (we moved from Webflow)
- Hotjar – Session monitoring, AB testing
- Riverside – Podcast recording software we repurposed for webinars
A brand new web site launch
First precedence was the web site, search engine optimisation, and alongside that managing e-mail outreach distributors.
Updating all outdated blogs; deleting what wasn’t related or getting any visitors, deciding what to maintain and replace, creating mission briefs for the updates, sourcing and testing writers, discovering one which labored rather well, executing the updates, managing search engine optimisation checks on them, and so forth. The web site was the most important endeavor, because it concerned updating all of our outdated blogs which have been principally quick and beneath a special model, alongside new blogs that wanted to be created.
Shifting from Webflow to WordPress; we discovered that Webflow had limitations when it got here to search engine optimisation, a lot of which have been highlighted by our search engine optimisation advisor. I’m glad I started working with Webflow to be taught extra about it, however as with all my different purchasers, I proceed to suggest WordPress.
Testing and CRO; As soon as our new web site was launched and all technical search engine optimisation objects resolved, we used our analytics instruments and session monitoring instruments to search out the place guests have been dropping off to “plug the holes.”
Creating extra bottom-funnel content material; this included case research, lead magnets, and something that would persuade a customer to both contact us or join our e-newsletter. We wished a option to seize extra emails so we may nurture them as nicely.
Mapping our purchaser journey
After facilitating buyer interviews, speaking to customer-facing group members, and brainstorming with totally different division heads, we have been in a position to map out the client journey and key steps by acquisition, activation, and retention.
Right here’s a tough overview of how we determined to consider totally different pipelines.
Lead seize
- Lead
- MQL
- SQL
- Pitched
- Closed received
Onboarding
- Contract despatched
- Contract signed
- Account creation
- [Key activation step]
- First order despatched
- First bill paid
Misplaced
- Unqualified
- Closed misplaced
- Revisit
- Churned – Inside
- Churned – Exterior
Shifting from outbound to inbound
After I first joined, I used to be handed two outbound e-mail company relationships to start out testing. Considered one of them supplied as many emails as they may discover and relied on quantity to be taught the place to optimize and get leads. The opposite is extra mature, and supplied a fraction of the emails however promised a extra sophsiticated e-mail optimization software program and gross sales course of.
We shortly discovered that the inbound leads we began getting from the web site and content material have been “1000x higher” than those we have been getting from automated chilly emails, and didn’t renew our contracts with them.
A part of the difficulty was when working with an organization or company to do outbound emails, you don’t get to decide on your account supervisor. When that course of is in-house, you may filter for precisely who you rent to characterize you in chilly outreach. Businesses aren’t practically as private or cautious together with your model or outreach goal choice, and we have been unfortunate sufficient to get an initially unresponsive account supervisor who threw our progress off by a month.
We ended these contracts after three months, and determined to deal with inbound and nurture channels as an alternative. This included;
- Getting extra case research and social proof; I needed to discover a method the group may shortly and simply get efficient case research printed.
- Creating lead magnets we may leverage for inbound and outbound; we would have liked one thing that we may disclose to showcase our experience and professionalism.
- Establishing emails; we launched an e-mail e-newsletter, arrange an automatic welcome e-mail for the e-newsletter, and began engaged on an onboarding e-mail sequence.
- Mapping the client journey (talked about above); We mapped the client journey to search out out what our “set off levels” have been to get clients to transform and attain out to contact us, and find out how to get them from contact to contract signed.
Nevertheless, the acquisition group didn’t abandon outbound fully. Gross sales nonetheless did their very own extremely customized outreach to some dozen accounts per day.
We introduced on Michael Folling, whom I had labored with prior to now, to create a straightforward course of that used our present instruments.
Abstract: Gross sales would attain out with an alternate however comparable e-mail area, replies would go to their primary inboxes for subsequent conversations. All emails, together with the preliminary outreach, could be logged in HubSpot and tied to the right salesperson, as we are able to affiliate a number of emails with one person.
Establishing a case research cadence
I introduced on a digital company to streamline our case research creation course of, so we might solely have to get a buyer on the cellphone and document the interview.
One video recording of a buyer interview grew to become:
- An edited recording of the total interview to be printed on YouTube
- An edited transcript to be printed on the weblog with the YouTube video embedded
- A case research write-up to be printed on the weblog
- Video snippets of key quotes and ideas to be shared on social media
- Quote graphics from the audio system to be shared on social media
Creating lead magnets
We launched two webinars; one on transport cart optimization, and one other on find out how to perceive your transport price contracts. This is able to cowl each of our main traces of enterprise (transport charges/achievement, and contract negotiation).
The webinars have been promoted on;
- Our e-newsletter
- Social media
- LinkedIn paid advertisements
- Chilly e-mail outreach from our group (and any e-mail outreach companies we have been utilizing on the time)
Extra essential than the registrants for the reside occasions, the recordings gave us a helpful lead magnet to repurpose into blogs, clips, social posts, PDFs, and extra.
After the webinars, the recording edited and printed on our weblog, together with a type to fill out to obtain the slides. This is able to enable us to proceed capturing emails from these most .
The recordings have been additionally shared with our gross sales group for his or her use in closing offers.
Lastly, we repurposed the webinar subjects and have been ready to make use of the clips, pictures, and PDFs to generate much more leads throughout extra channels, from paid advertisements to natural social.
Constructing out nurture channels
In step with our push for inbound natural acquisition, we wished to enhance our nurture channels. This included creating an e-mail e-newsletter, a e-newsletter web page the place guests may enroll, prompts to enroll to the e-newsletter throughout the web site, and an automatic welcome e-mail.
One of many ways that proved profitable in growing our e-newsletter subscriber price was webinars. We observed a bump in subscribers after our first two “check” webinars talked about above.
Within the coming months, as soon as a brand new product platform is launched, we additionally plan to construct out an automatic onboarding sequence that may preserve customers returning to their dashboard.
Preliminary outcomes
Though not but the well-oiled machine that may scale the corporate over the subsequent few years, we’re definitely getting the fitting instruments in place for higher visibility and extra organized processes. Total I’m extremely proud of the group and sources we’ve put in place.
Since I joined simply as a brand new enterprise mannequin was launching, I ended up constructing from scratch. So I can say that the next progress (beneath the brand new 3PL-forward mannequin) took place beneath the group we put collectively.
- We grew the e-newsletter to greater than 1,000 subscribers. Take into account lower than six months in the past, that quantity was zero.
- Inside 40 days from the brand new web site launch, we obtained two inbound leads that transformed to contracts signed/clients. One transformed in lower than 40 days. Since 2008, this consumer had by no means acquired an inbound type fill that transformed to a deal. Inbound leads have been coming in steadily since then.
- We additionally noticed a superb bounce in session visitors that has since leveled out, with natural search as the highest visitors driver.
Shifting to the subsequent part: PR, product-led, and referrals
Originally, I targeted on constructing the groundwork for iDrive’s advertising and marketing arm. This included our processes, tech stack, key folks, and my data and understanding of the model.
Whereas that was occurring, I started optimizing our content material, together with updating the web site, making certain we have been nicely positioned for search engine optimisation, and updating all of our outdated and irrelevant blogs (deciding whether or not to maintain, replace, or delete in a content material audit). That is additionally once I began prioritizing case research as key items of content material for our conversions and gross sales group.
As soon as that was underway, we began positioning ourselves as consultants with occasions, and creating lead magnets utilizing the recordings and slides. At this level we began noticing the bump in e-newsletter signups that indicated higher model recognition, but a low webinar registration conversion price.
This led us to theorize we had but to construct our model recognition and belief, which is after we determined to look to PR as our subsequent goal. Again in January, we obtained our first huge PR win when our advisor obtained iDrive President Glenn Gooding an interview and quote on Bloomberg.
Along with PR, whereas this was occurring the group was additionally engaged on a brand new platform rollout. With that on the horizon, we now should additionally begin getting ready to check product-led advertising and marketing, corresponding to:
- Providing free instruments that require an e-mail to entry the outcomes
- Constructing integrations with different tech platforms and doing joint promotion (in-app and co-marketing)
- Offering a sandbox or demo to play with on the web site, with a straightforward sign-up stream after (for instance, prompting them to “save your information, create an account”)
Lastly, I’d wish to get a formalized referral program in place after hammering out the foundations and rewards. That is principally as a result of it’s been such a viable supply of high quality leads that convert based mostly on all the buyer interviews I’ve performed.
Fortunately for everybody, iDrive ended up extending their contract indefinitely, so we’ll be working collectively on all the above and extra all through the subsequent 12 months.
I anticipate to have the ability to hand off the CMO position as soon as we’ve dependable sources in all the key progress channels we resolve to put money into on an ongoing foundation. I do know when a job is nicely achieved as a result of by the top of it, my day-to-day execution is free and clear, and most of my time is spent course setting, correcting, and reviewing.
Keep tuned for extra in 2025!
iDrive Logistics offers eCommerce transport and achievement options, together with entry to the perfect transport charges by their software program (out there to each 3PLs and types), warehousing, returns, freight, price optimization, service contract evaluation, and extra.
The iDrive group has deep roots and data from corporations corresponding to UPS, and has negotiated greater than $5 billion in transport spend since their founding in 2008.
They leverage economies of scale and their deep expertise within the transport business to get the perfect charges out there from FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, the Amazon Delivery Community, and extra.
iDrive additionally works with clients to optimize their transport cart UX and has a community of 20+ warehouses that make the most of iDrive’s aggressive transport charges.
In April 2024, iDrive Chief Working Officer Brett Haskins reached out through my web site contact type to get some assistance on the advertising and marketing aspect, and we agreed I might step in as their fractional CMO to get the group and processes arrange. On the time, I wasn’t out there to get began immediately, so we kicked off 2 months later in June 2024.
Right here’s a testimonial from Brett as of January 2025, six months later;
Merely put, Rachel is a “employed gun” for early to mid-stage tech advertising and marketing corporations. There may be no substitute for her expertise and familiarity with the strategies and instruments required for contemporary advertising and marketing. Her community of contractors and area consultants helped us execute shortly and decisively on our roadmap milestones.
As a COO, my position spans departments and disciplines. I depend on extraordinarily good, competent folks in key roles to offer know-how and management and Rachel is not any exception. She shortly gauged the place we have been and what wanted to be achieved and began to implement her playbook to construct a strong advertising and marketing basis. She works shortly and communicates successfully. Regardless of having a strong playbook, she adapts nicely and thinks exterior of the field to unravel distinctive enterprise issues.
If there was one space that Rachel could possibly be a bit of extra educated in, it will be AI, however that being mentioned, realizing her aptitude for studying, I think about she might be an knowledgeable at that too very quickly. In abstract, Rachel is a uncommon breed of marketer and a panacea for these fortunate sufficient to search out her.
Right here’s what the primary six months of setup appeared like, adopted by what’s left to come back.
Onboarding the group
All through the seven months (up to now) I used to be with iDrive, I onboarded the next key roles.
- search engine optimisation advisor – Technical and ongoing on-page search engine optimisation
- Freelance author – Articles and internet copy
- Multimedia company – Case research packages, branding (ie. webinar decks), and content material repurposing
- Electronic mail outbounds infrastructure advisor – Arrange outreach inboxes and course of for gross sales, repaired inboxes with excessive spam scores
- PR advisor – PR technique and administration
- Editor and content material mission supervisor (in progress)
The important thing factor that enabled me to construct with principally contractors was that they already had a full-time, on-site advertising and marketing supervisor who was on prime of all of our processes, cross-team interactions, and clients. She additionally knew find out how to handle our complicated buyer database in HubSpot, the nuances of various information factors, and the way every motion reacted with different groups. For instance, there was a buyer property that needed to be tagged a sure method to make sure the gross sales group didn’t contact somebody already in a advertising and marketing sequence.
The advertising and marketing supervisor was instrumental in getting the whole lot operating easily, as she was the particular person I labored with to arrange the processes and brainstorm technique (she had deep perception into what would and wouldn’t work based mostly on the corporate arrange and politics). Shifting ahead, I consider she is well-equipped to maintain the group operating easily with the sources we’ve put in place.
Constructing the fundamentals
The primary one to 2 weeks of my contract was spent spent interviewing inside group members, attending to know the instruments and processes in play on the time, and lining up buyer interviews. At this stage, earlier gross sales calls weren’t as related as iDrive was shifting their mannequin away from being a transport price supplier to nearly a 4PL.
Nevertheless, as an alternative of incomes on providers, iDrive earns when manufacturers decide to ship with our charges, which are sometimes essentially the most aggressive choice out there (and the way our charges find yourself being chosen). Our margins are already constructed into the charges that manufacturers see, so after they select an iDrive label they know what they’re getting.
Then we started working organising the inspiration for the advertising and marketing group. This included:
- Establishing Asana as our mission administration software
- Shifting to HubSpot from their former disjointed CRM
- Finalizing the WordPress web site (extra on that beneath)
- Establishing GA4 and the HubSpot experiences dashboard
- Constructing a welcome e-mail sequence, and launching the e-mail e-newsletter
Tech stack
- Asana – Venture administration
- HubSpot – Electronic mail, CRM, analytics and KPI monitoring, touchdown pages, varieties
- WordPress – Web site (we moved from Webflow)
- Hotjar – Session monitoring, AB testing
- Riverside – Podcast recording software we repurposed for webinars
A brand new web site launch
First precedence was the web site, search engine optimisation, and alongside that managing e-mail outreach distributors.
Updating all outdated blogs; deleting what wasn’t related or getting any visitors, deciding what to maintain and replace, creating mission briefs for the updates, sourcing and testing writers, discovering one which labored rather well, executing the updates, managing search engine optimisation checks on them, and so forth. The web site was the most important endeavor, because it concerned updating all of our outdated blogs which have been principally quick and beneath a special model, alongside new blogs that wanted to be created.
Shifting from Webflow to WordPress; we discovered that Webflow had limitations when it got here to search engine optimisation, a lot of which have been highlighted by our search engine optimisation advisor. I’m glad I started working with Webflow to be taught extra about it, however as with all my different purchasers, I proceed to suggest WordPress.
Testing and CRO; As soon as our new web site was launched and all technical search engine optimisation objects resolved, we used our analytics instruments and session monitoring instruments to search out the place guests have been dropping off to “plug the holes.”
Creating extra bottom-funnel content material; this included case research, lead magnets, and something that would persuade a customer to both contact us or join our e-newsletter. We wished a option to seize extra emails so we may nurture them as nicely.
Mapping our purchaser journey
After facilitating buyer interviews, speaking to customer-facing group members, and brainstorming with totally different division heads, we have been in a position to map out the client journey and key steps by acquisition, activation, and retention.
Right here’s a tough overview of how we determined to consider totally different pipelines.
Lead seize
- Lead
- MQL
- SQL
- Pitched
- Closed received
Onboarding
- Contract despatched
- Contract signed
- Account creation
- [Key activation step]
- First order despatched
- First bill paid
Misplaced
- Unqualified
- Closed misplaced
- Revisit
- Churned – Inside
- Churned – Exterior
Shifting from outbound to inbound
After I first joined, I used to be handed two outbound e-mail company relationships to start out testing. Considered one of them supplied as many emails as they may discover and relied on quantity to be taught the place to optimize and get leads. The opposite is extra mature, and supplied a fraction of the emails however promised a extra sophsiticated e-mail optimization software program and gross sales course of.
We shortly discovered that the inbound leads we began getting from the web site and content material have been “1000x higher” than those we have been getting from automated chilly emails, and didn’t renew our contracts with them.
A part of the difficulty was when working with an organization or company to do outbound emails, you don’t get to decide on your account supervisor. When that course of is in-house, you may filter for precisely who you rent to characterize you in chilly outreach. Businesses aren’t practically as private or cautious together with your model or outreach goal choice, and we have been unfortunate sufficient to get an initially unresponsive account supervisor who threw our progress off by a month.
We ended these contracts after three months, and determined to deal with inbound and nurture channels as an alternative. This included;
- Getting extra case research and social proof; I needed to discover a method the group may shortly and simply get efficient case research printed.
- Creating lead magnets we may leverage for inbound and outbound; we would have liked one thing that we may disclose to showcase our experience and professionalism.
- Establishing emails; we launched an e-mail e-newsletter, arrange an automatic welcome e-mail for the e-newsletter, and began engaged on an onboarding e-mail sequence.
- Mapping the client journey (talked about above); We mapped the client journey to search out out what our “set off levels” have been to get clients to transform and attain out to contact us, and find out how to get them from contact to contract signed.
Nevertheless, the acquisition group didn’t abandon outbound fully. Gross sales nonetheless did their very own extremely customized outreach to some dozen accounts per day.
We introduced on Michael Folling, whom I had labored with prior to now, to create a straightforward course of that used our present instruments.
Abstract: Gross sales would attain out with an alternate however comparable e-mail area, replies would go to their primary inboxes for subsequent conversations. All emails, together with the preliminary outreach, could be logged in HubSpot and tied to the right salesperson, as we are able to affiliate a number of emails with one person.
Establishing a case research cadence
I introduced on a digital company to streamline our case research creation course of, so we might solely have to get a buyer on the cellphone and document the interview.
One video recording of a buyer interview grew to become:
- An edited recording of the total interview to be printed on YouTube
- An edited transcript to be printed on the weblog with the YouTube video embedded
- A case research write-up to be printed on the weblog
- Video snippets of key quotes and ideas to be shared on social media
- Quote graphics from the audio system to be shared on social media
Creating lead magnets
We launched two webinars; one on transport cart optimization, and one other on find out how to perceive your transport price contracts. This is able to cowl each of our main traces of enterprise (transport charges/achievement, and contract negotiation).
The webinars have been promoted on;
- Our e-newsletter
- Social media
- LinkedIn paid advertisements
- Chilly e-mail outreach from our group (and any e-mail outreach companies we have been utilizing on the time)
Extra essential than the registrants for the reside occasions, the recordings gave us a helpful lead magnet to repurpose into blogs, clips, social posts, PDFs, and extra.
After the webinars, the recording edited and printed on our weblog, together with a type to fill out to obtain the slides. This is able to enable us to proceed capturing emails from these most .
The recordings have been additionally shared with our gross sales group for his or her use in closing offers.
Lastly, we repurposed the webinar subjects and have been ready to make use of the clips, pictures, and PDFs to generate much more leads throughout extra channels, from paid advertisements to natural social.
Constructing out nurture channels
In step with our push for inbound natural acquisition, we wished to enhance our nurture channels. This included creating an e-mail e-newsletter, a e-newsletter web page the place guests may enroll, prompts to enroll to the e-newsletter throughout the web site, and an automatic welcome e-mail.
One of many ways that proved profitable in growing our e-newsletter subscriber price was webinars. We observed a bump in subscribers after our first two “check” webinars talked about above.
Within the coming months, as soon as a brand new product platform is launched, we additionally plan to construct out an automatic onboarding sequence that may preserve customers returning to their dashboard.
Preliminary outcomes
Though not but the well-oiled machine that may scale the corporate over the subsequent few years, we’re definitely getting the fitting instruments in place for higher visibility and extra organized processes. Total I’m extremely proud of the group and sources we’ve put in place.
Since I joined simply as a brand new enterprise mannequin was launching, I ended up constructing from scratch. So I can say that the next progress (beneath the brand new 3PL-forward mannequin) took place beneath the group we put collectively.
- We grew the e-newsletter to greater than 1,000 subscribers. Take into account lower than six months in the past, that quantity was zero.
- Inside 40 days from the brand new web site launch, we obtained two inbound leads that transformed to contracts signed/clients. One transformed in lower than 40 days. Since 2008, this consumer had by no means acquired an inbound type fill that transformed to a deal. Inbound leads have been coming in steadily since then.
- We additionally noticed a superb bounce in session visitors that has since leveled out, with natural search as the highest visitors driver.
Shifting to the subsequent part: PR, product-led, and referrals
Originally, I targeted on constructing the groundwork for iDrive’s advertising and marketing arm. This included our processes, tech stack, key folks, and my data and understanding of the model.
Whereas that was occurring, I started optimizing our content material, together with updating the web site, making certain we have been nicely positioned for search engine optimisation, and updating all of our outdated and irrelevant blogs (deciding whether or not to maintain, replace, or delete in a content material audit). That is additionally once I began prioritizing case research as key items of content material for our conversions and gross sales group.
As soon as that was underway, we began positioning ourselves as consultants with occasions, and creating lead magnets utilizing the recordings and slides. At this level we began noticing the bump in e-newsletter signups that indicated higher model recognition, but a low webinar registration conversion price.
This led us to theorize we had but to construct our model recognition and belief, which is after we determined to look to PR as our subsequent goal. Again in January, we obtained our first huge PR win when our advisor obtained iDrive President Glenn Gooding an interview and quote on Bloomberg.
Along with PR, whereas this was occurring the group was additionally engaged on a brand new platform rollout. With that on the horizon, we now should additionally begin getting ready to check product-led advertising and marketing, corresponding to:
- Providing free instruments that require an e-mail to entry the outcomes
- Constructing integrations with different tech platforms and doing joint promotion (in-app and co-marketing)
- Offering a sandbox or demo to play with on the web site, with a straightforward sign-up stream after (for instance, prompting them to “save your information, create an account”)
Lastly, I’d wish to get a formalized referral program in place after hammering out the foundations and rewards. That is principally as a result of it’s been such a viable supply of high quality leads that convert based mostly on all the buyer interviews I’ve performed.
Fortunately for everybody, iDrive ended up extending their contract indefinitely, so we’ll be working collectively on all the above and extra all through the subsequent 12 months.
I anticipate to have the ability to hand off the CMO position as soon as we’ve dependable sources in all the key progress channels we resolve to put money into on an ongoing foundation. I do know when a job is nicely achieved as a result of by the top of it, my day-to-day execution is free and clear, and most of my time is spent course setting, correcting, and reviewing.
Keep tuned for extra in 2025!
iDrive Logistics offers eCommerce transport and achievement options, together with entry to the perfect transport charges by their software program (out there to each 3PLs and types), warehousing, returns, freight, price optimization, service contract evaluation, and extra.
The iDrive group has deep roots and data from corporations corresponding to UPS, and has negotiated greater than $5 billion in transport spend since their founding in 2008.
They leverage economies of scale and their deep expertise within the transport business to get the perfect charges out there from FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, the Amazon Delivery Community, and extra.
iDrive additionally works with clients to optimize their transport cart UX and has a community of 20+ warehouses that make the most of iDrive’s aggressive transport charges.
In April 2024, iDrive Chief Working Officer Brett Haskins reached out through my web site contact type to get some assistance on the advertising and marketing aspect, and we agreed I might step in as their fractional CMO to get the group and processes arrange. On the time, I wasn’t out there to get began immediately, so we kicked off 2 months later in June 2024.
Right here’s a testimonial from Brett as of January 2025, six months later;
Merely put, Rachel is a “employed gun” for early to mid-stage tech advertising and marketing corporations. There may be no substitute for her expertise and familiarity with the strategies and instruments required for contemporary advertising and marketing. Her community of contractors and area consultants helped us execute shortly and decisively on our roadmap milestones.
As a COO, my position spans departments and disciplines. I depend on extraordinarily good, competent folks in key roles to offer know-how and management and Rachel is not any exception. She shortly gauged the place we have been and what wanted to be achieved and began to implement her playbook to construct a strong advertising and marketing basis. She works shortly and communicates successfully. Regardless of having a strong playbook, she adapts nicely and thinks exterior of the field to unravel distinctive enterprise issues.
If there was one space that Rachel could possibly be a bit of extra educated in, it will be AI, however that being mentioned, realizing her aptitude for studying, I think about she might be an knowledgeable at that too very quickly. In abstract, Rachel is a uncommon breed of marketer and a panacea for these fortunate sufficient to search out her.
Right here’s what the primary six months of setup appeared like, adopted by what’s left to come back.
Onboarding the group
All through the seven months (up to now) I used to be with iDrive, I onboarded the next key roles.
- search engine optimisation advisor – Technical and ongoing on-page search engine optimisation
- Freelance author – Articles and internet copy
- Multimedia company – Case research packages, branding (ie. webinar decks), and content material repurposing
- Electronic mail outbounds infrastructure advisor – Arrange outreach inboxes and course of for gross sales, repaired inboxes with excessive spam scores
- PR advisor – PR technique and administration
- Editor and content material mission supervisor (in progress)
The important thing factor that enabled me to construct with principally contractors was that they already had a full-time, on-site advertising and marketing supervisor who was on prime of all of our processes, cross-team interactions, and clients. She additionally knew find out how to handle our complicated buyer database in HubSpot, the nuances of various information factors, and the way every motion reacted with different groups. For instance, there was a buyer property that needed to be tagged a sure method to make sure the gross sales group didn’t contact somebody already in a advertising and marketing sequence.
The advertising and marketing supervisor was instrumental in getting the whole lot operating easily, as she was the particular person I labored with to arrange the processes and brainstorm technique (she had deep perception into what would and wouldn’t work based mostly on the corporate arrange and politics). Shifting ahead, I consider she is well-equipped to maintain the group operating easily with the sources we’ve put in place.
Constructing the fundamentals
The primary one to 2 weeks of my contract was spent spent interviewing inside group members, attending to know the instruments and processes in play on the time, and lining up buyer interviews. At this stage, earlier gross sales calls weren’t as related as iDrive was shifting their mannequin away from being a transport price supplier to nearly a 4PL.
Nevertheless, as an alternative of incomes on providers, iDrive earns when manufacturers decide to ship with our charges, which are sometimes essentially the most aggressive choice out there (and the way our charges find yourself being chosen). Our margins are already constructed into the charges that manufacturers see, so after they select an iDrive label they know what they’re getting.
Then we started working organising the inspiration for the advertising and marketing group. This included:
- Establishing Asana as our mission administration software
- Shifting to HubSpot from their former disjointed CRM
- Finalizing the WordPress web site (extra on that beneath)
- Establishing GA4 and the HubSpot experiences dashboard
- Constructing a welcome e-mail sequence, and launching the e-mail e-newsletter
Tech stack
- Asana – Venture administration
- HubSpot – Electronic mail, CRM, analytics and KPI monitoring, touchdown pages, varieties
- WordPress – Web site (we moved from Webflow)
- Hotjar – Session monitoring, AB testing
- Riverside – Podcast recording software we repurposed for webinars
A brand new web site launch
First precedence was the web site, search engine optimisation, and alongside that managing e-mail outreach distributors.
Updating all outdated blogs; deleting what wasn’t related or getting any visitors, deciding what to maintain and replace, creating mission briefs for the updates, sourcing and testing writers, discovering one which labored rather well, executing the updates, managing search engine optimisation checks on them, and so forth. The web site was the most important endeavor, because it concerned updating all of our outdated blogs which have been principally quick and beneath a special model, alongside new blogs that wanted to be created.
Shifting from Webflow to WordPress; we discovered that Webflow had limitations when it got here to search engine optimisation, a lot of which have been highlighted by our search engine optimisation advisor. I’m glad I started working with Webflow to be taught extra about it, however as with all my different purchasers, I proceed to suggest WordPress.
Testing and CRO; As soon as our new web site was launched and all technical search engine optimisation objects resolved, we used our analytics instruments and session monitoring instruments to search out the place guests have been dropping off to “plug the holes.”
Creating extra bottom-funnel content material; this included case research, lead magnets, and something that would persuade a customer to both contact us or join our e-newsletter. We wished a option to seize extra emails so we may nurture them as nicely.
Mapping our purchaser journey
After facilitating buyer interviews, speaking to customer-facing group members, and brainstorming with totally different division heads, we have been in a position to map out the client journey and key steps by acquisition, activation, and retention.
Right here’s a tough overview of how we determined to consider totally different pipelines.
Lead seize
- Lead
- MQL
- SQL
- Pitched
- Closed received
Onboarding
- Contract despatched
- Contract signed
- Account creation
- [Key activation step]
- First order despatched
- First bill paid
Misplaced
- Unqualified
- Closed misplaced
- Revisit
- Churned – Inside
- Churned – Exterior
Shifting from outbound to inbound
After I first joined, I used to be handed two outbound e-mail company relationships to start out testing. Considered one of them supplied as many emails as they may discover and relied on quantity to be taught the place to optimize and get leads. The opposite is extra mature, and supplied a fraction of the emails however promised a extra sophsiticated e-mail optimization software program and gross sales course of.
We shortly discovered that the inbound leads we began getting from the web site and content material have been “1000x higher” than those we have been getting from automated chilly emails, and didn’t renew our contracts with them.
A part of the difficulty was when working with an organization or company to do outbound emails, you don’t get to decide on your account supervisor. When that course of is in-house, you may filter for precisely who you rent to characterize you in chilly outreach. Businesses aren’t practically as private or cautious together with your model or outreach goal choice, and we have been unfortunate sufficient to get an initially unresponsive account supervisor who threw our progress off by a month.
We ended these contracts after three months, and determined to deal with inbound and nurture channels as an alternative. This included;
- Getting extra case research and social proof; I needed to discover a method the group may shortly and simply get efficient case research printed.
- Creating lead magnets we may leverage for inbound and outbound; we would have liked one thing that we may disclose to showcase our experience and professionalism.
- Establishing emails; we launched an e-mail e-newsletter, arrange an automatic welcome e-mail for the e-newsletter, and began engaged on an onboarding e-mail sequence.
- Mapping the client journey (talked about above); We mapped the client journey to search out out what our “set off levels” have been to get clients to transform and attain out to contact us, and find out how to get them from contact to contract signed.
Nevertheless, the acquisition group didn’t abandon outbound fully. Gross sales nonetheless did their very own extremely customized outreach to some dozen accounts per day.
We introduced on Michael Folling, whom I had labored with prior to now, to create a straightforward course of that used our present instruments.
Abstract: Gross sales would attain out with an alternate however comparable e-mail area, replies would go to their primary inboxes for subsequent conversations. All emails, together with the preliminary outreach, could be logged in HubSpot and tied to the right salesperson, as we are able to affiliate a number of emails with one person.
Establishing a case research cadence
I introduced on a digital company to streamline our case research creation course of, so we might solely have to get a buyer on the cellphone and document the interview.
One video recording of a buyer interview grew to become:
- An edited recording of the total interview to be printed on YouTube
- An edited transcript to be printed on the weblog with the YouTube video embedded
- A case research write-up to be printed on the weblog
- Video snippets of key quotes and ideas to be shared on social media
- Quote graphics from the audio system to be shared on social media
Creating lead magnets
We launched two webinars; one on transport cart optimization, and one other on find out how to perceive your transport price contracts. This is able to cowl each of our main traces of enterprise (transport charges/achievement, and contract negotiation).
The webinars have been promoted on;
- Our e-newsletter
- Social media
- LinkedIn paid advertisements
- Chilly e-mail outreach from our group (and any e-mail outreach companies we have been utilizing on the time)
Extra essential than the registrants for the reside occasions, the recordings gave us a helpful lead magnet to repurpose into blogs, clips, social posts, PDFs, and extra.
After the webinars, the recording edited and printed on our weblog, together with a type to fill out to obtain the slides. This is able to enable us to proceed capturing emails from these most .
The recordings have been additionally shared with our gross sales group for his or her use in closing offers.
Lastly, we repurposed the webinar subjects and have been ready to make use of the clips, pictures, and PDFs to generate much more leads throughout extra channels, from paid advertisements to natural social.
Constructing out nurture channels
In step with our push for inbound natural acquisition, we wished to enhance our nurture channels. This included creating an e-mail e-newsletter, a e-newsletter web page the place guests may enroll, prompts to enroll to the e-newsletter throughout the web site, and an automatic welcome e-mail.
One of many ways that proved profitable in growing our e-newsletter subscriber price was webinars. We observed a bump in subscribers after our first two “check” webinars talked about above.
Within the coming months, as soon as a brand new product platform is launched, we additionally plan to construct out an automatic onboarding sequence that may preserve customers returning to their dashboard.
Preliminary outcomes
Though not but the well-oiled machine that may scale the corporate over the subsequent few years, we’re definitely getting the fitting instruments in place for higher visibility and extra organized processes. Total I’m extremely proud of the group and sources we’ve put in place.
Since I joined simply as a brand new enterprise mannequin was launching, I ended up constructing from scratch. So I can say that the next progress (beneath the brand new 3PL-forward mannequin) took place beneath the group we put collectively.
- We grew the e-newsletter to greater than 1,000 subscribers. Take into account lower than six months in the past, that quantity was zero.
- Inside 40 days from the brand new web site launch, we obtained two inbound leads that transformed to contracts signed/clients. One transformed in lower than 40 days. Since 2008, this consumer had by no means acquired an inbound type fill that transformed to a deal. Inbound leads have been coming in steadily since then.
- We additionally noticed a superb bounce in session visitors that has since leveled out, with natural search as the highest visitors driver.
Shifting to the subsequent part: PR, product-led, and referrals
Originally, I targeted on constructing the groundwork for iDrive’s advertising and marketing arm. This included our processes, tech stack, key folks, and my data and understanding of the model.
Whereas that was occurring, I started optimizing our content material, together with updating the web site, making certain we have been nicely positioned for search engine optimisation, and updating all of our outdated and irrelevant blogs (deciding whether or not to maintain, replace, or delete in a content material audit). That is additionally once I began prioritizing case research as key items of content material for our conversions and gross sales group.
As soon as that was underway, we began positioning ourselves as consultants with occasions, and creating lead magnets utilizing the recordings and slides. At this level we began noticing the bump in e-newsletter signups that indicated higher model recognition, but a low webinar registration conversion price.
This led us to theorize we had but to construct our model recognition and belief, which is after we determined to look to PR as our subsequent goal. Again in January, we obtained our first huge PR win when our advisor obtained iDrive President Glenn Gooding an interview and quote on Bloomberg.
Along with PR, whereas this was occurring the group was additionally engaged on a brand new platform rollout. With that on the horizon, we now should additionally begin getting ready to check product-led advertising and marketing, corresponding to:
- Providing free instruments that require an e-mail to entry the outcomes
- Constructing integrations with different tech platforms and doing joint promotion (in-app and co-marketing)
- Offering a sandbox or demo to play with on the web site, with a straightforward sign-up stream after (for instance, prompting them to “save your information, create an account”)
Lastly, I’d wish to get a formalized referral program in place after hammering out the foundations and rewards. That is principally as a result of it’s been such a viable supply of high quality leads that convert based mostly on all the buyer interviews I’ve performed.
Fortunately for everybody, iDrive ended up extending their contract indefinitely, so we’ll be working collectively on all the above and extra all through the subsequent 12 months.
I anticipate to have the ability to hand off the CMO position as soon as we’ve dependable sources in all the key progress channels we resolve to put money into on an ongoing foundation. I do know when a job is nicely achieved as a result of by the top of it, my day-to-day execution is free and clear, and most of my time is spent course setting, correcting, and reviewing.
Keep tuned for extra in 2025!
iDrive Logistics offers eCommerce transport and achievement options, together with entry to the perfect transport charges by their software program (out there to each 3PLs and types), warehousing, returns, freight, price optimization, service contract evaluation, and extra.
The iDrive group has deep roots and data from corporations corresponding to UPS, and has negotiated greater than $5 billion in transport spend since their founding in 2008.
They leverage economies of scale and their deep expertise within the transport business to get the perfect charges out there from FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, the Amazon Delivery Community, and extra.
iDrive additionally works with clients to optimize their transport cart UX and has a community of 20+ warehouses that make the most of iDrive’s aggressive transport charges.
In April 2024, iDrive Chief Working Officer Brett Haskins reached out through my web site contact type to get some assistance on the advertising and marketing aspect, and we agreed I might step in as their fractional CMO to get the group and processes arrange. On the time, I wasn’t out there to get began immediately, so we kicked off 2 months later in June 2024.
Right here’s a testimonial from Brett as of January 2025, six months later;
Merely put, Rachel is a “employed gun” for early to mid-stage tech advertising and marketing corporations. There may be no substitute for her expertise and familiarity with the strategies and instruments required for contemporary advertising and marketing. Her community of contractors and area consultants helped us execute shortly and decisively on our roadmap milestones.
As a COO, my position spans departments and disciplines. I depend on extraordinarily good, competent folks in key roles to offer know-how and management and Rachel is not any exception. She shortly gauged the place we have been and what wanted to be achieved and began to implement her playbook to construct a strong advertising and marketing basis. She works shortly and communicates successfully. Regardless of having a strong playbook, she adapts nicely and thinks exterior of the field to unravel distinctive enterprise issues.
If there was one space that Rachel could possibly be a bit of extra educated in, it will be AI, however that being mentioned, realizing her aptitude for studying, I think about she might be an knowledgeable at that too very quickly. In abstract, Rachel is a uncommon breed of marketer and a panacea for these fortunate sufficient to search out her.
Right here’s what the primary six months of setup appeared like, adopted by what’s left to come back.
Onboarding the group
All through the seven months (up to now) I used to be with iDrive, I onboarded the next key roles.
- search engine optimisation advisor – Technical and ongoing on-page search engine optimisation
- Freelance author – Articles and internet copy
- Multimedia company – Case research packages, branding (ie. webinar decks), and content material repurposing
- Electronic mail outbounds infrastructure advisor – Arrange outreach inboxes and course of for gross sales, repaired inboxes with excessive spam scores
- PR advisor – PR technique and administration
- Editor and content material mission supervisor (in progress)
The important thing factor that enabled me to construct with principally contractors was that they already had a full-time, on-site advertising and marketing supervisor who was on prime of all of our processes, cross-team interactions, and clients. She additionally knew find out how to handle our complicated buyer database in HubSpot, the nuances of various information factors, and the way every motion reacted with different groups. For instance, there was a buyer property that needed to be tagged a sure method to make sure the gross sales group didn’t contact somebody already in a advertising and marketing sequence.
The advertising and marketing supervisor was instrumental in getting the whole lot operating easily, as she was the particular person I labored with to arrange the processes and brainstorm technique (she had deep perception into what would and wouldn’t work based mostly on the corporate arrange and politics). Shifting ahead, I consider she is well-equipped to maintain the group operating easily with the sources we’ve put in place.
Constructing the fundamentals
The primary one to 2 weeks of my contract was spent spent interviewing inside group members, attending to know the instruments and processes in play on the time, and lining up buyer interviews. At this stage, earlier gross sales calls weren’t as related as iDrive was shifting their mannequin away from being a transport price supplier to nearly a 4PL.
Nevertheless, as an alternative of incomes on providers, iDrive earns when manufacturers decide to ship with our charges, which are sometimes essentially the most aggressive choice out there (and the way our charges find yourself being chosen). Our margins are already constructed into the charges that manufacturers see, so after they select an iDrive label they know what they’re getting.
Then we started working organising the inspiration for the advertising and marketing group. This included:
- Establishing Asana as our mission administration software
- Shifting to HubSpot from their former disjointed CRM
- Finalizing the WordPress web site (extra on that beneath)
- Establishing GA4 and the HubSpot experiences dashboard
- Constructing a welcome e-mail sequence, and launching the e-mail e-newsletter
Tech stack
- Asana – Venture administration
- HubSpot – Electronic mail, CRM, analytics and KPI monitoring, touchdown pages, varieties
- WordPress – Web site (we moved from Webflow)
- Hotjar – Session monitoring, AB testing
- Riverside – Podcast recording software we repurposed for webinars
A brand new web site launch
First precedence was the web site, search engine optimisation, and alongside that managing e-mail outreach distributors.
Updating all outdated blogs; deleting what wasn’t related or getting any visitors, deciding what to maintain and replace, creating mission briefs for the updates, sourcing and testing writers, discovering one which labored rather well, executing the updates, managing search engine optimisation checks on them, and so forth. The web site was the most important endeavor, because it concerned updating all of our outdated blogs which have been principally quick and beneath a special model, alongside new blogs that wanted to be created.
Shifting from Webflow to WordPress; we discovered that Webflow had limitations when it got here to search engine optimisation, a lot of which have been highlighted by our search engine optimisation advisor. I’m glad I started working with Webflow to be taught extra about it, however as with all my different purchasers, I proceed to suggest WordPress.
Testing and CRO; As soon as our new web site was launched and all technical search engine optimisation objects resolved, we used our analytics instruments and session monitoring instruments to search out the place guests have been dropping off to “plug the holes.”
Creating extra bottom-funnel content material; this included case research, lead magnets, and something that would persuade a customer to both contact us or join our e-newsletter. We wished a option to seize extra emails so we may nurture them as nicely.
Mapping our purchaser journey
After facilitating buyer interviews, speaking to customer-facing group members, and brainstorming with totally different division heads, we have been in a position to map out the client journey and key steps by acquisition, activation, and retention.
Right here’s a tough overview of how we determined to consider totally different pipelines.
Lead seize
- Lead
- MQL
- SQL
- Pitched
- Closed received
Onboarding
- Contract despatched
- Contract signed
- Account creation
- [Key activation step]
- First order despatched
- First bill paid
Misplaced
- Unqualified
- Closed misplaced
- Revisit
- Churned – Inside
- Churned – Exterior
Shifting from outbound to inbound
After I first joined, I used to be handed two outbound e-mail company relationships to start out testing. Considered one of them supplied as many emails as they may discover and relied on quantity to be taught the place to optimize and get leads. The opposite is extra mature, and supplied a fraction of the emails however promised a extra sophsiticated e-mail optimization software program and gross sales course of.
We shortly discovered that the inbound leads we began getting from the web site and content material have been “1000x higher” than those we have been getting from automated chilly emails, and didn’t renew our contracts with them.
A part of the difficulty was when working with an organization or company to do outbound emails, you don’t get to decide on your account supervisor. When that course of is in-house, you may filter for precisely who you rent to characterize you in chilly outreach. Businesses aren’t practically as private or cautious together with your model or outreach goal choice, and we have been unfortunate sufficient to get an initially unresponsive account supervisor who threw our progress off by a month.
We ended these contracts after three months, and determined to deal with inbound and nurture channels as an alternative. This included;
- Getting extra case research and social proof; I needed to discover a method the group may shortly and simply get efficient case research printed.
- Creating lead magnets we may leverage for inbound and outbound; we would have liked one thing that we may disclose to showcase our experience and professionalism.
- Establishing emails; we launched an e-mail e-newsletter, arrange an automatic welcome e-mail for the e-newsletter, and began engaged on an onboarding e-mail sequence.
- Mapping the client journey (talked about above); We mapped the client journey to search out out what our “set off levels” have been to get clients to transform and attain out to contact us, and find out how to get them from contact to contract signed.
Nevertheless, the acquisition group didn’t abandon outbound fully. Gross sales nonetheless did their very own extremely customized outreach to some dozen accounts per day.
We introduced on Michael Folling, whom I had labored with prior to now, to create a straightforward course of that used our present instruments.
Abstract: Gross sales would attain out with an alternate however comparable e-mail area, replies would go to their primary inboxes for subsequent conversations. All emails, together with the preliminary outreach, could be logged in HubSpot and tied to the right salesperson, as we are able to affiliate a number of emails with one person.
Establishing a case research cadence
I introduced on a digital company to streamline our case research creation course of, so we might solely have to get a buyer on the cellphone and document the interview.
One video recording of a buyer interview grew to become:
- An edited recording of the total interview to be printed on YouTube
- An edited transcript to be printed on the weblog with the YouTube video embedded
- A case research write-up to be printed on the weblog
- Video snippets of key quotes and ideas to be shared on social media
- Quote graphics from the audio system to be shared on social media
Creating lead magnets
We launched two webinars; one on transport cart optimization, and one other on find out how to perceive your transport price contracts. This is able to cowl each of our main traces of enterprise (transport charges/achievement, and contract negotiation).
The webinars have been promoted on;
- Our e-newsletter
- Social media
- LinkedIn paid advertisements
- Chilly e-mail outreach from our group (and any e-mail outreach companies we have been utilizing on the time)
Extra essential than the registrants for the reside occasions, the recordings gave us a helpful lead magnet to repurpose into blogs, clips, social posts, PDFs, and extra.
After the webinars, the recording edited and printed on our weblog, together with a type to fill out to obtain the slides. This is able to enable us to proceed capturing emails from these most .
The recordings have been additionally shared with our gross sales group for his or her use in closing offers.
Lastly, we repurposed the webinar subjects and have been ready to make use of the clips, pictures, and PDFs to generate much more leads throughout extra channels, from paid advertisements to natural social.
Constructing out nurture channels
In step with our push for inbound natural acquisition, we wished to enhance our nurture channels. This included creating an e-mail e-newsletter, a e-newsletter web page the place guests may enroll, prompts to enroll to the e-newsletter throughout the web site, and an automatic welcome e-mail.
One of many ways that proved profitable in growing our e-newsletter subscriber price was webinars. We observed a bump in subscribers after our first two “check” webinars talked about above.
Within the coming months, as soon as a brand new product platform is launched, we additionally plan to construct out an automatic onboarding sequence that may preserve customers returning to their dashboard.
Preliminary outcomes
Though not but the well-oiled machine that may scale the corporate over the subsequent few years, we’re definitely getting the fitting instruments in place for higher visibility and extra organized processes. Total I’m extremely proud of the group and sources we’ve put in place.
Since I joined simply as a brand new enterprise mannequin was launching, I ended up constructing from scratch. So I can say that the next progress (beneath the brand new 3PL-forward mannequin) took place beneath the group we put collectively.
- We grew the e-newsletter to greater than 1,000 subscribers. Take into account lower than six months in the past, that quantity was zero.
- Inside 40 days from the brand new web site launch, we obtained two inbound leads that transformed to contracts signed/clients. One transformed in lower than 40 days. Since 2008, this consumer had by no means acquired an inbound type fill that transformed to a deal. Inbound leads have been coming in steadily since then.
- We additionally noticed a superb bounce in session visitors that has since leveled out, with natural search as the highest visitors driver.
Shifting to the subsequent part: PR, product-led, and referrals
Originally, I targeted on constructing the groundwork for iDrive’s advertising and marketing arm. This included our processes, tech stack, key folks, and my data and understanding of the model.
Whereas that was occurring, I started optimizing our content material, together with updating the web site, making certain we have been nicely positioned for search engine optimisation, and updating all of our outdated and irrelevant blogs (deciding whether or not to maintain, replace, or delete in a content material audit). That is additionally once I began prioritizing case research as key items of content material for our conversions and gross sales group.
As soon as that was underway, we began positioning ourselves as consultants with occasions, and creating lead magnets utilizing the recordings and slides. At this level we began noticing the bump in e-newsletter signups that indicated higher model recognition, but a low webinar registration conversion price.
This led us to theorize we had but to construct our model recognition and belief, which is after we determined to look to PR as our subsequent goal. Again in January, we obtained our first huge PR win when our advisor obtained iDrive President Glenn Gooding an interview and quote on Bloomberg.
Along with PR, whereas this was occurring the group was additionally engaged on a brand new platform rollout. With that on the horizon, we now should additionally begin getting ready to check product-led advertising and marketing, corresponding to:
- Providing free instruments that require an e-mail to entry the outcomes
- Constructing integrations with different tech platforms and doing joint promotion (in-app and co-marketing)
- Offering a sandbox or demo to play with on the web site, with a straightforward sign-up stream after (for instance, prompting them to “save your information, create an account”)
Lastly, I’d wish to get a formalized referral program in place after hammering out the foundations and rewards. That is principally as a result of it’s been such a viable supply of high quality leads that convert based mostly on all the buyer interviews I’ve performed.
Fortunately for everybody, iDrive ended up extending their contract indefinitely, so we’ll be working collectively on all the above and extra all through the subsequent 12 months.
I anticipate to have the ability to hand off the CMO position as soon as we’ve dependable sources in all the key progress channels we resolve to put money into on an ongoing foundation. I do know when a job is nicely achieved as a result of by the top of it, my day-to-day execution is free and clear, and most of my time is spent course setting, correcting, and reviewing.
Keep tuned for extra in 2025!
