Case Studies

Most business problems are solved by more revenue.

That’s where we help. As a B2B marketing and advertising agency, we provide clients a result everyone knows how to measure: more new customers. Our typical customer is looking for top-line growth.

Clients include tech start-ups, professional services firms, SaaS providers, ISVs, a MssP, a manufacturer, a retail marketing agency, market research firms, VARs, VADs, IT solutions providers, manufacturers, distributors and more. What these companies all have in common is the need for new revenue.

When you work with Macon Raine, you harness a low risk, variable-cost, powerful, affordable and proven means to create new customers (donors or students, too). How do we do it? Our approach is simple. View the case studies below to learn more.

Case Study

Property Preservation Company Uses Fractional Marketing Team To Grow from $3M to $15M in Three Years

When the CEO of a Chicago-based, property preservation Company wanted to grow his business, enter new markets and accelerate the sales funnel, he first started looking for a unicorn – a marketing manager good at everything that mattered – CRM, marketing automation, design, web development, copywriting, PPC, SEO and more.

Searching for a Marketing Unicorn
According to the CEO, “we quickly learned that finding someone that can do everything wasn’t feasible. So, we started interviewing marketing agencies. It didn’t take long for us to learn we didn’t have the budget that would make us interesting to a larger agency.”

A different approach was needed.
“We decided what we needed was something that was less than an agency, more than an employee and way more than a freelancer. We needed assistance in so many areas – strategy, content creation, content syndication, PPC, SEO, email outreach, marketing automation and graphic design. Given our budget, hiring an internal resource that was good at all of this would be nearly impossible.

Enter the Fractional Marketing Unicorn
“We stumbled on Macon Raine through a web search and they offered to build us a tightly-knit, fractional marketing team with people that already understood our industry.”

Macon Raine assembled a “fractional marketing unicorn” with a lead writer that was familiar with the property preservation industry. Each person had a primary function such as graphic design or copywriting but was also proficient in other areas such as marketing automation, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, native advertising, SEO, Salesforce.com and more.

“When we were expanding into a new geography, building awareness for a trade show, updating the website or creating new SEO content, Macon Raine was able to provide exactly the resources needed to accomplish the tasks for about the same or less than the cost of hiring a senior marketing manager.”

It Takes a (Smallish) Village
In the three years since the Company engaged with Macon Raine they have successfully expanded their business into 14 new states and have experienced an 1100% average annual increase of net new lead volume.

While there are many factors that have gone into the success the organization has enjoyed – the Company attributes Macon Raine’s awareness and demand generation activities as a major contributor to their rapid growth. 

The CEO sums it up, “we needed accountability and transparency without always worrying about how we spent each cent of the marketing budget – we wanted an agency partner that would invest in our business and lead – we didn’t have time to manage them – we just wanted someone agile that would jump in, understand our industry, measure and report on performance (and quickly adapt when things were not working) all while getting stuff done.”

Case Study

501(c)3 Google Grant Compliance For Newly Released Ad Grant Guidelines and Restrictions

Opportunity / Challenge
At the end of December 2017, Google for Non Profits announced new guidelines going into effect January 1st, 2018 for recipients of the Google Ad Grant.

Objective
Macon Raine restructured the ad grant management strategy for 501(c)(3) accounts to align with the new grant requirements to prevent ad grant suspension.

Our Approach
Our approach consisted of developing a new Adwords strategy that included a keyword strategy in line with new requirements, as well as, optimizing for performance and Click Thru Rate (CTR). All requirements outlined by Google were implemented and our 501(c)(3) clients were able to take advantage of the Maximized Conversion option to remove the previous $2.00 cap per keyword click they were experiencing.

Results
All clients were in compliance with all new basic requirements related to structure, keywords, sitelinks and creative by January 1st. Ad grant accounts were then placed into daily monitoring and maintenance to achieve and then surpass the minimum 5% CTR requirement.

• 501(c)(3) clients are experiencing an average upwards of 20.19% CTR on niche campaigns
• Smart Goals have been enabled for Maximized Conversion Bidding
• 501(c)(3) clients are able to bid on keywords previously out of their reach – we are seeing bids for $65.00 top tier keywords that convert
• Grant spend is increasing naturally
• More relevant traffic is being driven to websites from niche campaigns leading to higher conversion rates and measurable ROI

Case Study

501(c)3 Machinery Behavior & Education Group Google Grant Management

Opportunity / Challenge
We helped our client enroll and launch their Google for Non-Profit and Ad Grant account.

Objective
Our objective was to launch and max out the grant of $10K/Month while reaching the right audience.

Our Approach
Our approach consisted of developing a new keyword strategy for both industry specific & related broad industries. Creating ad creative, sitelinks, callouts, and promoting upcoming conferences and events.

Results
In month 5 spend maxed out. Client has reported an increase in sales over the prior year just 5 months into the current year.

• Impressions increased 432%
• Clicks increased 477%
• Click Thru Rate Increased 8.5%
• New Sessions Increased by 91%
• Click On Website Increased by 11,313
• Grant Spend Increased by 534%

Case Study

501(c)3 Travel Advocacy & Education Group

Opportunity / Challenge
Our client had been running the grant before coming to us for help but the prior PPC manager was only able to spend approximately $2K/Month and was not able to record conversions.

Objective
Our objective was to max out the grant of $10K/Month and record conversions; all while reaching the right audience.

Our Approach
Our approach consisted of restructuring and researching keywords (niche and broad), new ad creative, new sitelinks and callouts, and implementing landing pages with calls-to-action.

Results
Monthly spend was maxed out in month 4 and has currently maintained that status for over a year. Over 710 conversions were recorded thru calls-to-action on landing pages.

• Impressions increased 515%
• Clicks increased 1,574%
• Click Thru Rate Increased 172%
• Average Cost Per Click Decreased by 35%
• 710 Conversions
• Grant Spend Increased by 986%

Case Study

SEO Improvements of a Wireless Equipment Distributor

Opportunity / Challenge
For what projects/services did your company hire Macon Raine?

My company had a very bare-bones approach to SEO. Our organic approach had decent results, however, a new goal became to optimize for additional keywords and track search result rankings. Since it’s a small company, we didn’t have the budget to compete for the major keywords in the industry.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to improve organic search results and get to the first page for our selected keywords.

Solution
How did you select this vendor?

Many professionals hear “SEO” and decide that it’s something that we need to do without a clear understanding of what the strategy entails and the cost behind it. Macon Raine listened to our requests and helped us modify our approach to one that was more targeted and which fit our business needs while staying within our budget.

Describe the project in detail.

They started off with showing us how expensive the keywords we initially wanted were and helped us identify a better mix for our paid search efforts. As we saw results coming in, we modified our approach to attract more traffic. They also helped us with our content in order to improve our organic results along with meta and image tags.

What was the team composition?

We had a project manager that dealt with me directly. Their principal also sat in on meetings whenever necessary.

Results & Feedback
Can you share any statistics or metrics that speak to the quality of their work and impact of the engagement?

Our search results landed us on the first two pages. Additionally, we also saw where we needed to improve our optimization and what we needed to drop.

How did the Macon Raine perform from a project management standpoint?

They were responsive and provided reports on a monthly basis.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They’re real; they’re not going to try to sell you on something because you read about it on an Entrepreneur blog. They will identify your problem and find the best approach to get the results you want.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I can think of.