Chance Douglass Joins Lake One

Posted on April 12, 2022July 15, 2022 by Amanda York

Get to Know Chance

Lake One announces the addition of Chance Douglass as a Digital Marketing Analyst.

Chance initially joined Lake One as an intern. Prior to Lake One, she attended Truman State University in Kirksville, MO where she majored in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing. In her free time, Chance enjoys walking her dog Boomer and playing in her local rec soccer league. She also had the opportunity to study abroad and continues to feed her passion for travel.

“I feel so lucky to have joined the Lake One team,” said Chance. “Everyone has been incredibly welcoming and always available to lead me in the right direction.”

We sat down with Chance to get to know her a little better with a quick round of “Would You Rather”:

L1: Would you rather be chronically under-dressed or overdressed?

Chance: Underdressed because I feel like, in general, I am usually underdressed and I like to go more under the radar.

L1: Would you rather lounge by a mountain or beach?

Chance: Mountains. They generally aren’t quite as hot as a beach and I love hiking.

L1: Would you rather have a pause or rewind button in your life?

Chance: Hmmm… Probably pause. I think it would be better to pause and be in the moment than to go back and relive it.

L1: Would you rather have unlimited battery life on all of your devices or have free WiFi wherever you go?

Chance: Free WiFi, would be more convenient.

L1: Would you rather travel the world for free for a year or have $50,000 to spend however you please?

Chance: Definitely rather travel the world for free. If I wasn’t working, I would LOVE to explore Europe.

“Chance quickly became a valued member of the Lake One team,” Said Rachael Cecko, Senior Director of Client Delivery. “Her sharp attention to detail and strong analytical skills are a great addition. We’re thrilled to have her on board.”

Welcome to the team Chance!

Meredith Garner Joins Lake One

Posted on March 18, 2022June 9, 2022 by Amanda York

Get to Know Meredith Garner

Please help us in welcoming Meredith Garner to the Lake One team as our newest Account Manager.

“The team has been so kind. It’s been a really inviting atmosphere, everyone made the adjustment smooth sailing,” said Meredith. “Coming into a new job, you never know what to expect but Lake One has been nothing short of gracious”

Meredith is joining us from EmoryDay, where she was a Digital Account Manager who acted as the primary lead for client accounts. From managing clients to content creation and web design, Meredith has accumulated a wide breadth of knowledge in nearly five years in digital marketing and advertising.

In order to get to know Meredith a little better we sat down with her and asked her 10 burning questions. Let’s take a look:

L1: Do you have any hidden talents?

Meredith: I like to write, sing and dance. I am really good at memorizing things and public speaking. Honestly, any sort of aspect where you are presenting in front of a crowd.

L1: When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up?

Meredith: I wanted to be a popstar like Britney Spears. I even had a pink headset like her. My parents bought me an inflatable stage and, of course, I forced my whole family to watch my show.

L1: Where’s your favorite place you’ve traveled to?

Meredith: Miami, I love it, it’s gorgeous there’s so much to do and see. Also the food is great. Who can beat eating in the sun with some palm trees in the background?

L1: Who inspires you?

Meredith: My mom, she is the nicest person I have ever met in my life. I am very thankful she is my example of a role model.

L1: What are you most proud of thus far in your career?

Meredith: My ability to multitask and remain organized. Also keeping calm when I’m really stressed, that’s probably my best ability.

L1: What can you not live without?

Meredith: Coffee. I love my coffee, I look forward to drinking it every morning.

L1: If you could choose a theme song for your life what would it be?

Meredith: I really like the song “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing” by Stevie Wonder. It was my go-to song in college whenever I was really stressed out.

L1: If you could witness any past, present or future event what would it be?

Meredith: Where the women’s right movement took place, when they were protesting. I would love to be there in action.

L1: If you could learn to do anything, what would it be?

Meredith: Build a rocket and go to space. I find space exploration so cool and unknown. I guess oceans have the same vibe where we don’t know what’s going to happen in the deep depths, so either of those.

L1: If you were immortal for a day, what would you do?

Meredith: This is tough, I would probably want to climb to the top of Mount Everest and jump off the mountain because why not.

“We are happy to welcome Meredith to Lake One! She’s a great team player and passionate about helping clients,” said Rachael Cecko, Sr. Director of Client Services at Lake One. “Her can-do attitude and agency background is valuable for her role and we’re looking forward to future contributions!”

We are so excited to have Meredith onboard. We can’t wait to watch her continue to grow and thrive in her new role. Welcome to our world of Digital Outfitters, Meredith!

Lake One Announces New Online HubSpot Training Program

Posted on January 19, 2021January 19, 2021 by Ryan

Minneapolis MN – Lake One Digital, a remote Platinum Solutions Partner, announces the launch of a new virtual HubSpot Marketing Strategy training program for small and medium sized businesses.

Based on Lake One’s FieldGuide™ Research process, businesses looking to develop a strategic marketing plan without the expense of retaining a Solutions Partner now have an option.

Once per quarter, a cohort of up to 10 companies will participate in a 6-week training curriculum.

The program is designed to help organizations maximize their investment in HubSpot Marketing and/or Sales Hub with guided, hands-on training in the development of a custom marketing plan.

Over the course of six weeks, participants will be coached on the key themes of Lake One’s FieldGuide, provided tools, and given homework to develop the plan under the guidance of Lake One senior strategists.

At the 6-week program culmination, participants will have a fully developed program, ready for activation through their HubSpot Growth Stack.

Topics include keyword research, persona development, content strategy, sales and marketing alignment, and more.

Program costs are a one-time fee of $5000 per organization and allowed up to three participants per organization to attend. Only 10 organizations will be accepted per quarter, and the Q1 2021 cohort begins February 24, 2021.

For more information or to register for the Hubspot Training Program, visit the HubSpot training page or contact us.

5 Ways Marketing Automation Can Help Boost Lead Volume

Posted on March 12, 2020January 12, 2021 by Tiffany Schultz

The saying goes, “Work smarter, not harder.” But in a lot of cases, you need both. You need someone or something to work smarter and harder. That’s what marketing automation provides. Marketing automation is technology that allows you to automate, streamline, and measure your marketing tasks and workflows. By utilizing it, you’re being smarter about where your time and efforts are spent by allowing automation to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Like we covered in our blog on sales and marketing automation, marketing automation helps to accomplish the following:

Updated tracking
Real-time alerts
Automated lead-hand off
Forms
Landing pages
Social post scheduling
Emails
Lead nurturing
Lead qualification

But did you also know that it can help with lead generation?

1. Leads and Landing Pages

How do you turn a lead into a customer if you’re not first capturing them as a lead, to begin with? Lead generation landing pages are a great way to capture those new leads and gauge if your prospects are interested in your product or service. Marketing automation platforms or “MAPs” will generate specific landing pages that speak to the segment of the audience you’re targeting and display relevant content and resources to them, automatically. Here is where you should be asking them for their contact information, in exchange for that piece of content or resource they’ll find valuable. Once you’ve collected the prospect’s info, the marketing automation software will sync the data directly to the prospect’s profile.

Related Reading: Lake One’s Lead Gen Guide: Basics of Lead Gen

2. Automated Email Campaigns

Once a prospect hits that landing page and provides their information, quick lead follow up is a must. Wouldn’t it be great if you could automate that outreach and subsequent follow-up communications, all while making it custom to the recipient? Spoiler alert, you can.

We’ve all been on the receiving end of an email that was clearly sent to a bunch of people and there’s absolutely no personalization involved. How special did you feel? More importantly, did you even open and read that email? Probably not. With marketing automation software you have the ability to personalize, which is important. In fact, marketers saw an average increase of 20% in sales when using personalized experiences.

Thanks to marketing automation, gone are the days of having to manually enter in prospect or lead information to ensure they’re getting a personalized experience. Using MAPs allows you to send automated and personalized emails at scale and implement email drip campaigns, which is a great way to nurture your leads. Most programs come fully equipped with segmentation capabilities, which allows you to divide your lead database by channel, sales funnel position, what industry they’re in and much more.

3. Custom Website Experience

Offering a custom and personalized website experience to your prospects and leads can provide increased engagement and decreased bounce rate. Are you sensing a theme with all this talk of personalization and customization? Your buyers have come to expect it, and if you want to increase your leads, we recommend following suit.

Imagine your leads hit your website and you have the ability to personalize your blog recommendation to them. Or serve messaging that’s tailored to a specific buyer persona. It’s no wonder why Dynamic Yield saw a 111 percent increase in demo requests after personalizing elements of their site. That’s the beauty of automation. It allows you to move away from the one-size-fits-all experience and give your buyers a truly personalized journey.

4. A/B Testing

So now that you’ve got your landing pages in place, your lead nurturing emails are being sent and your custom website experiences are happening [thanks to your marketing automation], you can set it and forget it, right? Not quite. What works today and for one person, might not work tomorrow and for someone else. When in doubt, test it out. A/B tests on your landing pages, emails, and more can show which content, headlines, or images resonate best with your audiences. Once you have that data, you can use it to customize your appeals. But how? You guessed it, marketing automation. The more you know about what your audience is looking for or what they respond to, the better content you can serve them and the more likely they are to become leads and then hopefully customers. More on A/B testing here.

5. Sales and Marketing Collaboration

Last, but certainly not least, can’t talk about lead generation without mentioning the importance of sales and marketing alignment. Everyone has the same goal: convert leads into customers. The way they go about doing this can look very different. Same goal, different approach. So where does marketing automation fit in? While CRMs centralize all the data that sales needs when it comes to incoming prospects and accounts, marketing automation platforms help marketing centralize the customer behavioral data from website activity, email campaigns, social media engagement and more. (Checkout of favorite lead gen tools here.) Using this behavioral data to help improve lead quality can help eliminate some of the disagreements between sales and marketing. Better lead quality and more aligned smarketing teams? It sounds like a win-win.

These are just a few of the ways that marketing automation can help boost your lead volume. But don’t just take our word for it. According to VB analyst Andrew Jones, 80% of marketing automation users saw their number of leads increase, and 77% saw the number of conversions increase. But remember, the content you’re providing needs to be relevant and of value to these leads. Content for the sake of content isn’t going to move the needle. You have to be intentional about what you’re creating and who you’re creating it for. Let your content be smarter and your automation work harder to achieve your lead gen goals.

7 Signs it’s Time to Work with a Digital Marketing Agency

Posted on November 1, 2018February 4, 2020 by Ryan

Whether you sell B2B or B2C, digital is a growing piece of your marketing pie. More than 81% of the B2C buyer’s journey and 94% of the B2B buyer’s journey includes some form of online research which means your digital presence plays a starring role. When it comes to turning your website into a lead machine, there can be a lot of levers to pull and often it can be helpful to have an extra hand knowing which levers to pull and when.

Whether you’re just getting started in your online marketing program or your well down the path, there are a few telltale signs that it might be time to outsource some, or all of your digital marketing.

Sign #1: Your Only Conversion Point is a ‘Contact Us’ Form

Making sure there is an easy way for your website visitors to get in touch with you is great! But more often than not – most website visitors aren’t ready for that level of commitment. The reality is around 98% of website visitors aren’t going to convert. Which means in order to make your website perform better, you need make it easier to become a lead. Sign up for an email newsletter, download a premium piece of content, get a discount. There are all sorts of low friction offers you can provide that lets your website visitor take baby steps on their way to becoming a customer.

Sign #2: Your Sales Team Thinks All Your Leads Suck

There have been volumes written about the battle between sales and marketing. You can read about this tortured relationship here, here and here if you’re inclined. But at the end of the day, sales and marketing need each other to be as successful as they can be and in return drive growth for the organization. At Lake One, we bridge the gap between these two functions with a Sales and Marketing SLA – an agreement of what constitutes a lead, how they are handled by the two teams and what roles and expectations are in place for both functions in support of lead generation, nurturing and the close. In addition to the SLA, having regular sales & marketing feedback sessions on what’s coming in from sales and what marketing is working on can go a long way in getting the two teams to work together towards the same goal.

Sign #3: You’re Not Really Sure What to Track

If your reporting dashboard is a 15-page conglomeration of random metrics, it might be time to get an outside perspective. Setting SMART marketing goals that align with your business objectives is critical to setting the direction marketing should go. It defines the most important metrics to monitor but it also helps you focus your resources.

Sign #4: You Struggle to Quantify Marketing’s Impact

If you can’t identify the impact marketing is making on your organization, it can be easy to decide to just stop it all together. That’s risky business. Often, the inability to measure marketing’s impact is an effect of #3 above, a misunderstanding of what to measure. Once you have a marketing program aligned around your business goals with metrics that follow, it becomes much easier to see how marketing is contributing to the overall momentum of your organization.

Sign #5: You’re Budget is Basically a Shrug Emoji

When marketing budgets are a moving target, it’s often a result of not knowing where the biggest bang for the buck is going to come from. Numbers 3, 4 and 5 are all related. Bad metrics and goals lead to a lack of quantifying impact which leads to difficult budgeting cycles. If your organization isn’t able to identify the opportunity and allocate dollars, it might be time to get an outsider who can help you quantify.

Sign #6: You Lack Marketing Muscle

One of the easiest signs your organization is in need of some outside help – is your organization lacks internal marketing muscle. And we’re not talking assigning marketing as a fractional role to someone who is kind of good at social media in your organization. We mean someone who gets to know your buyers and their research patterns, your competitors and can identify opportunities. Someone who can consistently execute marketing, reviewing performance over time and adjusting as you go. One of the biggest pitfalls organizations make is holding out for a marketing unicorn – those rare marketing generalists who can do a little bit of it all.

Sign #7: You’re Not Sure of the Right Tools and Technology for Sales & Marketing

In 2011 there were around 150 pieces of marketing and sales technology – martech. In 2018 that number ballooned to around 7,000. There’s a tool for everything and for every business. It can be really overwhelming to wade through that and not end up with random acts of technology getting thrown at marketing and sales problems with the belief that the technology will solve your issues. Outlining a sales and marketing stack starts with identifying your sales and marketing process and identifying the tools and technology that are right-sized for your needs and your organization. If you’re not sure about where this process starts – an outsider can help you document a marketing plan to attract and convert potential new customers and architect a sales process to nurture them through the buyer’s journey. Then and only then should you select and implement the technology to drive efficiency in the sales and marketing process.

What You Really Get From an Outside Perspective

There are all sorts lists like this on the internet, the reality is you probably know if you need an extra set of hands with or without this list. Ultimately it comes down to resources – human and financial. An outside perspective can help you align your goals, execute consistently and get scale without the investment in building an entire marketing team as you’re just starting to get the marketing momentum going. Over time as the program is successful – you’ll naturally bring pieces of the program back in-house to build the muscle internally.

No matter where you are in your growth journey, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us today!

4 Signs Your Construction Company Needs a Marketing Strategy

Posted on April 10, 2018February 3, 2020 by Ryan

When it comes to construction, it can be easy to fall into the “when people need us, they’ll find us” mentality. Whether you sell your services direct to consumer or B2B as a subcontractor or direct to commercial project managers, there are a few sure-fire signs it might be time to revisit your construction marketing strategy and to invest in building a modern marketing strategy for your construction company.

It’s feast or famine when RFPs come

If the flow of RFP requests feels a little too boom and bust for your tastes, building a marketing plan can help you flatten out the peaks and valleys. Building a more stable, steady and scalable flow of business opportunity will help with employee retention as well.

If your marketing strategy thinks about the needs of your buyer before they pick up the phone, you’ll be doing yourself a big favor. CLICK TO TWEET.

Tapping into inbound marketing can help your construction company build a pipeline of prospective clients that marketing can work on nurturing and getting sales-ready.

When you Google yourself – nothing happens

Virtually every need we have – starts with an internet search of some sort. Have a weird symptom, Google it. Wondering about the last minute gift idea for someone – Google it. This applies in the construction world too.

If you Google your company name and nothing comes up – you definitely need to think about mapping out a marketing strategy, particularly to tackle local search opportunities through Google and Yelp listings.

But if you’re looking fill up that pipeline like we just talked about. Google a symptom someone might have that would lead them to hire a construction company – maybe they need to do a kitchen remodel. What kind of question would they have? Google it and see what shows up on the first page.

These kind of searches are also important to your construction company and your new, modern marketing strategy too.

You’re not really sure how many leads you get from your website

A modern marketing plan should be measurable. If you’re not really sure how many leads you got from your website last year – it’s probably time to think about a marketing strategy – and an update to that website.

via GIPHY

A modern marketing strategy should seek steady improvement month over month, quarter over quarter and year over year. But if you’re not able to give a benchmark – don’t fret. Make sure you have a website with landing pages built to convert, then make sure you have a way to measure the views and conversions you’re getting. It could be as simple as a spreadsheet to start. Pull views out of Google Analytics, check how many submissions you received and then check in with sales and talk through the quality of the leads.

It’s not clear from your website why clients should pick you over the competition

Why do you get up every morning? What inspires you to go to work. Why does your construction company exist? These questions are a few that author Simon Sinek poses as he helps people and brand get to their Why – the Why do we exist. Every brand has a why. The why is what makes us buy from one company versus another. If it’s not clear on your website why someone should work with your company – it might be worth revisiting your marketing strategy starting with brand and starting with why you’re all there in the first place.

Last word

There can be many reasons you might be thinking about building a modern marketing strategy for your construction company. These are just a few of the highlights. No matter your reason – modern, scalable marketing is intended to help your construction firm weather the ups and downs of the industry by building a pipeline.

What reasons do you have for building a marketing strategy? Leave us a reply or contact us if you’d like to talk about getting started on your plan.

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