Fixture Media

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Atlas Informatics makes software that helps you remember everything you’ve seen across all devices. I’m the VP of marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Content Harmony?

Our search rank was very low because our name is very common. We wanted content that would help us increase our rank in Google search through two ways. One way is through increased uses of the name but also through inbound links. We’re also trying to educate users about digital chaos through content marketing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The content is placed on our blog and social media accounts. Content Harmony makes it very easy to brainstorm with them. They come with a set of robust ideas. They’re acting as the strategic content director and are coming to us with fully formed ideas. We then work with them to shape those ideas. We met with them once a month to brainstorm and they came back with the content.

How did you come to work with Content Harmony?

They were recommended to us by someone local. The hardest part of content marketing is creating that engine. They came with a clear process of how they would generate the content, which gave me a lot of confidence. We worked with two other content agencies recently and their ability to get that engine going was hard to understand. Content Harmony is excellent in their ability to quickly propose ideas and deliver content repeatedly.

How much have you invested with Content Harmony?

We spent under $10,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2016, and we paused our relationship in January 2017 to work on other things, but we will be resuming with them very soon.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Dozens of their pieces were shared by very influential users, which is probably our most important result. That drove our search engine visibility from a position of more than 500 to number one on Google. That is a profound result.

How did Content Harmony perform from a project management standpoint?

They executed efficiently and were on time every time. They are enjoyable to work with. They’re easy to contact, coach, and communicate with, which makes any project easier. We used Slack for daily communication and we also met in person once a month.

What did you find most impressive about Content Harmony?

They have a very proven system for getting companies up and running and getting that content engine purring. I’ve worked with many content firms and Content Harmony’s process for getting that to happen is the best. They’re great to work with personally and very efficient and quick. They’re really nice people to interact with as well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Rival IQ is a social media and digital marketing analytics software company in Seattle, Washington.

What is your position?

I'm the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Content Harmony?

We were trying to add bandwidth to our marketing team to help us with a variety of tasks.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

The first thing we engaged them on was a project to build out our marketing website, and they helped us add about 10 topic-focused landing pages to the product description section of our website. We continued to keep them on in a retainer fashion where they helped us with a variety of things from email content, copywriting, and other things. We did a research project together about Facebook that lasted about two months, and a variety of smaller email and advertising campaigns in between.

How did you come to work with Content Harmony?

I met Kane [Jamison], the founder of Content Harmony, at a conference last year [2015] in Seattle in June. It wasn't until October that I needed his help. Somebody else had also mentioned him to me. When it was time, I just called him up. We had coffee, and we came up with a quick theme to try working together. We did a small six-week project and then, after that, we engaged them on a retainer basis going forward.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We were on a $5,000 a month retainer. I think the initial project was a $7,500 fixed-price project. That was about six weeks' worth of work.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe we started working with them in early October of last year. We wrapped up our project somewhere just before Thanksgiving. Then, we started our retainer with them in December. That retainer continued through the end of June [2016]. As of right now, we're not working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

That early project that they did with us was a test run to see how well we worked together and how good they were. That work helped us increase our page views on our marketing site by almost 300 percent, increase our session duration by 150 percent, and also drop our bounce rate by about 13 percent.

We authored a study on Facebook brand page performance in 2015 with them, and they helped us get that study featured on Marketing Land the day it launched. To date, that study has been viewed more than 3,000 times.

How did Content Harmony perform from a project management standpoint?

They were fantastic. We worked with one person as a point of contact almost exclusively, Emily [Harris, content management strategist at Content Harmony]. Her project management skills were fantastic. Good communication, expectation setting, and delivery – always on time or early.

What distinguishes Content Harmony from other providers?

They have a breadth of experience. When I think about Kane, the founder, he's got good technical expertise and good SEO [search engine optimization] and digital analytics foundations to help people, and he did a good job of building out a team and having other members of the staff like Emily who were trained marketers. The composition of Content Harmony's staff really helped us feel like we were getting good strategic direction backed up by actual numbers. When it came to implementing and actually writing to achieve the goals that we helped set and validate with data, they were able to do that. I've either talked with or worked with other agencies who have many of one of those skills – like many great marketers but can't work with analytics, or many data people who can't actually implement against what they're seeing. I think they're great in that regard.

Is there anything Content Harmony could have improved or done differently?

Their bandwidth could've been higher, or their price could've been lower. Somehow, the value felt a little bit off. I think that with our internal growth, their value has been higher per dollar. We probably would've retained them as we continued to grow, but I think they're just too expensive for where we are at this time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a B2B company. The division of the company that we work in is geared specifically towards small and medium-sized businesses.

What is your position?

I am the Content Manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Content Harmony?

We have a lot of really good content but it wasn't presented particularly well. We were looking for something that would help us both engage our customers better and utilize the existing good content we already have. We wanted to get people interested in the content itself.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They did a revamp of one of our high performing pages, to make sure that we get the most out of it. We had a piece of content that we wanted to feature on one of the other sites, and they helped us develop it.

How did you come to work with Content Harmony?

We met them at a conference, and as we got to know them, we decided they would be a good partner to work with.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Each individual project was under $10,000. In total, the cost of the projects has been between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We're finishing up with one of the projects but the others have been completed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We launched a project that was completed recently, so we haven't seen much in the way of trending one way or another. Either way, we are going to work with them on promotion, but in order to do that, Content Harmony will help us make sure that we've created the right user path.

How did Content Harmony perform from a project management standpoint?

I enjoyed working with them. They performed well and were very responsive. They respect that I have other projects and so priorities inevitably get shifted. I've worked with a couple of companies who have relatively big names but it became rapidly apparent to me that the person running my account didn't actually read the content that they had generated for me before they sent it over. At Content Harmony, I worked with very conscientious people. They took the time necessary to edit completely before sending me exactly what I wanted.

What distinguishes Content Harmony from other providers?

The level of detail and care was what stood out for me.

Is there anything Content Harmony could have improved or done differently?

This time around, no. I would definitely work with them again, and they seem eager to make changes to make our experience as smooth as possible.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work for a management consulting firm that works with employees throughout the life cycle of their job. We do consulting, customized assessments, surveys, training, and coaching for those clients.

What is your position?

I’m the Marketing Manager within the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Content Harmony?

We were dealing with limited resources to produce content. We needed content for both awareness and to distribute and share with our audience to help with leadership and recognition.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They helped write our blog articles, conducted web page evaluations and keyword research, and produced special projects. Content Harmony developed and promoted case studies, white papers, and web pages.

How did you come to work with Content Harmony?

We came across Content Harmony online. We evaluated them against about a half-dozen others and ultimately decided to go with Content Harmony.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was in that $50,000 to $200,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

It is an ongoing engagement.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Looking at year to year, we have doubled the number of contacts we’ve received online. We’re seeing about an 8% increase in overall web traffic.

How did Content Harmony perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very responsive and proactive.

What distinguishes Content Harmony from other providers?

Content Harmony's process was very deliberate in their development of a strategy - which we liked. They have a system in place that makes it easy to report and track where the progress of project hours go.

Is there anything Content Harmony could have improved or done differently?

There seemed to be some variability with some of the writing quality. That could very well just be the writer that is on the particular project at the time. One other issue was the graphics we were given. It would be helpful to have more examples to choose from when we’re looking at graphics choices.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company builds and develops digital marketing products, primarily websites. We do all sorts of work for our customers to help them generate leads.

What is your position?

I am the chief marketing officer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Content Harmony?

We are always expanding our horizons and looking at different marketing tactics and techniques. We were producing some newsworthy content that we needed help with. We wanted our content to be picked up through social media and to actually go viral.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of your involvement with Content Harmony.

Content Harmony helped us promote our content through paid social networks, particularly Facebook and Twitter. Content Harmony had the expertise to perform content marketing through several digital platforms.

How did you come to work with Content Harmony?

I’ve known about Content Harmony for a while through various business contacts. I talked personally with the owner to get a better feel for him, and he sounded like somebody I could trust.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We’ve spent somewhere between $10,000 and $50,000 working with Content Harmony.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics, metrics or other feedback from your work with Content Harmony?

We had a huge response from our content. We got thousands and thousands of shares, comments and retweets. Our piece became a major topic of discussion and was very topical. Part of our success had to do with timing, which was done in such a way that it correlated with a major event within the industry. It was a major piece that has been circulated and been cited across various news platforms and news networks.

What distinguishes Content Harmony from other providers?

The Content Harmony team are experts in their area and have lots of people who can wear many different hats. Communication with them has always been very good; Content Harmony is very responsive and very active.

Is there anything Content Harmony could have improved or done differently?

No. I don’t have any suggestions. We’re going to continue working with them. Working with Content Harmony has been a very good experience.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are one of the largest producers and distributors of casual games in the world. We distribute more than 2.5 billion games to customers in more than 150 different countries. We have more than 500 mobile games with 3,500 unique PC titles.

What is your position?

I'm responsible for organic user acquisition and social media.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Content Harmony?

It was the challenge of scaling our content strategy. We had a pretty strong vision of what we wanted to do but we didn't have the resources internally to execute on that vision. Content Harmony was the perfect vending partner to help us scale the vision that we had for our content strategy.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Content Harmony was responsible for helping us create content that exists on our blog and we also put it out on our social media channels. Content Harmony performs targeted outreach centered on that content so that it was covered by different sites around the Internet.

How did you come to work with Content Harmony?

We work with a few national and international SEO [search engine optimization] firms. We didn't cut our work with those guys to add Content Harmony, but I wanted a smaller local boutique firm that I could meet with in person on a regular basis. I knew about Content Harmony through the local speaking circuit – Kane Jamison [CEO of Content Harmony] is a pretty visible figure here in the Seattle SEO community, which I'm also tied into. He came highly recommended by many of the top minds in the SEO industry.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

I can say they're doing about 50 hours a month.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We've had really positive results from our SEO initiatives with Content Harmony. Certain strategies have helped us rank for the things that we want to rank for in certain cases. The experience has been overwhelmingly positive, and we've had certain channels increase by a factor of 10 since we've been working with Content Harmony, which is very encouraging.

What distinguishes Content Harmony from other providers?

What I like about working with Content Harmony is that it is a smaller firm that you get lots of attention and they're very selective about the projects they take on. They aren't juggling too many balls, so you can definitely get that one-on-one attention when you need it. One thing that's difficult in this industry is getting people to follow through on the things they say they're going to do. I think that's probably the best quality of Content Harmony. If they say they're going to work for a certain number of hours or they're going to do a certain number of outreach emails – I can always count on their team that 100 percent of what was said will be done.

Is there anything Content Harmony could have improved or done differently?

I'd like to see their company scale. Although it's an advantage that they have a small team, I'd like to see the company grow and that's the only thing that they can do is keep adding great talent like they have been. But it's not something I'm concerned about in the short term. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization. What is your role and responsibilities?

I am one of the founders of PBH Network, a network of three websites that focus on viral-oriented content across several verticals.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Content Harmony?

We had been really successful in creating content that people wanted to see and share across social networks, but we had neglected the search side. We really wanted to increase the amount of search traffic we received and intertwine best SEO practices into our editorial framework.

SOLUTION

What was your process for selecting Content Harmony with which to work?

We were introduced during a formal call for proposals by a colleague who owns his own SEO firm but felt that Content Harmony would be a better fit based on the PBH Network's needs. We were most impressed with Content Harmony as they seemed to understand our objectives and our organization the best.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

The biggest quantifiable metric is that we've gone from around 5000 visitors a day to upwards of 90,000 a day from search. On the qualitative side, we've successfully integrated Content Harmony's ideas and practices into our editorial activites.

Is there anything unique or special about Content Harmony that really makes them stand out compared to other online marketing companies?

I haven't worked with other SEO firms but in terms of general business practices, they seem to have a great understanding of our business and our content.  I've always felt really pleased about their approach and their responsiveness -- they were on the ball and knew what we were doing since day one.

What advice would you give to future clients of theirs?

I think for anybody who wants to improve their search engine optimization, the realization needs to be that results aren’t going to be immediate. Otherwise, we highly recommend working with Content Harmony.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization. What is your role and responsibilities?

We provide onsite and online software training to clients in 20 cities across the U.S. We’ve been in business since 2002. I’m the CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Content Harmony?

We needed help with our online marketing strategy, content development, and SEO [search engine optimization].

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

We were in the middle of a website redesign when Content Harmony came on board. They were able to assist us in the placement of keywords throughout our site. Content Harmony also assisted us with some search engine marketing aspects to help us increase our visibility. Lastly, they helped us with our blog and content strategy. 

What was your process for selecting Content Harmony with which to work?

We had done research and identified 20 companies of potential interest and then we narrowed that down to five companies. We contacted each of those five companies. In the end, we decided to go with Content Harmony. We were very impressed with Kane Jamison, the owner of Content Harmony. He is very knowledgeable and up to date in the field. They were also less expensive than some of the other companies. Some companies had six-month or 12-month minimum contract dates. We really liked that Content Harmony did not require that. 

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

Our partnership with Content Harmony is ongoing but, on an annual basis, we spend approximately $20,000 to $25,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

We definitely have received more clicks and we’ve gotten better results because of working with Content Harmony. We’ve been very pleased with the results. I have been very impressed with their work.

Is there anything unique or special about Content Harmony that really makes them stand out compared to other online marketing companies?

I really like the fact that we can work so closely with the Content Harmony team, they’re a smaller shop, so it really helps to have that more personal feel. We’ve been very impressed with their entire team. They have been very responsive to our needs when we have questions. They are very transparent.