EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Knowland, an Arlington, VA-based Software as a Service (SaaS) leader in the hospitality industry needed a marketing consultant to fill critical gaps in its marketing team. Lumen Marketing & Communications stepped in, providing Knowland with the strategy and execution necessary to deliver tangible marketing results, including an increase in customer engagement.

THE CHALLENGE

As a high-growth company, Knowland needed to continuously create new leads to fill its sales pipeline. They worked with a third-party consultant to assume the role of interim marketing leader and develop a well-defined strategy and budget that would help the company meet its business goals. After assessing Knowland’s situation, the consultant voiced some concerns to the CEO. “One of the worst things that could happen to you right now would be for your marketing manager to quit,” she prophesized. Shortly thereafter, the marketing manager went on vacation and didn’t come back, leaving its marketing program hanging in the balance.

Quickly realizing she needed another set of hands, the consultant called on Lumen Marketing for their deep expertise in HubSpot’s marketing automation platform.

BRIDGING THE GAP

The Lumen Marketing team jumped right in, with little-to-no ramp-up time, serving as an extension of Knowland’s marketing department. Lumen Marketing’s President, Lisa Moore, embedded herself into Knowland’s day-to-day marketing operations, serving as a key player and advisor. She attended departmental staff meetings, participated in all relevant email communications, and took on the responsibilities of Knowland’s interim Director of Demand Generation until they hired someone to fill the role permanently.

Although Knowland initially brought Lumen in for demand gen and customer communications, the company also leveraged the agency for a variety of other key initiatives, including social media marketing and webinars.

KEEPING THE TRAIN ON THE TRACKS

Knowland was also happy to leverage Lumen’s extensive HubSpot expertise. As Knowland’s newly hired VP of Marketing, Lisa Bonanno welcomed Lumen’s guidance.

“As a new hire coming on board, there were so many things I was trying to accomplish in short order,” said Bonanno. “The fact that I could lean on Lumen to execute through HubSpot without me having to direct how to get it done was a life saver.”

Another thing Knowland loved about working with Lumen Marketing is that although they are two time zones apart, they never felt it. “They were hugely responsive to email, which is our primary mode of communication. Lisa would call if there were ever something that needed our attention, and she was very communicative about when she’d be out of pocket, in another meeting or going on vacation. It was relatively seamless,” said Bonanno.

In fact, the entire Knowland team enjoyed working with Lumen Marketing. “So much so that we use this relationship as our metric in hiring other consultants,” Bonanno added. “We always aim to find someone who is equally as communicative and can easily plug into our team and our processes just like Lumen, because it was such a successful model.”

FORWARD PROGRESS

With Lumen’s help, Knowland’s marketing campaigns kept moving forward. “Even though we were transitioning to a new marketing automation system, we never felt that pain,” said Bonanno.

Before engaging with Lumen Marketing, Knowland did not have a customer newsletter. Lumen worked with Bonanno and her team to develop a HubSpot email template for the newsletter, which is now distributed every month. “It’s a huge driver for our customer engagement,” said Bonanno.

According to Knowland, the investment in working with Lumen Marketing was incredibly worthwhile. “When you’re a small-scale, high-growth company, resources are a premium, and you rely on vendors to fill in your gaps. We relied heavily on Lumen to fill in a lot of the tactical execution where we couldn’t otherwise do it,” said Bonanno.
She went on to say, “If Knowland hadn’t worked with Lumen, I think there would have been a lot of frustration. There would be less joy coming to work, due to thinking about the slew of projects we had to get done and feeling like we were going nowhere fast. It would have caused a lot of headaches along the way, but Lumen helped us avoid all of that.”

Bonanno said having a partner the caliber of an agency like Lumen Marketing is extremely valuable to any marketing leader. “While you can get a less experienced freelancer to come in, listen to your plan, and execute on it, what you get with Lumen Marketing is the bonus of thought leadership and a sounding board for all things marketing strategy. That level of expertise and commitment is well worth the investment.

Whether your angle is to FTE (full-time employee) someone, if you have an immediate need, ramping up with Lumen Marketing is easy and fast, and you can keep your train running while exploring other avenues to fill the gap. And if it does result in a longer-term engagement with Lumen, that’s a plus. If not, you are still a win-win position.”

ABOUT LUMEN MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

Lumen Marketing & Communications specializes in inbound and account-based marketing, WordPress websites, branding, and creative for B2B and B2C businesses. Our strategy-first marketing programs help clients generate demand, attract better leads, engage more effectively, and increase qualified sales opportunities that lead to measurable revenue.

Whether you need to augment your existing team on a single project, or a completely turnkey, outsourced marketing solution, Lumen Marketing can help. Our Denver-based team serves clients in a diverse set of industries, including: startups, high-growth companies, technology, software (SaaS), resorts and attractions, banking, finance, real estate, professional services, HR and talent management, and more.