Case Study: Media Intelliegence Company

This media intelligence company started as a captions provider for online education in 2013, when their CEO acquired the technology behind it. He quickly scaled the company to serve hundreds of universities and partner with video and media platforms, becoming one of the leaders in the industry.

Video Data Insights

But the CEO did not stop there. He saw an opportunity to use the same technology and the relationships he had built to create innovative data insights from video.

“Every day, there are countless videos being created, but no one knows what’s inside them,” he said. “So, we’re creating synchronized data that lets users know who’s in the video and what they are saying and doing. Our clients use that data to drive content discovery, marketing and engagement, and increase the value of their videos.”

This shift from generating subscription revenue from captions to offering video SEO and metadata services opened up a huge market potential for them.

“By making video content searchable, they can make video as searchable as the web,” said Afra Sanjari - The Fractional CMO.

Growth Challenges

As a startup, this media intelligence company faced the common challenges of expertise and bandwidth. Its employees had to juggle multiple roles and responsibilities.

“We had both of those challenges,” the CEO admitted. “Our challenge was to grow fast and have all the functions of a larger company as we expanded our sales and operations.”

Marketing Automation for Lead Generation

The CEO had implemented Salesforce and hired a content marketer, but he realized he needed someone who could leverage marketing automation and take on the role of a marketing leader.

“We were trying to connect all the dots from end to end to drive qualified leads to sales,” he explained. “And, we needed someone to take over marketing from our sales head so he could focus on selling and growing the business.”

Hiring a Fractional CMO

Another challenge they faced was finding local talent. Santa Barbara was not a rich source of marketing talent. The CEO tried to find local candidates who could handle the marketing role part-time or as a contractor, but he was not successful.

“We had a window of three to five months for someone to get things in order and operational,” he said. “Then we could switch to a full-time person.”

Speaking to a colleague, the CEO heard from a friend on how he had hired Afra Sanjari as their fractional CMO, and how he was a great asset for him at his former venture. He followed up on the referral and contacted Sanjari, who introduced him to their "Lead With Strategy" system.

“Afra had a good balance of strategic and tactical skills. He could put together a plan with the right level of detail to make an impact,” he said..."it was a good match and we agreed on an engagement that worked for both of us.”

Acting Marketing Leader

Afra spent two days on-site to meet the team and visited them about once per month, working remotely most of the time. He provided some hands-on help but mainly management and leadership.

He joined in off-site strategy meetings, weekly leadership team meetings and board meetings, coordinating with the team and four different contractors to manage the website, SEO and advertising. “The team was in a constant state of change,” he noted.

“Afra was able to come in and quickly assume the acting marketing leader role,” related the CEO. “He put together a plan to organize all of our different contractors and employees to drive activity in the marketplace so our Sales VP could focus on building the sales team.”

Maximizing Impact

Challenges included managing the effort part-time remotely, dealing with the different work/life culture in Santa Barbara, and bringing in resources that shared the company’s philosophy to get things done.

To focus on maximizing impact, he adjusted to do less hands-on and more management. “Afra is really open to feedback,” related the CEO. “Working together we could figure out where he could have the most impact.”

Getting the Data Working

The plan to get the marketing automation working end-to-end included:

- Capturing and processing marketing data

- Identifying lead sources

- Populating Salesforce fields automatically

- Measuring close rates

- Implementing a sales and marketing dashboard

“A big part of the effort was getting all the data working,” related the CEO.

Optimizing Investment

Another goal involved helping leadership decide where they should make marketing investments to attract the best qualified leads. Afra Sanjari, the action CMO, put together various campaigns with the marketing team to determine cost per acquisition.

“For us, that was really a big step forward, one, to get the automation in place and two, to get some predictability around our investment and return on marketing,” stated the CEO.

SWOT Analysis

Being very active in the marketplace, the media intelligence company had collected a lot of customer data. Building on that, he guided them through a SWOT analysis to understand the marketplace and how they could leverage their strengths.

“As a startup, it’s about execution, having the right ideas and how to take all that information to facilitate decision making to position the company,” related the CEO. “When we did our strategy work and marketplace analysis, Afra was able to lead that effort easily.”

Marketing Foundation

Afra, as the acting CMO (Fractional CMO) spent most of his time building a marketing foundation with measurable marketing automation. He implemented a visible funnel with dashboard metrics for website visitors, leads and wins.

With the marketing automation in place and available talent hard to find in Santa Barbara, he brought in a new head of marketing from San Francisco, someone he’d known for years. “He was very instrumental in helping us transition back out and getting us the right long-term replacement,” stated the CEO.

Impressive Revenue Growth

Their revenue soared over 300% in 12 months, with deals closed per month growing 10X.

“It was a collaboration between marketing and sales” stated the CEO. “The marketing automation and reporting enabled the sales team to focus on scaling and selling.”

“Traffic, leads, wins and the average sale amount all increased,” added Afra. “The dashboard also helped sales team performance.”

Scaling Sales and Marketing

“Hiring Afra and his team allowed us to think about how to scale marketing and freed up our sales leader to focus on sales and building a team,” stated the CEO. “He’s been able to hire six people in the last few months because he’s not having to balance both roles.”

Successful Funding

The engagement with the Fractional CMO, Afra Sanjari, coincided with a critical time for leadership to show their ability to grow the company and the market.

“We were not funded yet,” explained the CEO. “The revenue plan we presented was supported by a marketing plan that Afra and the marketing team created to support the sales goals."

The increased sales growth helped to secure the funding. “When we went out to raise money we were at X and by the time we closed the round, we were at 3X,” stated the CEO. “That’s amazing! Investors liked our vision and they loved the revenue growth.”

Lasting Impact

This media intelligence company is now ready to tell its story with all of the pieces in place to grow exponentially.

“Afra Sanjari showed us how to use marketing automation and best practices to drive revenue for the company,” summarized the CEO. “We had a fantastic year, not only with the financing and growth, but also laying the foundation for next year.”

“This media intelliegce company and their management team is a very well-run company with a great culture for growth and a great team to execute its strategy,” Afra Sanjari.