I’ve been playing catch up this week. My wife and I took the rare occasion of getting out of the house without our daughters this week to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. The vacation was fantastic and all of the work was there for me to tackle when I returned to Indianapolis on Tuesday morning.

It’s fun to work for places that are growing. We all want growth in our personal and professional lives. Marketers and business owners are growth oriented humans. Typically, growth is the Northstar and identifying how we accelerate growth is the game we play. I don’t share a lot of company updates in this newsletter, but there’s always room for an exception. When I logged on to Slack after being away I saw a message from David Riggs, CEO of Pneuma that read, “Another exciting announcement to share with you all - Pneuma is the 170th fastest growing company in America!” I let the message wash over me for a minute and then started to realize the magnitude of the announcement. During a time where many companies are retracting, cutting marketing, and keeping their cash in reserves, Pneuma is growing at a rate to be recognized on a national list. I began thinking about how we were going to announce the update and started to create the copy. I dove into draft mode and then stopped myself. I started to understand that before we celebrate this news it probably makes sense to reflect on what got us there. It took about a minute of reflection when I realized it was because of our clients. The ultimate growth channel for any company.

It can be cliche to say things like THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS WITH YOUR CLIENTS, but I don’t care because it’s true. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 amplifies our desire to grow. We create content, run campaigns, and double down on strategies like SEO to help us grow. If we’re consistent and create quality work all of the things that we do as marketers will help us grow, however, oftentimes we neglect using our customers to our advantage. The client network at Pneuma is a group of entrepreneurs, CEOs, and marketers who had a problem and decided to use our services to help solve it. That’s a really freaking big deal and when you begin to tap into each of those customer stories you begin to see opportunities for growth. 

I’ve always been a big fan of leaning into clients for growth. I haven’t been at Pneuma for too long, but I understand from the stories along the way that our clients are a primary growth channel for us. I wanted to share some thoughts around ways that I’ve worked with clients from a growth perspective in my career in marketing: 

1. Referrals: Your best leads will always be the leads that come directly from your best customers. If you’re delivering for your customers and the relationship is in place it’s always ok to weave in a conversation around referrals. Before you create a robust referral agreement I’d recommend testing some theories on a couple great fit clients. It’s amazing what simply asking the question, “Do you know anyone else like you who might need our help?” can do for growth. 

2. Advocacy: Make your clients look like heroes! This means putting their faces on your website, inviting them to your content, and always going above and beyond to make sure they have what they need to wave your company flag. The best advocacy is organic and comes from a place of passion. Reciprocity is powerful. The more you lean into delivering for your clients the more growth opportunities will result. 

3. Results: Creating a first-in-class client experience will pay for itself with the growth opportunities that come in return. This means seamless onboarding, great communication, and always anchoring back to results. The more you show results the more your clients will talk about it. 

It’s fun to make big announcements about growth. It’s even better reflecting on how we got there. 

The answer is always with your clients. Never forget it! 

In the 13th episode of 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 podcast we kicked off a brand new series on SCORE, which is the methodology that we use at Pneuma to help our clients find their next customer. 

David discusses the “S” which is strategy. We dive into Google ranking factors, quick wins, competitor strategies, and more. 

Please follow and subscribe to 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 wherever you consume fine audio and video content.

• Apple Podcasts

• Spotify

• YouTube

Quick Tip for The Search Economy

Outreach can be scary. Many marketers view outreach as a sales motion. Outreach is viewed as an activity that sales professionals have to use in order to create a pipeline and grow the business. While outreach is a requirement for any successful sales pro it’s also the most important way for marketers to understand what works and what doesn’t. 

The best way to grow in the 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 is for the entire organization to be outreach obsessed. The result of great outreach is conversations. We’re all pushing for more pipeline and more sales. We know we need those things to grow, but it always starts with conversations. For marketing it can be outreach to clients, your next podcast guest, or even dipping your toe into some sales development. Outreach shouldn’t be scary when it teaches you something. I’ve always found that regular outreach from a marketing perspective has helped me craft my message, experiment with campaigns, and always gets me closer to the customer. 

Most outreach sucks. Your outreach can be your opportunity to differentiate.  

If you’ve been debating new technology or services for your SEO program we’re always here to be a sounding board.  If you’re looking for a team that will help give you a jump start into 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 give Pneuma a shout for a free traffic audit!

What They’re Saying About Search

SEO isn’t a top priority for most. It’s something that you know you need and maybe will get more focus eventually, but probably not right now because of all of the other priorities in place. I’ve found that sometimes a simple reminder of the benefits can create urgency on investments like SEO. I came across this simple, but effective post from Asif Raza Mahdi and wanted to share with you. 

If you’re looking for a team that will help give you a jump start into 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 give Pneuma a shout for a free traffic audit!

Content That Supports The Search Economy

I interviewed Viola Eva the Founder at Flow Agency and host of The Start-Up ®evolution podcast this week. When I was prepping for the interview I dug back in her archive and stumbled across this episode with Frederik Hermann. Although it’s not solely focused on SEO I believe it’s the right type of information we should be consuming as we prepare to better out position in the 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲. 

You can listen to the conversation here. 

I appreciate you being here for 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 newsletter. If you’re looking to learn more about how your company can get found by your next customer then give the Pneuma team a shout.