Brand and Service Relaunch Fills the Sales Pipeline
The business world is full of companies that have reinvented themselves successfully (Amazon, Netflix, Apple) and those that haven’t, and suffered the consequences. With two decades in the payment processing industry, MerchantE was a well-established business, but, like other companies faced with change, decided that an evolution of its brand and services was in order to take even better advantage of the transforming financial technology market.
That decision resulted in a shift in target market, a rethinking of service offerings, and a relaunch of the company with a revised name and entirely new digital presence and marketing. MerchantE has successfully morphed into a fintech provider with a full suite of services that still includes payment processing, but also far more. Far more engagement with its customers and prospects has resulted in significantly greater lead generation and conversion.
Throughout this evolution, Marsden Marketing was instrumental in getting the word out about MerchantE, bringing prospects in, and giving the sales force knowledge and tools to sell the company’s new and redefined services.
“Marsden Marketing has been an incredible partner in both guiding development and managing execution of our brand relaunch. Their team has been a critical driver of our recent sales success.”
- Chief Product Officer
“Our new market position and services meant a shift in thinking for our sales organization. Marsden created tools to educate our team and helped them handle the increased number of leads generated by our new, comprehensive marketing program.”
- Director, Product Marketing
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Research and Discovery: Through in-depth buyer persona interviews, competitive analysis, and client and market research, Marsden refined MerchantE’s value proposition and messaging. This focused and data-driven process allowed Marsden to take an informed and strategic approach to creating MerchantE’s new brand, website, and digital presence. |
| • | Integrated Marketing Program:
Before the evolution of its brand and marketing, MerchantE’s communications focused on contacting customers when the company had compliance information to pass along. To reintroduce the company and its new brand and services, Marsden developed and implemented a comprehensive, integrated marketing program for MerchantE. Website: One foundational element of the marketing program is a new website created to reflect the brand and service evolution. The interactive website features strong, modern visuals, compelling content offers, and thought leadership blogs to spark engagement. It centers on the Money IN, Money OUT, and Money MAX services, introducing and expanding on them in custom illustrations aligned with the brand’s core attributes – simple, friendly, smart, and sincere. The result is a website that makes the brand story easy to grasp, compelling, and impactful. Video: Marsden also created a video series to introduce MerchantE’s new name, look, and services. The introductory video, “A Suite of Innovative Services,” is visually engaging and clearly conveys the range of services the company is bringing to market. Brief videos developed after launch cover specific services ranging from web commerce to mobile payment acceptance to same-day access to credit card funds. In addition to being posted on the MerchantE website, the videos are the centerpiece of email campaigns and social media and are the main contributor to improved response to MerchantE’s email campaigns. They also serve as valuable sales enablement tools for the company’s sales team. |
| • | Branding and Go-to-Market Strategy:
An important element of the MerchantE launch was determining how to position and go to market with its redefined services. The company needed a way to describe its products to reinforce the shift from payment processing to sophisticated financial technology services. After considering how their targeted businesses typically handle their funds, Marsden collaborated with MerchantE to group its services into three buckets: Money IN™, Money OUT™, and Money MAX™, which reflect how their customers take payments, pay invoices and employees, and manage their funds through data. Rather than suggesting that the company rename itself entirely, Marsden helped MerchantE evolve its name (from Merchant e-Solutions) to modernize and connect it more firmly to ecommerce and the fintech marketplace. |
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Marketing Campaigns: Marketing technology and measurement Marsden is a Hubspot Platinum Solutions Partner and employs its Marketing Hub for MerchantE email campaigns and CMS Hub for website development and management. MerchantE’s sales team is testing the Sales Hub, a CRM solution to help them get deeper insights into prospects and close deals faster. Marsden tracks campaigns by product via Hubspot to measure their effectiveness and improve every metric, from number of clicks, conversions, and sales-qualified leads to the cost involved in generating them. This is the first time MerchantE has been able to attribute the results of marketing campaigns to specific products and better gauge the success of the company’s marketing efforts. Evaluation includes the use of CallRail, which provides call tracking software to attribute phone calls to the specific marketing channels that sparked interest in the business. Buyers for MerchantE’s services often are individuals who will pick up the phone, rather than contact the company via the web, so call tracking was important for accurate evaluation of campaigns. |
127% Increase in Open Rates
Increase in email open rates
1,004% Increase in Leads
Increase in lead generation
609% Increase in Click Rates
Increase in email click rates
82% of MQLs Converted to SQLs
Marketing qualified leads that became sales qualified
> 1,000% Increase in Social Engagement
Increase in Facebook and LinkedIn interactions
7-Time Award Winning for Web and Video
Website redesign and video received four DotCOMM awards and three Videographer Excellence Awards
> 2,000% Increase LinkedIn Shares
Increase in LinkedIn shares across all content
Marsden Marketing’s collaboration with MerchantE resulted in a successful brand relaunch with a new name, an expanded suite of services, an interactive and highly visual website, and a reinvigorated digital presence. All work together to generate far more engagement and create a solid B2B sales pipeline for the organization. Using digital advertising and email best practices to drive website traffic, strong visuals and offers on the website, and compelling content and blog posts to spark engagement, MerchantE’s relaunch got off to an impressive start and continues successfully to this day.
| • | Go-to-Market Strategy & Planning |
| • | Website Design |
| • | Demand Generation Programs |
| • | HubSpot Automation Platform |
| • | Video Production |
| • | Multi-Channel Marketing |
| • | Social Media Strategy |
| • | Testing and Optimizing |
B2B marketing agency Marsden Marketing is an award-winning demand generation, strategy, digital marketing, and PR company. Servicing clients worldwide, we are a Salesforce/Pardot partner and the leading HubSpot Platinum partner based in Atlanta, GA.
