Big Fish Local
$156K in pipeline, in five months
At a glance. Big Fish Local sells SEO to local service businesses like plumbers and HVAC companies. During COVID-19, RELAY™ reached their owners on LinkedIn with empathetic messaging and one good question about their current marketing, which gave Seth a consultative opening. The result: a 37% reply rate, 71 replies a month and $156K in pipeline in five months.
The constraint
Big Fish Local is an SEO agency for local service businesses, plumbers and HVAC companies among them, where search visibility moves revenue directly. The campaign ran while COVID-19 was hitting local businesses hard. Owners under that kind of pressure don't want a sales pitch, and a tone-deaf message would have burned the market.
What we built
The targeting. Owners of local service businesses, reached on LinkedIn, where SEO has an outsized impact on revenue.
The tone. Messaging that acknowledged what COVID-19 was doing to local businesses, so no struggling owner felt sold to.
The opening. A question about their current marketing strategy, so Seth could pinpoint what wasn't working and start a consultative conversation.
The play that worked
The consultative question. Asking about their marketing today gave Seth the reason for a real conversation, not a pitch. It resonated extremely well.
Results
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Replies | 71 a month on average |
| Reply rate | 37% |
| Connection acceptance | 34% |
| Pipeline | $156K in five months |
| Channel |
A 34% connection acceptance rate, a 37% reply rate and 71 replies a month on average, adding up to $156K in pipeline within five months. Once the campaign launched, the messages started right away, and kept coming faster than Seth could easily handle.
“I wasn't sure how effective this would be for my business, but I have to say I'm impressed. I'm getting so many conversations, it's a little hard to keep up. It took a while to get onboarded, but once we launched, I started getting messages right away.”
Seth EvansCEO, Big Fish LocalWhat this means for you
When your buyers are small business owners under pressure, the message that works is the one that listens first. Ask about their situation, and let the conversation do the selling.
Seth EvansCEO, Big Fish Local
