May 21, 2025 • 54 mins
Download the 2025 High Growth Study Executive Summary:
www.hingemarketing.com/highgrowth
In this episode of Spiraling Up, we tackle the ever-persistent question: Is SEO dead? Join Austin, Joe, and Mary-Blanche as they dive into fascinating new data from SparkToro (@SparkToro ) highlighting Google's dominance and the relevance of SEO best practices. The team also hands out special marketing superlatives, recognizing companies excelling in thought leadership, talent acquisition, past performance, and more. In this episode, you'll hear:
- Is SEO dead? (enough with this nonsense)
- The Black Hole Award
- The Talent Magnet Award
- The Acquisition Amplification Award
- The People Powered Firm Award
- Legacy of Excellence Award
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Austin_McNair (00:00):
In today's episode of Spiraling Up is SEO
Dead goodness gracious, thetopic that won't Die.
Well Spark touro has someinteresting new data on this
conversation, and then afterthat, our team will be giving
out some marketing superlatives.
Welcome everybody.
This is spiraling up with Hinge.
(00:27):
Welcome everyone to Spiraling Upthe podcast for professional
services marketers and businessleaders where we explore key
marketing stories and industrytrends through engaging
segments, interactive challengesand insightful discussions.
My name is Austin and I'm joinedby my co-host Joe Pope and Mary
(00:48):
Blanche Kramer.
How are you guys doing today?
Mary Blanche (00:51):
It's doing great.
Joe Pope (00:53):
Feeling a little slow actually.
Austin_McNair (00:55):
A little slow.
All right, well let's pick itup, man.
Joe Pope (00:58):
Well, there's really only one way.
I think you can pick it upright.
Austin_McNair (01:03):
A little bit of Saratoga water.
Okay, good.
Sounds like your morning routineis off to a good start.
Um, well, hey, as we get intotoday's episode, I wanna say
thank you to our listeners andall those watching on YouTube.
Uh, you can support the show bygiving us a, like, hitting that
subscribe buttons, leaving areview.
Um, we are just getting startedwith this podcast spiraling up.
(01:25):
So, uh, any love that you giveto the algorithm, we really
appreciate it.
Mary Blanche (01:30):
Speaking of morning routines, you're coming
to, uh, you're gonna be gettingup pretty, pretty early to come
to the US here pretty soon.
Austin_McNair (01:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just booked a flight.
For those that don't know, I'm,I'm, I'm currently located in
Southern Brazil, far away frommy co-hosts and hinge colleagues
up in Northern Virginia.
Joe Pope (01:50):
Too far, too far.
Austin_McNair (01:51):
I know it's too far.
It would be so cool if we weredoing this podcast in person,
but maybe, hey, maybe we can dosomething because actually the
three of us are gonna be inArizona for a conference
together.
This conference is with theAssociation for Accounting
Marketing.
I know we're excited for that.
Joe, what will your morningroutine look like?
Uh, at the AIM conference?
Joe Pope (02:11):
It probably won't involve a 3 42 alarm clock
followed by a four 15 coldplunge, but I'm sure we'll still
find great opportunities to havea a good time together.
Maybe that might push themorning routine to 7 38.
We'll see.
I mean, we'll be mountain time.
Right.
So that's gonna, that's gonnahave some differences there with
(02:32):
time zones, especially for you.
Right?
'cause you're, you're a fewhours in front of us in Brazil.
I can't, I can't remember
Austin_McNair (02:38):
that's right.
I wake up, I'm already, mymorning routine's way earlier
than you guys.
Yeah.
If I wake up at 6:00 AM that's4:00 AM on the East Coast, so
yeah.
I'm, I'm like that influencer,that viral influencer that we're
kind of, uh, alluding to
Joe Pope (02:50):
Ashton Hall.
Yeah.
Austin_McNair (02:51):
Ashton Hall.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm ripping the tape off anddoing the whole thing just like
you.
I just don't have the SaratogaSpring water here in Brazil.
Um, yeah, there you go.
Product placement.
We need to get a deal from this.
Joe Pope (03:02):
Can, can Saratoga sponsor this podcast?
Austin_McNair (03:05):
That would be, that
Joe Pope (03:06):
can you guys please?
Mary Blanche (03:07):
We'll even suspend ourselves for four minutes
midair before we take a goldplunge.
Joe Pope (03:12):
That was to the pool, right?
We could reenact that.
All right.
We should move on.
Austin_McNair (03:16):
All right.
We should move on mb what's ourpivotal story for this week?
Mary Blanche (03:21):
Yeah.
All right.
So, um, well welcome back toanother week of Pivotal Stories.
Today we are dissecting theSpark Toro report that came out
earlier this month, and theheadliner is, this is AI
stealing Google's market share.
So what I'm gonna do, I'll kindof set the stage for us a little
bit here, and then we can diveinto it.
(03:42):
Now the report notes that Googlesearch grew by nearly 22% from
2023 to 2024, and that Googleprocesses 14 billion searches
daily compared to chat GPTs 37.5million, search like prompts.
And the research even noted thatonly 30% of chat GPT prompts are
(04:04):
search related to begin with.
So there's plenty to unpackhere, but long and the short
this report.
Report is saying that Googleremains dominant and that
marketers should prioritizedata-driven strategies and focus
on where their audience is,which for now is without a doubt
Google.
Uh, so I know this has been abig topic internally, uh,
(04:25):
recently, uh, so lots to unpackhere, but Austin, let's start
with you.
What are your thoughts?
Austin_McNair (04:31):
Yeah, I mean, Joe, how many times have we had
the conversation with prospectsand clients and everybody
forwarding articles to us aboutSEO is dead.
SEO is dead, you know, hinge.
You guys are silly forconstantly talking about SEO or
whatever.
I mean, how many times have weheard that Joe?
Joe Pope (04:50):
Well, I've, I've attempted to get into every
single episode of this podcastso far, it's a consistent theme
Austin_McNair (04:56):
I mean, one thing that is funny to me is that
it's, it's been a consistenttheme that I feel like we've
been joking about this since Istarted with Hinge seven years
ago.
I mean, it, that that's how longthis like narrative of SEO being
dead has, has been around and I,and I think that most people are
saying that.
Because, um, F-E-S-E-O is isdifficult.
(05:17):
I think maybe it's like the, thereal problem that people have.
So it's, it's just much easierfor us to say that it's dead and
pretend like we don't have topay attention to it.
my headline takeaway from this.
It's just to feel a little bitreassured.
Um, and, and I say that becauseoff, off the back of a few
months ago, I, myself, I did notwrite an SEO is dead article,
(05:38):
but I did write a, an articleand I'll, I'll pull it up here
on the screen for those watchingon, on YouTube.
I wrote an article back inOctober of 2024 and I called it
panic.
At the SEO disco.
So if that tells you anythingabout how I'm a millennial, and
I guess the three of us aremillennials here, all that to
say, yeah, no, we're, you know,SEO is not dead, but there is I
(06:00):
think a lot of, concern, I wouldsay reasonable concern about.
How much more challenging it hasgotten.
I'll just highlight a couple ofthings, right?
So to the point about howchallenging it is, Google has
definitely been a little bitmore greedier, right?
Keeping people in the searchplatform.
for content creators, making thei the prospect of paying for
(06:23):
sponsored spots at toppositions, making that a little
bit more alluring becausegetting those organic spots is
harder.
When AI overviews are added tothe top of, uh, different Google
search results pages, that justpushes all of the organic
results down.
So click through rates aredefinitely something that we're
(06:44):
seeing tank.
So I gave some different dataranges in our blog post about
our own website performance andhow, despite the fact that,
we've had basically the sameamount of impressions.
Our clicks have gone downconsiderably on our own website.
So I think a lot of marketers dohave these reasonable concerns,
like, our website is not gettingthe kind of traffic that, uh, it
(07:07):
should.
So I think the question that ourlisteners are wondering is,
okay, well what do we do aboutthis Right Spark tour.
It, it is telling us Google isstill dominant.
Um, we're saying SEO is notdead.
What are some ways that we mightrespond to the disruption?
So, um, a few things here.
Uh, number one, double down onyour SEO best practices.
(07:31):
Joe, I think this is somethingthat we commonly talk to our
clients about, What, what haveyou seen in our, in the business
development space about,Addressing concerns about like
SEO and why do we, we, why, whydo we bring that up?
Even in the business developmentspace of like continuing to keep
it at the center.
Joe Pope (07:48):
I mean, intent is a big thing, right?
I, one of the biggest thingsyou'll see with these
differences between clicks,impressions and so forth, is as
Google tries to make things morerelevant.
That relevancy is so key tobeing able to make the
connections between where an SEOstrategy, the content of which
is generating views, clicks,movement is then translating
(08:11):
into action when people get toyour website.
that intent is so important.
So original content, thoughtprovoking content, all of these
different elements that are tiedto issues, I.
Is a continual theme that we'reseeing in conversations with our
own prospects.
Right?
So just to continue to pull thecurtain back a bit, hinges the
(08:31):
maj.
Vast majority of our business isgenerated through search.
In fact, you know, inprofessional services, a lot of
times you hear referrals.
Our search actually forhistorically, has overwhelmed
our referrals.
And it's not that we don't getplenty of referrals, uh, it's,
it's just that if you make thiscommitment to getting content in
front of the types of folks.
That have these issues, havethese challenges, it's a great
(08:54):
narrative to then take forwardin our sales conversation.
So one of the things we'llalways ask, in fact we ask it on
all of our forms, is, how'd youfind us?
And, uh, the amount of times yousee Google is still extremely
relevant there, but we have seenthat rise in things like chat,
GPT.
Gemini and some of these otherartificial, uh, AI based type
(09:18):
platforms that are using theseSEO principles to still channel
folks to us.
Austin_McNair (09:25):
Yeah, so one thing that we do at Hinge is we,
we conduct ongoing research onprofessional services buyers,
and you know, referrals isalways.
The number one source to thatquestion you were talking about.
Then after that is doing ageneral web search.
It's still at the top of thelist.
Now we've recently added theLLMs as a, as kind of an
additional channel, which isstarting to get some traction.
(09:47):
But one of the interestingthings that we highlight in the
article as well is that to to,to the best of our knowledge at
this moment.
We are seeing a strongcorrelation between best SEO
practices and then being foundon these other platforms.
So I mentioned how Google itselfhas changed, but Joe, I'm glad
that you brought up that, youknow, one of the concerns,
especially from the Spark Touroarticle is about how.
(10:09):
Platforms like chat, GPT,perplexity, Gemini, there's a,
marketers are wondering like, ohman, is this just gonna take
away, you know, traffic from ourwebsite?
And I think to a degree theanswer is yes, but as MB pointed
out the findings that clearlysay that Google is still
dominant.
So what were ourrecommendations?
Uh, double down on those bestSEO practices.
(10:31):
That might mean doing an audit.
With an SEO specialist.
Um, not every professionalservices firm has an SEO
specialist in-house, and that'stotally okay.
We, we get that marketing isvery omnichannel right now
Joe Pope (10:44):
That's what we're here for anyways.
Austin_McNair (10:47):
we can help with that.
Um, side note, Joe, you, youjust spoke to this, increasing
the relevance of your thoughtleadership content, right?
So that's, that, that isabsolutely, uh, an important
thing.
Another recommendation thatwe've talked about is creating a
signature piece of content.
Um, to be fully transparent, Imean, the Spiraling Up podcast
is one way that Hinge is Dellevolving and doing that.
(11:08):
We also have our high growthstudy and our research reports,
and I mean, more importantly,the work that we've done for our
clients.
I mean, this is the directionthat we're heading is, you know,
as, as AI is.
It's so easy to use now tocreate content.
How do you, how are you gonnacreate content that really
sticks out and that people canassociate with your particular
organization?
(11:29):
Joe, do you have any thoughts onthat piece?
Joe Pope (11:31):
Well, I think if you follow each of these guidelines,
you should have high hopes thatthey're gonna work.
Austin_McNair (11:37):
Hi.
High hopes continuing the panicat the disco.
Uh, yeah.
Um,
Joe Pope (11:45):
man.
We let the insiders get the
Austin_McNair (11:47):
that's right.
Don't explain the joke, my bad.
Um.
Increasing the visibility ofyour experts was the number four
thing that we talk about.
I mean, this is bread and butterstuff that we talk about at
Hinge, um, beyond your, yourcore marketing team and, and,
you know, getting your expertsinto the mix, engaging them and
integrating them into yourmarketing.
And then finally, improving yourability to, to track and
(12:08):
attribute marketing.
ROI our, our research hasrevealed this is to be a, a, a
huge challenge right now.
For professional servicesmarketers.
But in terms of, you know, uh,if, if you're thinking about
and, and you're, you're inclinedto say something like, SEO's
dead, it's not working well.
How well are you tracking it?
How often are you tracking it?
How often are you makingimprovements to your content and
(12:30):
your system and actually makingit.
Um, a, a, a larger piece or alarger conversation within your
marketing department.
So these are different thingsthat we've, um, prescribed mb
you know, from the perspectiveof the Spark Touro article.
Do you feel like we covered itin terms of some of this
analysis, or what did we miss?
Mary Blanche (12:48):
Yeah, no, I think between the both of you, that
was a great walkthrough.
Good recommendations.
Um, so just to kind of tie a bowon it here, you know, while AI
tools are important, you know.
You guys are saying is marketersshould prioritize efforts on
platforms where their targetaudience is most active, which
today is Google search.
And just because there is hypearound a new technology,
(13:10):
marketers should always belooking at the data first to
evaluate where their marketingdollars are best spent.
So great job guys.
Joe Pope (13:17):
Say Amen.
Austin_McNair (13:19):
All right.
Well, we have a really funsegment planned here.
Now we're gonna be giving outsome marketing superlatives.
Uh, but first let's, uh, let'stell everybody a little bit
about this high growth studyagain.
Mary Blanche (13:34):
Let's do it.
Joe Pope (13:39):
Do you know the best way to start a morning routine?
Mary Blanche (13:43):
Tell us, Joe, what is it?
Joe Pope (13:45):
Well, there's only one way that I would recommend, and
that is by downloading thelatest edition of Hinges High
Growth Study 2025, the 10thEdition Austin.
Tell the people more about it.
Austin_McNair (13:58):
Yeah, if you want to know what the fastest growing
professional services firms aredoing.
You don't need to drink Saratogawater.
You don't need to wake up atfour 30 in the morning.
You don't need to do all thiscrazy stuff.
All you gotta do is go to hingemarketing.com/ high-growth and
you will get the latest editionof our research on the fastest
(14:19):
growing professional servicesfirms.
It's that link.
It will always be that link,hinge marketing.com/high growth
mb how many downloads we want toget.
Mary Blanche (14:30):
gotta be 10,000, bro.
Austin_McNair (14:32):
It's gotta be 10,000.
So help us out, get us, get usto 10,000 downloads of the high
growth study.
you.
All right.
Well, one thing that we areasked all the time is can you
show us an example of a companythat is doing this really well,
or a company that's doing thatreally well?
(14:52):
These kind of conversationshappen all the time as as a
marketing agency.
So what we wanted to do fortoday's segment is introduce a
new.
Segment that we're callingMarketing Superlatives.
So, uh, it's a good thing thatwe, uh, have on this call to
participate with this, amulti-time award-winning
(15:16):
yearbook editor.
And I'll let everybody guess.
Is it Mary Blanche?
No, it's Joe Pope.
It's
Joe Pope (15:22):
my gosh.
Shout out to the team at WestPotomac High School, uh, the
Predator yearbook team.
Yep, that's right.
Dedicated a substantial portionof my high school days in a room
playing with Photoshop, tryingto make the acne go away.
Mostly on myself and a few otherfolks who could bribe me into
(15:43):
doing it for them.
Uh, but yeah, no, I, I Photos,yearbook photos, right.
Devastating.
Across the board.
Uh, any of you guys have, uh.
A memorable one that you canremember.
Austin_McNair (15:55):
I definitely have a memorable yearbook photo.
Um, in, in high school I sportedsome longer sitting hair
thought, thinking that maybe,maybe projecting into the
future, you know, I've not, youknow, today I like to, you know,
I.
Get out, get out in the oceansurf.
But you know, there's not abeach in Northern Virginia.
But that didn't stop me fromdoing the, you know, the shell
(16:18):
necklace and the long flowysurfer hair.
That was what I rocked in highschool.
What about UMB?
Mary Blanche (16:24):
Um, probably my most memorable one is middle
school, like eighth grade, bigface, full of braces, a little
bit of a unibrow situationhappening.
Um, and not, not the pucashells, but what were they
called?
Like the, like the hempnecklaces.
You know what I'm talking about?
That had like the, like thetie-dyed beads.
(16:46):
Um, so yeah,
Joe Pope (16:48):
Yeah,
Mary Blanche (16:49):
that happened.
Joe Pope (16:49):
that, that was a thing.
Our earlier segment, uh,referencing a certain, uh,
emotional ban, panic at thedisco definitely is a call to my
best high school yearbook photo,which was sophomore year.
Where I was sporting, multipleear piercings, skateboard
(17:09):
t-shirts, and excessively jelledand frosted tip hair.
Mary Blanche (17:14):
Frosted tips.
Austin_McNair (17:15):
Well, I hope, I hope that people watching the
YouTube version of this arelaughing right now because I'm
gonna ask our editor to put someof these, uh, yearbook photos on
the screen.
Sorry to the people that arelistening, uh,
Joe Pope (17:26):
why you have to watch it on YouTube.
Austin_McNair (17:27):
you have to go check this out on YouTube.
It's, uh.
These are pretty great pictures.
Uh, Joe, so tell us about thesuperlative process.
Right?
What do you look for in asuperlative?
How did that, how did, how didthat, was there a lot of
politics involved in those in,in those decision making?
Joe Pope (17:42):
There's no politics in high school.
You know that.
All right.
It's entirely political.
Uh, we, I'm pretty sure that wehad somewhere around 20
superlatives and they prettymuch went to the same type of
person every year.
Uh, I our, our school.
Our school broke them into a, aguy and a girl winning each
award.
(18:02):
I'm pretty sure that the bestcar superlative was awarded to
the exact same car.
It might even have beenliterally the same car passed
down year after year after year.
Some
Mary Blanche (18:11):
What car?
Joe Pope (18:12):
coop.
It was a Mercedes coop.
Yeah.
Uh, in fact, I'm pretty sureboth the guy and the girl had
the same car.
So, um,
Mary Blanche (18:20):
Morning
Joe Pope (18:20):
Yeah.
This is Northern Virginia, soyes, people give children
Mercedes coops.
I drove around a Volvo two 40station wagon, which.
We'll ask our editor to put apicture up of that.
But when you think nerdy dudewho's driving around a car in
high school, that would be me.
I was that guy.
Mary Blanche (18:36):
I a Honda Accord.
Austin_McNair (18:39):
I drove an Isuzu V Cross, which nobody knows what
that is.
Joe Pope (18:44):
Oh, I
Austin_McNair (18:44):
3000 of those made.
Um, yeah, that was a wild, thatwas a wild car to drive, and I
loved it, and I miss it.
All right.
We would like to issue somemarketing superlatives, to some
companies out there that are,uh, maybe leaders in the space
or maybe they're more unknowngems.
But, these are examples that inkind of day in, day out life
(19:05):
here at Hinge, we turn to thesedifferent, Companies.
Firms, some of them reallylarge, some of them really small
as as examples of, wow, I mean,this is an impressive way to go
about doing this.
The first award.
MB do you want to talk about?
What's our first superlative?
Mary Blanche (19:22):
Sure.
So our first award is called TheBlack Hole.
Award award.
And you might be thinking, whatin the world is that?
Uh, now this award is gonna goto the company whose thought
leadership content is mostlikely to suck you into their
black hole.
So before we reveal the winner,Joe, remind us why do we care
(19:44):
about thought leadershipcontent?
Joe Pope (19:46):
Yep.
Uh, well, listeners to thepodcast have heard us talk about
this.
It's been featured in a few ofour episodes so far, but in
professional services as ourrecent high growth study
uncovered this.
But the number one marketingpriority is creating thought,
thought-provoking content.
(20:07):
So without further ado, Austinwho is number one.
In 2025 and the award winner forthe black hole.
Austin_McNair (20:19):
Alright, thanks Joe.
Let me, uh, I'll, I'll show our,our YouTube viewers again on the
screen, kind of what we'retalking about here.
But for those listening, theaward, the black hole.
Superlative Award is gonna go toGartner.
All right.
Fun fact about Gartner.
Um, my.
My, my first ever professionalinterview out of college.
(20:41):
Um, so I went to LibertyUniversity.
I was a barista and a lifeguard.
That was all of my professionalexperience.
And so I, my first everinterview professionally fun
fact, was at a company calledCorporate Executive Board, which
was re, which was eventuallyacquired by Gartner.
But I just, you know, I stilllook back and left to this day
of me fresh out of college,putting on like my dad's suit
(21:04):
that like didn't fit well andlike.
Going up to Rosalyn, uh, inNorthern Virginia and trying to
like fit into a corporateculture.
It didn't, it, it didn't workout well.
It
Joe Pope (21:14):
Did you have your pookah shell necklace still
Austin_McNair (21:16):
I I, you know, I had moved on from the Puca shell
necklace at that point.
Um, but I, you know, was notquite ready to enter the
corporate environment at thatstage of my life.
Um, fast forward, I'm glad itdidn't work out'cause now I'm
here with the Hinge team.
It's been great.
So.
Gartner Black Hole Award.
What are we talking about here?
So for this superlative, ourteam is just really talking
(21:37):
about, um, taking something,like taking this finding right
content creation and howimportant it is to B2B, how
important it is for professionalservices.
And I mean, Gartner just goesall the way, right?
Um, many of you may be onGartner's email list.
Most of you probably don'tremember how you got
Joe Pope (21:58):
How are you got there?
Austin_McNair (21:59):
It's, they, they do guides, they do, um, blog
posts, they do events.
Um, they, they're very wellknown for that famous magic
quadrant, Joe, that I know we,we see from time to time.
so all this to say like from athought leadership content in
the perspective of a black hole.
Gartner sucks you in.
they do produce very highquality content.
(22:21):
and I will say, just being ontheir email list, they have a
very sharp, probably one of thehighest quality enterprise
marketing automation systems outthere.
They really push personalizedcontent to people.
I mean, I don't get randomcontent, they.
They are well aware of whatposition I'm in, what industry
(22:41):
I'm in, and everything I get isvery relevant to me.
So it's hard not to get suckedin.
Right.
I mean, they are, they're a realbeast in, in, in terms of
professional services, B2B.
but yeah, I mean it, they doback it up with more
personalized content.
Joe Pope (22:57):
And I guess that's probably our biggest takeaway
here, too, recognizing that mostorganizations don't have the
clearly seven figure plus budgetthat Gartner puts into their
website.
Probably just that every year interms of the content that they
create, but that personalizationangle.
I, I think that's definitely thebiggest takeaway here.
(23:18):
They do such a, probably such agood job at this, that it helps
to mask the fact that youreferenced the Magic Quadrant.
But there is some criticismsthere that in order to fit
inside those box boxes that youare, uh, pretty much doing
things that allows Garner tosell their services.
Uh, that's been a overarching,uh, complaint that most folks
(23:38):
have had towards Gartner.
But hey, look, I mean, if that'swhat your play is and to be a
gorilla in the, uh.
Arena like Gardner is, then you,you kind of have to make that
investment and they do a darngood job at it.
Austin_McNair (23:49):
Well, I, for one, think Gartner should feel very,
very proud that they won theBlack Hole Superlative Award
from the Spiraling Up podcast.
Joe Pope (23:58):
You think that that's an award they'll put on their
website?
Austin_McNair (24:01):
I sure hope so.
Uh, let's transition over to ournext superlative.
Okay.
Joe, what was our nextsuperlative?
I.
Joe Pope (24:12):
Well, it's hard to beat the black hole, but I think
we might have an award that canpotentially get that done.
Our second award is known as theTalent Magnet Award.
So what is the Talent magnetaward?
Well, this superlative is gonnago to the company that is
appealing well to prospectivejob candidates of all different
(24:34):
levels.
Austin, why do we care aboutsuch things with employer
branding?
Austin_McNair (24:41):
Uh, I can give you two reasons.
So, number one, um, when we do,again, research on the, the, the
professional services marketingspace, um, what one thing that
we find over and over again isthat finding and keeping good
people.
Is a top challenge forprofessional services firms.
This varies from industry toindustry.
(25:03):
Some in industries feel thisvery acutely.
Um, the example of the winnerthat we'll show in a minute,
we're talking about anengineering firm.
And engineering is an example ofan industry where.
Wow.
It is really tough to, um, notjust get new candidates, you
know, fresh out of college, butlike getting experienced talent
into your company.
(25:24):
It, it's a bit of a challenge,so a lot of HR teams are running
to the marketing team and sayinglike, Hey, we, we need some
help.
Like we need to create morecontent and we need to put more
stuff on our website.
That appeals to job candidates.
Um, I, I think we all have theexperience of looking at job
boards, but then you go, and Ithink it's very natural for
(25:46):
people to check out like apotential employer's website.
And I think one thingprofessional services leaders
have found out is that if we'renot investing in making some
sort of interesting appeal tojob candidates on our website,
we're gonna be losing.
That war for top talent tocompetitors that do make bigger
(26:07):
investments.
So, drum roll please.
It is with that, that weselected for this talent magnet,
talent magnet superlative.
We're gonna give it to Burns andMcDonell.
Like I said, this is anengineering firm.
MB do you want to take usthrough a couple of the things
that we saw, um, that wehighlighted here for what
(26:30):
they're doing well in theircareer section?
Mary Blanche (26:33):
Yeah.
So let's talk about the coupleof the, of the highlights here.
So, uh, first.
Thing is their employee stories.
They have a whole section thatfeatures real stories from
current employees that showcasetheir personal journeys and
experiences, which, you know,really just humanizes the,
humanizes the company.
And it provides potentialapplicants with relatable
(26:56):
insights about, you know, whatit's, what it's actually like to
work there, which is, which isso important.
And then another thing that, uh,especially caught our eye was
the recognition and awards.
Section, uh, they highlightmultiple awards, um, and
recognitions that they've had,uh, recently and throughout the
years.
Um, like one example, uh,healthiest 100 workplaces in
(27:17):
America.
I mean, that's, that's huge.
And so that's really importantto be able to, when you receive
awards like that, to be able toshowcase them on, on your
website.
Uh, you know, it shows thatthey're highly regarded and
really committed to employeeoverall.
Wellbeing.
And then I think, you know, thethird, the third thing that
really stood out to us with thisone as well is just the
(27:39):
abundance of comprehensiveresources that they have for
prospective employees.
They also have a section withpractical advice on, you know,
like how to apply training,interviewing, which for
candidates, you know, whenthey're coming to the site to
get more information, thatreally helps them feel.
Prepared and, you know,supported throughout the, the
hiring process.
(28:00):
And then just last little one,which is just something that I
love on any website, whetherit's professional services or
not.
I love a good FAQ section,right?
Like even if you're going to anevent or maybe you wanna go to a
winery or a restaurant you'venever gone to before, right?
Like, you, you kind of wannaknow what, what's going on.
Like what, you know, what's.
You know, like those, those topquestions, um, you know, that
(28:22):
are kind of running through yourmind as you're, as you're
preparing for something.
Um, whether that's an event, inthis case, a perspective, um, a
perspective employee, but, um,they, they've got a great FAQ
section.
Like, what's your equalopportunity policy?
Can I reapply to a role if Idon't get it the first time?
So, you know, those things are,those things are important too.
Joe Pope (28:42):
There was, uh, there was a few things that really
stood out to me on this site aswell.
Uh, if you start to click aroundinto the actual job postings,
most of the time you can seewhat type of setup their
technology stack is using in thebackground.
I.
And Burns McDonald has put aboatload of effort into what is
their applicant tracking systemprocess.
Uh, you can just look at theURLs to see that there have
(29:05):
implanted UTM codes trackingefforts, which would then allow
a complete and seamlessintegration into their marketing
efforts, which being a companywe haven't worked with, we're
just guessing at that.
But if you're gonna go throughthe effort on the tracking side,
almost certainly that's what theresult is, which, you know,
anytime that you can integrate.
Your marketing and your humanresources departments together,
(29:27):
you know, there, there's,there's great benefit there.
We, one thing that's reallystood out in our research over
the years is the same types ofcontent that can appeal to
prospective clients.
You know, employees want to seethemselves as those experts in
that journey too, right?
So featuring these differentstaff members in other ways is
another way that, you know,somebody can say, I really wanna
(29:49):
be at that company.
That's some, that's a company.
I could see myself growing mycareer in.
Austin_McNair (29:53):
Yeah, I think the last feature that stood out to
us was just about how they speakdirectly to those levels of
expertise, uh, or like wheretheir people might be at in
their career journey.
Joe, like I mentioned before,appealing to experienced.
Engineers is a very difficulttask.
So actually creating a page onyour website that speaks to the
(30:14):
kinds of things that moreexperienced engineers might
want, things like careerstability, that is a really
elegant way of.
Tailoring messaging to jobcandidates, and like you
mentioned before, you combinethat with the tracking piece and
then everything MB said, allthose validating stuff, the
testimonials of the employeesand, and the awards and
recognition.
(30:35):
It's a really full package herethat Burns and McDonnell is
presenting.
Anything else that we wanted tocover on this one?
Mary Blanche (30:41):
Yeah, so just to circle back to the, you know,
the a TS piece.
So from the human resourcesside, I mean, you can tell that
they've, they've just done a tonwith their applicant tracking
system.
and it, I think that's justreally, really important when
you wanna have a good pipelineof, of talent that you're
investing in.
Um, some.
Sort of a TS uh, tool, just hugeefficiencies with that.
repetitive tasks like postingjob openings and, like multiple
(31:05):
job boards, sorting resumes,scheduling interviews, it does
all of that for you.
Um, and it keeps all of thatdata in, in a centralized.
A centralized place, and just assomeone who has in the past had
to spend an previous job, spendhours, uh, you know, in LinkedIn
job postings and sorting throughresumes, like the ability to be
able to do like keywordmatching, um, and using the a TS
(31:28):
algorithms to scan resumes forkeywords that just.
It cuts down on the time there,uh, so much more.
And there's like customizablefilters where you can look for,
you know, education level workexperience or, or certain skills
to better match candidates with,with job requirements.
So, um, they're, they'redefinitely doing a great job
with that.
It sounds like there's a littlepain there in how you're
(31:50):
describing that MB.
yeah.
Austin_McNair (31:52):
So with all of this, I mean, it's clear to see
that marketers really play a bigrole, right?
If you're gonna raise to thisstandard of, you know, burns and
McDonald and.
Full disclosure, we do not, wehave not worked with Burns and
McDonald on this, but we areadvising a lot of clients, kind
of looking at this as like anorth star of a company that is
doing really well here.
And I think for thosecompetitive industries, this is
(32:13):
a standard that people are gonnahave to, rise up to.
Let's take this in a little bitof a different direction for our
next superlative, and I'll goahead and introduce this one.
All right.
The next superlative we'recalling the Acquisition
Amplification Award.
This award goes to the companythat is most elegantly handling.
(32:36):
I.
The digital integration of theiracquisitions.
Now, another big theme, we'vetouched on a few, right?
Employer branding, we've touchedon thought leadership content.
Another big challenge out there,Joe, is mergers and
acquisitions, right?
And how do marketers handlethese when it comes to the
(32:57):
digital content?
Like the, you know, all of asudden a marketer's handed a new
website.
What do we do with this?
Right.
Um, what are the biggestchallenges you've seen in
working with some of our clientsin terms of m and a and the
challenges that need to beaddressed?
Joe Pope (33:11):
Yeah, it's, it's interesting, this is kind of a
combination of the first two,right?
Like we just talked, we talkedabout content, we talked about
employer brand.
Well, m and a being such a big,big, big element in company's
growth strategies these days hasled to a significant amount of
challenge.
(33:32):
How do we bring these differentelements together?
Uh, honestly speaking, a lot oforganizations, it's pretty low
on their priority list.
Uh, and then you've certainlygot the different factors that
can go into things like, ohgosh, exit strategies for
founders, or things along thoselines where, you know, you've
gotta retain a name or a coloror whatever it might be.
(33:53):
Or sometimes it's completereverse where.
You gotta dump everything aboutit.
You know, sometimes companiesthat have an employers, sorry, a
company name that's based off ofa founder, things along those
lines.
So, because of all of thesedifferent challenges, the rule
book in a sense on this, ispretty much non-existent.
Uh, you, you see companies doingit in all different shapes and
(34:13):
sizes and, um, I think thegovernment contracting space
being a place where a lot ofthis happens, um, leads to some
pretty hideous results.
Uh, which is why I think.
One of the biggest reasons thiswebsite though, winning a
website stood out to us becausethey are a government
contractor, one that has grownsignificantly through acquiring
(34:36):
other organizations as theyexpanded their portfolio to sell
into various, uh, agencies andcompany, uh, contract vehicles
and things along those lines.
Drum roll.
The winner.
Austin_McNair (34:52):
Ake a.
Yeah, so Joe, we came across akea recently.
I we're, obviously Akeem A is ahuge government contractor.
Um, and we kind, we came acrosstheir website again recently
doing some just generalcompetitive analysis of the
space.
What's going on in the space,what are we seeing out there as
terms of best practices and.
(35:13):
The whole team was kind of likeimpressed by this looking kind
of on the backend, some SEOtools.
Seeing that the Akima websitegets a ton of branded traffic,
but not just from the Akimaname.
It's from all sorts of otherbusiness names that they've
acquired and include in theirportfolio of operating
companies.
(35:34):
So when we go to their website,and it's pretty much integrated
all throughout their website,but what we're showing on the
screen here is one of theirservices pages, one of their
capabilities pages.
Uh, in this case, we're lookingat the facilities and logistics
page, and when you scroll down.
Um, they list all of theirservices, but they also list all
of their operating companies.
(35:54):
Now many of these are branded asakea, so Akea Facilities
management, akea, facilities,operations, akea, global
Logistics.
But then you see another one inhere, river Tech.
A Hema company.
And when you, when you put aclick into that page, um, what
it does is it opens up its ownsort of microsite within the
(36:16):
same domain, but it maintainsthe name of River Tech you go
through here and this micrositeshowcases river tech's, um,
breadth of services.
Company info.
They even, as we were justtalking about with the
challenges with careers and, andsort of integrating that in m
and a, they've got their owncareers dropped down in here
(36:37):
doing business leadershipcontact information.
So this is a very elegant way tokind of maintain the brand
equity that's put into the nameRiver Tech of this organization,
yet still folded in as anoperating company under the Akea
umbrella.
So.
This to us was a really elegantway of handling this.
(37:00):
Joe, you mentioned that thereare many ways to do this.
This is not the only way, but interms of the impact that we were
seeing specifically with interms of SEO and that branded
traffic, I mean, they're reallygetting a lot of visibility to
their website, and I think thiswould do only, you know.
Good for the broader AHIMA brandto amplify, you know, their
(37:21):
overall market presence.
So this was our winner for, uh,the superlative.
Joe Pope (37:28):
We've seen a lot of organizations embrace the
multi-site approach.
Uh, we've, we've done quite afew of those in the last few
years as a, as a, as a angle fororganizations to tackle this
challenge of bringing indifferent brands into their
larger sphere.
I that I.
Integration that they've puttogether at KEMA in how this
(37:48):
looks is, is seamless.
Like it looks great.
I, in fact, when we were tryingto look through some of the more
technical pieces, we struggledto see exactly how they've done
that breakout of those differentmulti-site and, and when you can
hide it from some of thesetechnology platforms and make it
look as clean as they have.
Boy is that a good sign.
So, a well deserved award, Iwould say the only knock.
(38:12):
Is they just can't get away fromgovernment contractors.
That is putting American flagsas the first thing you show up
on the website.
Austin_McNair (38:19):
Hey, I think it's kind of important right now.
Joe Pope (38:23):
Yeah, I mean USA all the way, but come on guys,
differentiate here.
Austin_McNair (38:27):
yeah, yeah, absolutely.
All right, actually, mb, what isthe next superlative that we
have to issue today?
Mary Blanche (38:36):
Okay, so the next superlative is called the People
Powered Firm Award.
Um, and the superlative is foran organization that really
captures the best of theirpeople in their.
Digital marketing experience.
Um, so Joe, why do professionalservices struggle with showing
(38:57):
their company culture and, andpeople on their website?
Talk to us a little bit aboutthat.
Joe Pope (39:01):
Because they're cheap.
Kidding.
No, just kidding.
Kidding aside, kidding aside.
Uh, remote work has definitelybeen a big challenge here.
And if we're talking like morerecency.
You know, the fact is you usedto have the opportunity to take
photos pretty much any day.
You got folks sitting in theircubicles.
Nobody really misses that.
But the idea there was you hadeverybody together,
(39:23):
opportunities to show culture oreven experience culture were
easier to come by if, assumingthat the organization actually
put effort towards it.
another challenge that weconstantly run into is, is
organizations being paralyzed bynot knowing who to even feature.
On the website, you've got thebig challenge of turnover,
right?
It's the reality.
(39:43):
You put a bunch of effort intotaking photography and uh,
getting everybody together tomake'em look good for this
website.
And then the next thing youknow, Johnny quits, I.
So not having kind of a systemset up on how to build that type
of thing out.
Older websites that areinflexible to update, you've
gotta go to a developmentpartner to even make a switch to
a new employee that's a pain inthe butt, right?
(40:05):
So that's another factor that wecontinually hear about.
I, I'd say the worst of all isthat, they actually attempt this
and, and let's use that word.
Very loosely, and they put up abunch of stock photography or
copy and paste, DEI text from ageneric handbook to try to say
that they care about those typesof things.
(40:26):
So two areas of focus that wealways look for in a website.
And when we're evaluating awebsite, career section and
employee bios, what do thoseelements look like?
And this year's winner.
Assuming we do this every year,but I'm gonna set it up like
we're gonna do this every year,is Maxwell Locke and Ritter and
B, tell us about it.
Mary Blanche (40:47):
Sure.
Yeah.
So I mean, for me, one of thethings that immediately stands
out here is the visual andnarrative integration that they
have on their site.
Uh, just a ton of strong visualsand employee centered narratives
that align with the values thatthey promote as an organization.
And so it really just gives thatcohesive.
Portrayal of, of their companyculture.
(41:09):
And I also love that they reallykeep their core values at the
forefront of all of the languagethat they use.
So respect, inclusion,solidarity, empowerment.
And then they pair it withvisuals that, um, you can see
are deeply integrated, um, intotheir, their daily work culture.
And then the other thing I wouldsay too is, and you're scrolling
(41:30):
through it now, Joe, is liketheir community engagement.
Piece, ML and r you know, theyreally emphasize their
involvement in over, I thinkit's 300 community
organizations, which is justamazing.
And, and highlighting their,their culture and their giving
back and how they're making, um,how they're making a positive
impact, not only with each otherin the workplace, but beyond the
(41:51):
workplace and out in thecommunity.
So those are, those are twothings, uh, to me that just
right off the bat, um, kind ofhit you when you, when you come
to their site.
Austin_McNair (42:00):
Yeah, I, I think you summed that up really well.
And, uh, full disclosure, ML andR is a client of Hinge.
We had a hand in de designingthis website, and from what,
what I learned with the accountteam is that this w this meant a
lot to them.
They really wanted to stand outin the way that they featured
their people.
And the company culture and thateven, you know, worked its way
(42:22):
into the navigation level.
One of the things we were justshowing on the screen for those
watching on YouTube is, um, aculture page where they actually
go through and highlight most ofthose things that you were
talking about MB as well as acommunity involvement page.
So those, those things areactually called out in the
navigation and on specificpages.
Another thing that we, you know.
One of the aspects of thisaward, uh, or the superlative,
(42:45):
was the people themselves andbeyond kind of the, the company
culture.
we think about people inprofessional services as
experts.
Um, and so how do we feature theexperts on the website?
So for ML and R they reallyfollow the best practices that
we advise our clients to take,which is that even on, on pages,
(43:05):
like the services pages.
In this case, we're looking at,um, the financial statement,
assurance, and advisory page.
Right?
It, it's just very to the pointabout what they do.
But if you scroll all the waydown to the, to even this page,
you see featured experts thatwork in this line of the
business.
And then when you click intothat, so let's click on Leslie
(43:27):
Hargraves, who we know.
Um, the pages are very robustinto the level of detail that
they go into.
So, um, a little bit about.
Leslie and her professional, uh,experience including education,
community involvement, beingeven integrated into there, and
then, you know.
Extra features.
(43:48):
How many years of experience?
16 years at ml and r with 22years of overall experience.
Um, what does no success at workis worth a failure at home mean
to you?
Um, really tying in these likereally personal features and,
and making each expert kind ofhave a, have a say in terms of
what's featured on theirwebsite.
(44:08):
Some, you know, pictures of, youknow, who's there, why, like,
you know, what do they, youknow, a little bit of more of a
personal touch, but then alsobringing it to the, uh,
insights.
What has Leslie in this casewritten about?
So in, in this case, we can seethat recently she wrote an
article I.
Called revenue recognition forSaaS companies.
Um, all of it is baked rightthere into the website.
(44:30):
It's easy to navigate throughthat.
And so when we were thinkingabout issuing this superlative
man, ml and r really justchecked all the boxes for us.
Anything else that you guyswould want to add there?
Joe Pope (44:44):
No, I think we, I think we hit it and yeah, of
course we had to get a homerpick in here eventually.
But, um, ML and R really livesthose ideals and that's key,
right?
We go back to what I was sayingearlier in the lead into this.
If it comes across fake boy, Ithink it does worse for your
organization than not includingit.
And when you just take three,five minutes to click through
(45:07):
this website as a recruit, as a,as a prospect, even just your
own employees, and when you'reat a company starting to get
into the size of ml and r andbeyond, your employees are gonna
go to your own website, right?
There's information there to, tohave, you are living those
ideals.
And then ml and r is is anexample of that.
Austin_McNair (45:25):
That's right.
So congratulations to ourclient, MLNR.
All right.
We have one last superlative toissue, so let's turn to that
one.
Mary Blanche (45:35):
All right.
For our last superlative, it iscalled the Legacy of Excellence
Superlative, and this is gonnago to a firm that excels in
showcasing the past performanceof their work for.
Their clients.
So before we announce thewinner, tell us a little bit,
Austin, you know, why doesdemonstrating past performance
(45:56):
matter in BD and in marketing?
Austin_McNair (45:59):
Oh my gosh.
There's, there's probably noother area that matters more
esp, you know, depending on yourindustry.
Um, for, for one thing, ourresearch validates that buyers
care about past performance.
I mean, it's just one of the topthings.
Not just when you are talking tothem, but even at the earlier
(46:22):
stages of the buyer journey,when buyers are just evaluating
your firm, they're coming toyour website, they want to know
like, have you done the kind ofwork that I'm asking you to do?
Who did you do it for?
When did you do it?
And the degree to which youshare details about those
projects.
Uh, really makes all thedifference.
Now, in this case, we'reworking, we're, we're, we're
(46:44):
gonna issue this award tosomeone that's more in the, uh,
architecture, engineering,interior design space.
Um, and man, there's no otherindustry where this, this
matters more.
Just go to any of the toparchitecture sites, for example,
and you're gonna see superimpressive visuals of not just
(47:05):
the renderings that they'vedone, but videos and
professional photography of thefinished products.
Um, to go a level further, likewriting out a little bit of
information about theseprojects, um, I can't tell you
how many.
Websites I've looked at for saylike architecture engineering
firms, where the projectportfolio is just so limited.
(47:27):
Everything's limited down to onepicture in one paragraph, and
it's like, wow, this is an areawhere we could be so much more
expansive and really highlightto prospects and just to the
whole marketplace.
The impressive work that we do.
Some ways that we see companiesdo this, highlighting individual
experts on pages, video, lots ofimagery, storytelling.
(47:50):
I mean, the list really goes onconnecting it to industry and
services pages.
There, there's so much youshould be doing or thinking
about when you write a casestory or develop a project page
in terms of like the overallpotential that exists there.
Uh, I mean, Joe, taking thisover to the sales side, how
often are are prospects in a BDconversation asking about past
(48:10):
performance?
Joe Pope (48:11):
For all the reasons that you just outlined.
If they don't ask about it, I'mpretty concerned that there are
Val, they're a valid prospect inthe first place.
Is this somebody I even want totalk to?
Right.
Uh, kidding aside, demonstratingthat experience and expertise in
your sales conversations andbeing able to have it tie back
(48:33):
into what that experience thatthey went through before they
got to you, because we know.
Anytime somebody's gonna reachout to be a hand raiser, if you
will, I want to talk to yoursales team.
They're going to your websitefirst, right?
So they're wanting to see thoseconnective tissues and, and when
they get on that sales call,they're asking, you know, what
have you done?
That's exactly like me.
(48:55):
Without a conflict of interest.
So it is a continuous thing inprofessional services.
It's never gonna change.
And so having a website thatprops that up is gonna be a key
to being high performance and,and being a, um, a connected
marketing and businessdevelopment system.
Which leads us to the awardwinner.
(49:16):
Uh, this year's award winner isTeal and team.
Austin_McNair (49:19):
teal and team.
We, you know, these last twowe're, we're, we're kind of
playing favorites a little bit.
This is another Hinge client,but, um, it's one that, uh, our
team has direct experience, uh,working with here in terms of
this, theme of past performanceand how much it matters for
their industry.
So, talent team, they doincredible interior design work,
(49:41):
architecture work, procurementwork.
Um, they're a group down in, in,in Texas.
Um, but they, they worknationwide.
Um, with their clients.
And when they came to Hinge, oneof the key things that we did in
our engagement was we looked atother, at some other of their
competitors, and we lookedexactly at the portfolio section
and of these websites and madelike some analysis.
(50:04):
What are the things that matterthe most and where is kind of
the, the, the level at rightnow, what we saw in kind of the
competitive.
Uh, landscape was a lot ofreally high quality video, uh,
high quality imagery.
So that was like the basicstandard.
But one thing we noticed is likethere wasn't any storytelling or
there wasn't anything going muchfurther than that.
And so I remember talking withthe, the co-president of Telan
(50:28):
team, um, about, and, and justhow much she was stressing.
Like, we have put so much energyinto these case stories, we
really want.
Them to, to pop.
When we do a new website, wereally want them to, to, to be
able to use them in, in manydifferent, you know, just for
business development, but foralso for people visiting their
website and they have reallyknocked it out of the park.
(50:49):
Just going through theirportfolio section, you can see
how much they've invested intothe photography, how they've
invested into building outthese, um, different, uh, case
stories.
So just clicking into one inparticular, they're.
Doing a historic preservationproject with the Baker Hotel and
Spa.
Um, huge project.
(51:10):
And you can see the level ofdetail that they've gone into
explaining what this project isand why it matters and, and, and
really the.
Um, historical context to thisparticular project, including
even some, some video there.
Um, they have done a reallyremarkable job in terms of the
storytelling here, and I thinkthat they will continue to
(51:33):
greatly benefit from going sofar in this direction in
showcasing the talent of theirteam, the proof of work, and,
you know, all the projects thatthey've done over the years.
Joe Pope (51:46):
Yeah, Austin.
You used the word investment andI think one of the things that's
so striking about a website likethis that includes so many
different elements, videomotion, uh, you know, overlays,
different things along thoselines, you're going to,
somebody's immediately gonna goto a site like this and think to
themselves, there's just no waywe could pull this off.
This would cost hundreds ofthousands of dollars.
(52:07):
TE team is not a massivecompany.
They're a small business, andone of the biggest things they
talk to us about is how do weget these experiences in a
manner of which can, you know,fit within a budget of a small
business?
And, and it's possible.
Like that's the biggest thing.
And the results that you'reseeing here is tied to being
(52:27):
able to develop a site within.
Principles of using things likepage types and modules and
integrations and plugins, right?
So you don't need to go and do afully custom, every page is, you
know, coded out and so forth to,to be able to provide this type
of experience.
It's possible in today's modernwebsite development.
Austin_McNair (52:49):
Absolutely.
Good point, Joe.
Well, we have now wrapped up oursuperlatives.
I think we'll come back to this,uh, segment.
I felt like, um, we were reallyable to share a lot of details
and maybe give some behind thescenes looks into how we think
about things, especially on thedigital marketing front, the
things we value when it comes towebsites.
(53:10):
The digital experience, but Idon't think we covered all the,
you know, we only scratched thesurface in terms of the
different kinds of examples thatwe've, we could have talked
about.
so I'm excited to maybere-explore this segment in the
future with you guys, but Ithought we did a nice job here,
laying out some.
Some of the work of theseexcellent companies and the
great stuff that they're doing.
(53:30):
So, uh, this will wrap upanother episode of Spiraling Up.
If you're watching on YouTube,please, you're, you made it this
far.
Hit the like and subscribebutton.
Uh, and if you're listening,please leave.
Consider leaving us a review.
Again, this podcast is justgetting off the ground and we'd
love to hear your feedback.
If you do have any feedback forthe podcast, you can always
(53:51):
email us at.
podcast@hingemarketing.com andwe'd be happy to engage with
you, answer your questions, orif you have any topic
suggestions, guest suggestions,we'd love to hear those as well
as well.
Well, thank you Joe and B forall three of us here and team at
Hinge.
Thank you so much.
This has been another greatepisode of Spiraling Up.
In today's episode of Spiraling Up is SEO
Dead goodness gracious, thetopic that won't Die.
Well Spark touro has someinteresting new data on this
conversation, and then afterthat, our team will be giving
out some marketing superlatives.
Welcome everybody.
This is spiraling up with Hinge.
(00:27):
Welcome everyone to Spiraling Upthe podcast for professional
services marketers and businessleaders where we explore key
marketing stories and industrytrends through engaging
segments, interactive challengesand insightful discussions.
My name is Austin and I'm joinedby my co-host Joe Pope and Mary
(00:48):
Blanche Kramer.
How are you guys doing today?
Mary Blanche (00:51):
It's doing great.
Joe Pope (00:53):
Feeling a little slow actually.
Austin_McNair (00:55):
A little slow.
All right, well let's pick itup, man.
Joe Pope (00:58):
Well, there's really only one way.
I think you can pick it upright.
Austin_McNair (01:03):
A little bit of Saratoga water.
Okay, good.
Sounds like your morning routineis off to a good start.
Um, well, hey, as we get intotoday's episode, I wanna say
thank you to our listeners andall those watching on YouTube.
Uh, you can support the show bygiving us a, like, hitting that
subscribe buttons, leaving areview.
Um, we are just getting startedwith this podcast spiraling up.
(01:25):
So, uh, any love that you giveto the algorithm, we really
appreciate it.
Mary Blanche (01:30):
Speaking of morning routines, you're coming
to, uh, you're gonna be gettingup pretty, pretty early to come
to the US here pretty soon.
Austin_McNair (01:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just booked a flight.
For those that don't know, I'm,I'm, I'm currently located in
Southern Brazil, far away frommy co-hosts and hinge colleagues
up in Northern Virginia.
Joe Pope (01:50):
Too far, too far.
Austin_McNair (01:51):
I know it's too far.
It would be so cool if we weredoing this podcast in person,
but maybe, hey, maybe we can dosomething because actually the
three of us are gonna be inArizona for a conference
together.
This conference is with theAssociation for Accounting
Marketing.
I know we're excited for that.
Joe, what will your morningroutine look like?
Uh, at the AIM conference?
Joe Pope (02:11):
It probably won't involve a 3 42 alarm clock
followed by a four 15 coldplunge, but I'm sure we'll still
find great opportunities to havea a good time together.
Maybe that might push themorning routine to 7 38.
We'll see.
I mean, we'll be mountain time.
Right.
So that's gonna, that's gonnahave some differences there with
(02:32):
time zones, especially for you.
Right?
'cause you're, you're a fewhours in front of us in Brazil.
I can't, I can't remember
Austin_McNair (02:38):
that's right.
I wake up, I'm already, mymorning routine's way earlier
than you guys.
Yeah.
If I wake up at 6:00 AM that's4:00 AM on the East Coast, so
yeah.
I'm, I'm like that influencer,that viral influencer that we're
kind of, uh, alluding to
Joe Pope (02:50):
Ashton Hall.
Yeah.
Austin_McNair (02:51):
Ashton Hall.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm ripping the tape off anddoing the whole thing just like
you.
I just don't have the SaratogaSpring water here in Brazil.
Um, yeah, there you go.
Product placement.
We need to get a deal from this.
Joe Pope (03:02):
Can, can Saratoga sponsor this podcast?
Austin_McNair (03:05):
That would be, that
Joe Pope (03:06):
can you guys please?
Mary Blanche (03:07):
We'll even suspend ourselves for four minutes
midair before we take a goldplunge.
Joe Pope (03:12):
That was to the pool, right?
We could reenact that.
All right.
We should move on.
Austin_McNair (03:16):
All right.
We should move on mb what's ourpivotal story for this week?
Mary Blanche (03:21):
Yeah.
All right.
So, um, well welcome back toanother week of Pivotal Stories.
Today we are dissecting theSpark Toro report that came out
earlier this month, and theheadliner is, this is AI
stealing Google's market share.
So what I'm gonna do, I'll kindof set the stage for us a little
bit here, and then we can diveinto it.
(03:42):
Now the report notes that Googlesearch grew by nearly 22% from
2023 to 2024, and that Googleprocesses 14 billion searches
daily compared to chat GPTs 37.5million, search like prompts.
And the research even noted thatonly 30% of chat GPT prompts are
(04:04):
search related to begin with.
So there's plenty to unpackhere, but long and the short
this report.
Report is saying that Googleremains dominant and that
marketers should prioritizedata-driven strategies and focus
on where their audience is,which for now is without a doubt
Google.
Uh, so I know this has been abig topic internally, uh,
(04:25):
recently, uh, so lots to unpackhere, but Austin, let's start
with you.
What are your thoughts?
Austin_McNair (04:31):
Yeah, I mean, Joe, how many times have we had
the conversation with prospectsand clients and everybody
forwarding articles to us aboutSEO is dead.
SEO is dead, you know, hinge.
You guys are silly forconstantly talking about SEO or
whatever.
I mean, how many times have weheard that Joe?
Joe Pope (04:50):
Well, I've, I've attempted to get into every
single episode of this podcastso far, it's a consistent theme
Austin_McNair (04:56):
I mean, one thing that is funny to me is that
it's, it's been a consistenttheme that I feel like we've
been joking about this since Istarted with Hinge seven years
ago.
I mean, it, that that's how longthis like narrative of SEO being
dead has, has been around and I,and I think that most people are
saying that.
Because, um, F-E-S-E-O is isdifficult.
(05:17):
I think maybe it's like the, thereal problem that people have.
So it's, it's just much easierfor us to say that it's dead and
pretend like we don't have topay attention to it.
my headline takeaway from this.
It's just to feel a little bitreassured.
Um, and, and I say that becauseoff, off the back of a few
months ago, I, myself, I did notwrite an SEO is dead article,
(05:38):
but I did write a, an articleand I'll, I'll pull it up here
on the screen for those watchingon, on YouTube.
I wrote an article back inOctober of 2024 and I called it
panic.
At the SEO disco.
So if that tells you anythingabout how I'm a millennial, and
I guess the three of us aremillennials here, all that to
say, yeah, no, we're, you know,SEO is not dead, but there is I
(06:00):
think a lot of, concern, I wouldsay reasonable concern about.
How much more challenging it hasgotten.
I'll just highlight a couple ofthings, right?
So to the point about howchallenging it is, Google has
definitely been a little bitmore greedier, right?
Keeping people in the searchplatform.
for content creators, making thei the prospect of paying for
(06:23):
sponsored spots at toppositions, making that a little
bit more alluring becausegetting those organic spots is
harder.
When AI overviews are added tothe top of, uh, different Google
search results pages, that justpushes all of the organic
results down.
So click through rates aredefinitely something that we're
(06:44):
seeing tank.
So I gave some different dataranges in our blog post about
our own website performance andhow, despite the fact that,
we've had basically the sameamount of impressions.
Our clicks have gone downconsiderably on our own website.
So I think a lot of marketers dohave these reasonable concerns,
like, our website is not gettingthe kind of traffic that, uh, it
(07:07):
should.
So I think the question that ourlisteners are wondering is,
okay, well what do we do aboutthis Right Spark tour.
It, it is telling us Google isstill dominant.
Um, we're saying SEO is notdead.
What are some ways that we mightrespond to the disruption?
So, um, a few things here.
Uh, number one, double down onyour SEO best practices.
(07:31):
Joe, I think this is somethingthat we commonly talk to our
clients about, What, what haveyou seen in our, in the business
development space about,Addressing concerns about like
SEO and why do we, we, why, whydo we bring that up?
Even in the business developmentspace of like continuing to keep
it at the center.
Joe Pope (07:48):
I mean, intent is a big thing, right?
I, one of the biggest thingsyou'll see with these
differences between clicks,impressions and so forth, is as
Google tries to make things morerelevant.
That relevancy is so key tobeing able to make the
connections between where an SEOstrategy, the content of which
is generating views, clicks,movement is then translating
(08:11):
into action when people get toyour website.
that intent is so important.
So original content, thoughtprovoking content, all of these
different elements that are tiedto issues, I.
Is a continual theme that we'reseeing in conversations with our
own prospects.
Right?
So just to continue to pull thecurtain back a bit, hinges the
(08:31):
maj.
Vast majority of our business isgenerated through search.
In fact, you know, inprofessional services, a lot of
times you hear referrals.
Our search actually forhistorically, has overwhelmed
our referrals.
And it's not that we don't getplenty of referrals, uh, it's,
it's just that if you make thiscommitment to getting content in
front of the types of folks.
That have these issues, havethese challenges, it's a great
(08:54):
narrative to then take forwardin our sales conversation.
So one of the things we'llalways ask, in fact we ask it on
all of our forms, is, how'd youfind us?
And, uh, the amount of times yousee Google is still extremely
relevant there, but we have seenthat rise in things like chat,
GPT.
Gemini and some of these otherartificial, uh, AI based type
(09:18):
platforms that are using theseSEO principles to still channel
folks to us.
Austin_McNair (09:25):
Yeah, so one thing that we do at Hinge is we,
we conduct ongoing research onprofessional services buyers,
and you know, referrals isalways.
The number one source to thatquestion you were talking about.
Then after that is doing ageneral web search.
It's still at the top of thelist.
Now we've recently added theLLMs as a, as kind of an
additional channel, which isstarting to get some traction.
(09:47):
But one of the interestingthings that we highlight in the
article as well is that to to,to the best of our knowledge at
this moment.
We are seeing a strongcorrelation between best SEO
practices and then being foundon these other platforms.
So I mentioned how Google itselfhas changed, but Joe, I'm glad
that you brought up that, youknow, one of the concerns,
especially from the Spark Touroarticle is about how.
(10:09):
Platforms like chat, GPT,perplexity, Gemini, there's a,
marketers are wondering like, ohman, is this just gonna take
away, you know, traffic from ourwebsite?
And I think to a degree theanswer is yes, but as MB pointed
out the findings that clearlysay that Google is still
dominant.
So what were ourrecommendations?
Uh, double down on those bestSEO practices.
(10:31):
That might mean doing an audit.
With an SEO specialist.
Um, not every professionalservices firm has an SEO
specialist in-house, and that'stotally okay.
We, we get that marketing isvery omnichannel right now
Joe Pope (10:44):
That's what we're here for anyways.
Austin_McNair (10:47):
we can help with that.
Um, side note, Joe, you, youjust spoke to this, increasing
the relevance of your thoughtleadership content, right?
So that's, that, that isabsolutely, uh, an important
thing.
Another recommendation thatwe've talked about is creating a
signature piece of content.
Um, to be fully transparent, Imean, the Spiraling Up podcast
is one way that Hinge is Dellevolving and doing that.
(11:08):
We also have our high growthstudy and our research reports,
and I mean, more importantly,the work that we've done for our
clients.
I mean, this is the directionthat we're heading is, you know,
as, as AI is.
It's so easy to use now tocreate content.
How do you, how are you gonnacreate content that really
sticks out and that people canassociate with your particular
organization?
(11:29):
Joe, do you have any thoughts onthat piece?
Joe Pope (11:31):
Well, I think if you follow each of these guidelines,
you should have high hopes thatthey're gonna work.
Austin_McNair (11:37):
Hi.
High hopes continuing the panicat the disco.
Uh, yeah.
Um,
Joe Pope (11:45):
man.
We let the insiders get the
Austin_McNair (11:47):
that's right.
Don't explain the joke, my bad.
Um.
Increasing the visibility ofyour experts was the number four
thing that we talk about.
I mean, this is bread and butterstuff that we talk about at
Hinge, um, beyond your, yourcore marketing team and, and,
you know, getting your expertsinto the mix, engaging them and
integrating them into yourmarketing.
And then finally, improving yourability to, to track and
(12:08):
attribute marketing.
ROI our, our research hasrevealed this is to be a, a, a
huge challenge right now.
For professional servicesmarketers.
But in terms of, you know, uh,if, if you're thinking about
and, and you're, you're inclinedto say something like, SEO's
dead, it's not working well.
How well are you tracking it?
How often are you tracking it?
How often are you makingimprovements to your content and
(12:30):
your system and actually makingit.
Um, a, a, a larger piece or alarger conversation within your
marketing department.
So these are different thingsthat we've, um, prescribed mb
you know, from the perspectiveof the Spark Touro article.
Do you feel like we covered itin terms of some of this
analysis, or what did we miss?
Mary Blanche (12:48):
Yeah, no, I think between the both of you, that
was a great walkthrough.
Good recommendations.
Um, so just to kind of tie a bowon it here, you know, while AI
tools are important, you know.
You guys are saying is marketersshould prioritize efforts on
platforms where their targetaudience is most active, which
today is Google search.
And just because there is hypearound a new technology,
(13:10):
marketers should always belooking at the data first to
evaluate where their marketingdollars are best spent.
So great job guys.
Joe Pope (13:17):
Say Amen.
Austin_McNair (13:19):
All right.
Well, we have a really funsegment planned here.
Now we're gonna be giving outsome marketing superlatives.
Uh, but first let's, uh, let'stell everybody a little bit
about this high growth studyagain.
Mary Blanche (13:34):
Let's do it.
Joe Pope (13:39):
Do you know the best way to start a morning routine?
Mary Blanche (13:43):
Tell us, Joe, what is it?
Joe Pope (13:45):
Well, there's only one way that I would recommend, and
that is by downloading thelatest edition of Hinges High
Growth Study 2025, the 10thEdition Austin.
Tell the people more about it.
Austin_McNair (13:58):
Yeah, if you want to know what the fastest growing
professional services firms aredoing.
You don't need to drink Saratogawater.
You don't need to wake up atfour 30 in the morning.
You don't need to do all thiscrazy stuff.
All you gotta do is go to hingemarketing.com/ high-growth and
you will get the latest editionof our research on the fastest
(14:19):
growing professional servicesfirms.
It's that link.
It will always be that link,hinge marketing.com/high growth
mb how many downloads we want toget.
Mary Blanche (14:30):
gotta be 10,000, bro.
Austin_McNair (14:32):
It's gotta be 10,000.
So help us out, get us, get usto 10,000 downloads of the high
growth study.
you.
All right.
Well, one thing that we areasked all the time is can you
show us an example of a companythat is doing this really well,
or a company that's doing thatreally well?
(14:52):
These kind of conversationshappen all the time as as a
marketing agency.
So what we wanted to do fortoday's segment is introduce a
new.
Segment that we're callingMarketing Superlatives.
So, uh, it's a good thing thatwe, uh, have on this call to
participate with this, amulti-time award-winning
(15:16):
yearbook editor.
And I'll let everybody guess.
Is it Mary Blanche?
No, it's Joe Pope.
It's
Joe Pope (15:22):
my gosh.
Shout out to the team at WestPotomac High School, uh, the
Predator yearbook team.
Yep, that's right.
Dedicated a substantial portionof my high school days in a room
playing with Photoshop, tryingto make the acne go away.
Mostly on myself and a few otherfolks who could bribe me into
(15:43):
doing it for them.
Uh, but yeah, no, I, I Photos,yearbook photos, right.
Devastating.
Across the board.
Uh, any of you guys have, uh.
A memorable one that you canremember.
Austin_McNair (15:55):
I definitely have a memorable yearbook photo.
Um, in, in high school I sportedsome longer sitting hair
thought, thinking that maybe,maybe projecting into the
future, you know, I've not, youknow, today I like to, you know,
I.
Get out, get out in the oceansurf.
But you know, there's not abeach in Northern Virginia.
But that didn't stop me fromdoing the, you know, the shell
(16:18):
necklace and the long flowysurfer hair.
That was what I rocked in highschool.
What about UMB?
Mary Blanche (16:24):
Um, probably my most memorable one is middle
school, like eighth grade, bigface, full of braces, a little
bit of a unibrow situationhappening.
Um, and not, not the pucashells, but what were they
called?
Like the, like the hempnecklaces.
You know what I'm talking about?
That had like the, like thetie-dyed beads.
(16:46):
Um, so yeah,
Joe Pope (16:48):
Yeah,
Mary Blanche (16:49):
that happened.
Joe Pope (16:49):
that, that was a thing.
Our earlier segment, uh,referencing a certain, uh,
emotional ban, panic at thedisco definitely is a call to my
best high school yearbook photo,which was sophomore year.
Where I was sporting, multipleear piercings, skateboard
(17:09):
t-shirts, and excessively jelledand frosted tip hair.
Mary Blanche (17:14):
Frosted tips.
Austin_McNair (17:15):
Well, I hope, I hope that people watching the
YouTube version of this arelaughing right now because I'm
gonna ask our editor to put someof these, uh, yearbook photos on
the screen.
Sorry to the people that arelistening, uh,
Joe Pope (17:26):
why you have to watch it on YouTube.
Austin_McNair (17:27):
you have to go check this out on YouTube.
It's, uh.
These are pretty great pictures.
Uh, Joe, so tell us about thesuperlative process.
Right?
What do you look for in asuperlative?
How did that, how did, how didthat, was there a lot of
politics involved in those in,in those decision making?
Joe Pope (17:42):
There's no politics in high school.
You know that.
All right.
It's entirely political.
Uh, we, I'm pretty sure that wehad somewhere around 20
superlatives and they prettymuch went to the same type of
person every year.
Uh, I our, our school.
Our school broke them into a, aguy and a girl winning each
award.
(18:02):
I'm pretty sure that the bestcar superlative was awarded to
the exact same car.
It might even have beenliterally the same car passed
down year after year after year.
Some
Mary Blanche (18:11):
What car?
Joe Pope (18:12):
coop.
It was a Mercedes coop.
Yeah.
Uh, in fact, I'm pretty sureboth the guy and the girl had
the same car.
So, um,
Mary Blanche (18:20):
Morning
Joe Pope (18:20):
Yeah.
This is Northern Virginia, soyes, people give children
Mercedes coops.
I drove around a Volvo two 40station wagon, which.
We'll ask our editor to put apicture up of that.
But when you think nerdy dudewho's driving around a car in
high school, that would be me.
I was that guy.
Mary Blanche (18:36):
I a Honda Accord.
Austin_McNair (18:39):
I drove an Isuzu V Cross, which nobody knows what
that is.
Joe Pope (18:44):
Oh, I
Austin_McNair (18:44):
3000 of those made.
Um, yeah, that was a wild, thatwas a wild car to drive, and I
loved it, and I miss it.
All right.
We would like to issue somemarketing superlatives, to some
companies out there that are,uh, maybe leaders in the space
or maybe they're more unknowngems.
But, these are examples that inkind of day in, day out life
(19:05):
here at Hinge, we turn to thesedifferent, Companies.
Firms, some of them reallylarge, some of them really small
as as examples of, wow, I mean,this is an impressive way to go
about doing this.
The first award.
MB do you want to talk about?
What's our first superlative?
Mary Blanche (19:22):
Sure.
So our first award is called TheBlack Hole.
Award award.
And you might be thinking, whatin the world is that?
Uh, now this award is gonna goto the company whose thought
leadership content is mostlikely to suck you into their
black hole.
So before we reveal the winner,Joe, remind us why do we care
(19:44):
about thought leadershipcontent?
Joe Pope (19:46):
Yep.
Uh, well, listeners to thepodcast have heard us talk about
this.
It's been featured in a few ofour episodes so far, but in
professional services as ourrecent high growth study
uncovered this.
But the number one marketingpriority is creating thought,
thought-provoking content.
(20:07):
So without further ado, Austinwho is number one.
In 2025 and the award winner forthe black hole.
Austin_McNair (20:19):
Alright, thanks Joe.
Let me, uh, I'll, I'll show our,our YouTube viewers again on the
screen, kind of what we'retalking about here.
But for those listening, theaward, the black hole.
Superlative Award is gonna go toGartner.
All right.
Fun fact about Gartner.
Um, my.
My, my first ever professionalinterview out of college.
(20:41):
Um, so I went to LibertyUniversity.
I was a barista and a lifeguard.
That was all of my professionalexperience.
And so I, my first everinterview professionally fun
fact, was at a company calledCorporate Executive Board, which
was re, which was eventuallyacquired by Gartner.
But I just, you know, I stilllook back and left to this day
of me fresh out of college,putting on like my dad's suit
(21:04):
that like didn't fit well andlike.
Going up to Rosalyn, uh, inNorthern Virginia and trying to
like fit into a corporateculture.
It didn't, it, it didn't workout well.
It
Joe Pope (21:14):
Did you have your pookah shell necklace still
Austin_McNair (21:16):
I I, you know, I had moved on from the Puca shell
necklace at that point.
Um, but I, you know, was notquite ready to enter the
corporate environment at thatstage of my life.
Um, fast forward, I'm glad itdidn't work out'cause now I'm
here with the Hinge team.
It's been great.
So.
Gartner Black Hole Award.
What are we talking about here?
So for this superlative, ourteam is just really talking
(21:37):
about, um, taking something,like taking this finding right
content creation and howimportant it is to B2B, how
important it is for professionalservices.
And I mean, Gartner just goesall the way, right?
Um, many of you may be onGartner's email list.
Most of you probably don'tremember how you got
Joe Pope (21:58):
How are you got there?
Austin_McNair (21:59):
It's, they, they do guides, they do, um, blog
posts, they do events.
Um, they, they're very wellknown for that famous magic
quadrant, Joe, that I know we,we see from time to time.
so all this to say like from athought leadership content in
the perspective of a black hole.
Gartner sucks you in.
they do produce very highquality content.
(22:21):
and I will say, just being ontheir email list, they have a
very sharp, probably one of thehighest quality enterprise
marketing automation systems outthere.
They really push personalizedcontent to people.
I mean, I don't get randomcontent, they.
They are well aware of whatposition I'm in, what industry
(22:41):
I'm in, and everything I get isvery relevant to me.
So it's hard not to get suckedin.
Right.
I mean, they are, they're a realbeast in, in, in terms of
professional services, B2B.
but yeah, I mean it, they doback it up with more
personalized content.
Joe Pope (22:57):
And I guess that's probably our biggest takeaway
here, too, recognizing that mostorganizations don't have the
clearly seven figure plus budgetthat Gartner puts into their
website.
Probably just that every year interms of the content that they
create, but that personalizationangle.
I, I think that's definitely thebiggest takeaway here.
(23:18):
They do such a, probably such agood job at this, that it helps
to mask the fact that youreferenced the Magic Quadrant.
But there is some criticismsthere that in order to fit
inside those box boxes that youare, uh, pretty much doing
things that allows Garner tosell their services.
Uh, that's been a overarching,uh, complaint that most folks
(23:38):
have had towards Gartner.
But hey, look, I mean, if that'swhat your play is and to be a
gorilla in the, uh.
Arena like Gardner is, then you,you kind of have to make that
investment and they do a darngood job at it.
Austin_McNair (23:49):
Well, I, for one, think Gartner should feel very,
very proud that they won theBlack Hole Superlative Award
from the Spiraling Up podcast.
Joe Pope (23:58):
You think that that's an award they'll put on their
website?
Austin_McNair (24:01):
I sure hope so.
Uh, let's transition over to ournext superlative.
Okay.
Joe, what was our nextsuperlative?
I.
Joe Pope (24:12):
Well, it's hard to beat the black hole, but I think
we might have an award that canpotentially get that done.
Our second award is known as theTalent Magnet Award.
So what is the Talent magnetaward?
Well, this superlative is gonnago to the company that is
appealing well to prospectivejob candidates of all different
(24:34):
levels.
Austin, why do we care aboutsuch things with employer
branding?
Austin_McNair (24:41):
Uh, I can give you two reasons.
So, number one, um, when we do,again, research on the, the, the
professional services marketingspace, um, what one thing that
we find over and over again isthat finding and keeping good
people.
Is a top challenge forprofessional services firms.
This varies from industry toindustry.
(25:03):
Some in industries feel thisvery acutely.
Um, the example of the winnerthat we'll show in a minute,
we're talking about anengineering firm.
And engineering is an example ofan industry where.
Wow.
It is really tough to, um, notjust get new candidates, you
know, fresh out of college, butlike getting experienced talent
into your company.
(25:24):
It, it's a bit of a challenge,so a lot of HR teams are running
to the marketing team and sayinglike, Hey, we, we need some
help.
Like we need to create morecontent and we need to put more
stuff on our website.
That appeals to job candidates.
Um, I, I think we all have theexperience of looking at job
boards, but then you go, and Ithink it's very natural for
(25:46):
people to check out like apotential employer's website.
And I think one thingprofessional services leaders
have found out is that if we'renot investing in making some
sort of interesting appeal tojob candidates on our website,
we're gonna be losing.
That war for top talent tocompetitors that do make bigger
(26:07):
investments.
So, drum roll please.
It is with that, that weselected for this talent magnet,
talent magnet superlative.
We're gonna give it to Burns andMcDonell.
Like I said, this is anengineering firm.
MB do you want to take usthrough a couple of the things
that we saw, um, that wehighlighted here for what
(26:30):
they're doing well in theircareer section?
Mary Blanche (26:33):
Yeah.
So let's talk about the coupleof the, of the highlights here.
So, uh, first.
Thing is their employee stories.
They have a whole section thatfeatures real stories from
current employees that showcasetheir personal journeys and
experiences, which, you know,really just humanizes the,
humanizes the company.
And it provides potentialapplicants with relatable
(26:56):
insights about, you know, whatit's, what it's actually like to
work there, which is, which isso important.
And then another thing that, uh,especially caught our eye was
the recognition and awards.
Section, uh, they highlightmultiple awards, um, and
recognitions that they've had,uh, recently and throughout the
years.
Um, like one example, uh,healthiest 100 workplaces in
(27:17):
America.
I mean, that's, that's huge.
And so that's really importantto be able to, when you receive
awards like that, to be able toshowcase them on, on your
website.
Uh, you know, it shows thatthey're highly regarded and
really committed to employeeoverall.
Wellbeing.
And then I think, you know, thethird, the third thing that
really stood out to us with thisone as well is just the
(27:39):
abundance of comprehensiveresources that they have for
prospective employees.
They also have a section withpractical advice on, you know,
like how to apply training,interviewing, which for
candidates, you know, whenthey're coming to the site to
get more information, thatreally helps them feel.
Prepared and, you know,supported throughout the, the
hiring process.
(28:00):
And then just last little one,which is just something that I
love on any website, whetherit's professional services or
not.
I love a good FAQ section,right?
Like even if you're going to anevent or maybe you wanna go to a
winery or a restaurant you'venever gone to before, right?
Like, you, you kind of wannaknow what, what's going on.
Like what, you know, what's.
You know, like those, those topquestions, um, you know, that
(28:22):
are kind of running through yourmind as you're, as you're
preparing for something.
Um, whether that's an event, inthis case, a perspective, um, a
perspective employee, but, um,they, they've got a great FAQ
section.
Like, what's your equalopportunity policy?
Can I reapply to a role if Idon't get it the first time?
So, you know, those things are,those things are important too.
Joe Pope (28:42):
There was, uh, there was a few things that really
stood out to me on this site aswell.
Uh, if you start to click aroundinto the actual job postings,
most of the time you can seewhat type of setup their
technology stack is using in thebackground.
I.
And Burns McDonald has put aboatload of effort into what is
their applicant tracking systemprocess.
Uh, you can just look at theURLs to see that there have
(29:05):
implanted UTM codes trackingefforts, which would then allow
a complete and seamlessintegration into their marketing
efforts, which being a companywe haven't worked with, we're
just guessing at that.
But if you're gonna go throughthe effort on the tracking side,
almost certainly that's what theresult is, which, you know,
anytime that you can integrate.
Your marketing and your humanresources departments together,
(29:27):
you know, there, there's,there's great benefit there.
We, one thing that's reallystood out in our research over
the years is the same types ofcontent that can appeal to
prospective clients.
You know, employees want to seethemselves as those experts in
that journey too, right?
So featuring these differentstaff members in other ways is
another way that, you know,somebody can say, I really wanna
(29:49):
be at that company.
That's some, that's a company.
I could see myself growing mycareer in.
Austin_McNair (29:53):
Yeah, I think the last feature that stood out to
us was just about how they speakdirectly to those levels of
expertise, uh, or like wheretheir people might be at in
their career journey.
Joe, like I mentioned before,appealing to experienced.
Engineers is a very difficulttask.
So actually creating a page onyour website that speaks to the
(30:14):
kinds of things that moreexperienced engineers might
want, things like careerstability, that is a really
elegant way of.
Tailoring messaging to jobcandidates, and like you
mentioned before, you combinethat with the tracking piece and
then everything MB said, allthose validating stuff, the
testimonials of the employeesand, and the awards and
recognition.
(30:35):
It's a really full package herethat Burns and McDonnell is
presenting.
Anything else that we wanted tocover on this one?
Mary Blanche (30:41):
Yeah, so just to circle back to the, you know,
the a TS piece.
So from the human resourcesside, I mean, you can tell that
they've, they've just done a tonwith their applicant tracking
system.
and it, I think that's justreally, really important when
you wanna have a good pipelineof, of talent that you're
investing in.
Um, some.
Sort of a TS uh, tool, just hugeefficiencies with that.
repetitive tasks like postingjob openings and, like multiple
(31:05):
job boards, sorting resumes,scheduling interviews, it does
all of that for you.
Um, and it keeps all of thatdata in, in a centralized.
A centralized place, and just assomeone who has in the past had
to spend an previous job, spendhours, uh, you know, in LinkedIn
job postings and sorting throughresumes, like the ability to be
able to do like keywordmatching, um, and using the a TS
(31:28):
algorithms to scan resumes forkeywords that just.
It cuts down on the time there,uh, so much more.
And there's like customizablefilters where you can look for,
you know, education level workexperience or, or certain skills
to better match candidates with,with job requirements.
So, um, they're, they'redefinitely doing a great job
with that.
It sounds like there's a littlepain there in how you're
(31:50):
describing that MB.
yeah.
Austin_McNair (31:52):
So with all of this, I mean, it's clear to see
that marketers really play a bigrole, right?
If you're gonna raise to thisstandard of, you know, burns and
McDonald and.
Full disclosure, we do not, wehave not worked with Burns and
McDonald on this, but we areadvising a lot of clients, kind
of looking at this as like anorth star of a company that is
doing really well here.
And I think for thosecompetitive industries, this is
(32:13):
a standard that people are gonnahave to, rise up to.
Let's take this in a little bitof a different direction for our
next superlative, and I'll goahead and introduce this one.
All right.
The next superlative we'recalling the Acquisition
Amplification Award.
This award goes to the companythat is most elegantly handling.
(32:36):
I.
The digital integration of theiracquisitions.
Now, another big theme, we'vetouched on a few, right?
Employer branding, we've touchedon thought leadership content.
Another big challenge out there,Joe, is mergers and
acquisitions, right?
And how do marketers handlethese when it comes to the
(32:57):
digital content?
Like the, you know, all of asudden a marketer's handed a new
website.
What do we do with this?
Right.
Um, what are the biggestchallenges you've seen in
working with some of our clientsin terms of m and a and the
challenges that need to beaddressed?
Joe Pope (33:11):
Yeah, it's, it's interesting, this is kind of a
combination of the first two,right?
Like we just talked, we talkedabout content, we talked about
employer brand.
Well, m and a being such a big,big, big element in company's
growth strategies these days hasled to a significant amount of
challenge.
(33:32):
How do we bring these differentelements together?
Uh, honestly speaking, a lot oforganizations, it's pretty low
on their priority list.
Uh, and then you've certainlygot the different factors that
can go into things like, ohgosh, exit strategies for
founders, or things along thoselines where, you know, you've
gotta retain a name or a coloror whatever it might be.
(33:53):
Or sometimes it's completereverse where.
You gotta dump everything aboutit.
You know, sometimes companiesthat have an employers, sorry, a
company name that's based off ofa founder, things along those
lines.
So, because of all of thesedifferent challenges, the rule
book in a sense on this, ispretty much non-existent.
Uh, you, you see companies doingit in all different shapes and
(34:13):
sizes and, um, I think thegovernment contracting space
being a place where a lot ofthis happens, um, leads to some
pretty hideous results.
Uh, which is why I think.
One of the biggest reasons thiswebsite though, winning a
website stood out to us becausethey are a government
contractor, one that has grownsignificantly through acquiring
(34:36):
other organizations as theyexpanded their portfolio to sell
into various, uh, agencies andcompany, uh, contract vehicles
and things along those lines.
Drum roll.
The winner.
Austin_McNair (34:52):
Ake a.
Yeah, so Joe, we came across akea recently.
I we're, obviously Akeem A is ahuge government contractor.
Um, and we kind, we came acrosstheir website again recently
doing some just generalcompetitive analysis of the
space.
What's going on in the space,what are we seeing out there as
terms of best practices and.
(35:13):
The whole team was kind of likeimpressed by this looking kind
of on the backend, some SEOtools.
Seeing that the Akima websitegets a ton of branded traffic,
but not just from the Akimaname.
It's from all sorts of otherbusiness names that they've
acquired and include in theirportfolio of operating
companies.
(35:34):
So when we go to their website,and it's pretty much integrated
all throughout their website,but what we're showing on the
screen here is one of theirservices pages, one of their
capabilities pages.
Uh, in this case, we're lookingat the facilities and logistics
page, and when you scroll down.
Um, they list all of theirservices, but they also list all
of their operating companies.
(35:54):
Now many of these are branded asakea, so Akea Facilities
management, akea, facilities,operations, akea, global
Logistics.
But then you see another one inhere, river Tech.
A Hema company.
And when you, when you put aclick into that page, um, what
it does is it opens up its ownsort of microsite within the
(36:16):
same domain, but it maintainsthe name of River Tech you go
through here and this micrositeshowcases river tech's, um,
breadth of services.
Company info.
They even, as we were justtalking about with the
challenges with careers and, andsort of integrating that in m
and a, they've got their owncareers dropped down in here
(36:37):
doing business leadershipcontact information.
So this is a very elegant way tokind of maintain the brand
equity that's put into the nameRiver Tech of this organization,
yet still folded in as anoperating company under the Akea
umbrella.
So.
This to us was a really elegantway of handling this.
(37:00):
Joe, you mentioned that thereare many ways to do this.
This is not the only way, but interms of the impact that we were
seeing specifically with interms of SEO and that branded
traffic, I mean, they're reallygetting a lot of visibility to
their website, and I think thiswould do only, you know.
Good for the broader AHIMA brandto amplify, you know, their
(37:21):
overall market presence.
So this was our winner for, uh,the superlative.
Joe Pope (37:28):
We've seen a lot of organizations embrace the
multi-site approach.
Uh, we've, we've done quite afew of those in the last few
years as a, as a, as a angle fororganizations to tackle this
challenge of bringing indifferent brands into their
larger sphere.
I that I.
Integration that they've puttogether at KEMA in how this
(37:48):
looks is, is seamless.
Like it looks great.
I, in fact, when we were tryingto look through some of the more
technical pieces, we struggledto see exactly how they've done
that breakout of those differentmulti-site and, and when you can
hide it from some of thesetechnology platforms and make it
look as clean as they have.
Boy is that a good sign.
So, a well deserved award, Iwould say the only knock.
(38:12):
Is they just can't get away fromgovernment contractors.
That is putting American flagsas the first thing you show up
on the website.
Austin_McNair (38:19):
Hey, I think it's kind of important right now.
Joe Pope (38:23):
Yeah, I mean USA all the way, but come on guys,
differentiate here.
Austin_McNair (38:27):
yeah, yeah, absolutely.
All right, actually, mb, what isthe next superlative that we
have to issue today?
Mary Blanche (38:36):
Okay, so the next superlative is called the People
Powered Firm Award.
Um, and the superlative is foran organization that really
captures the best of theirpeople in their.
Digital marketing experience.
Um, so Joe, why do professionalservices struggle with showing
(38:57):
their company culture and, andpeople on their website?
Talk to us a little bit aboutthat.
Joe Pope (39:01):
Because they're cheap.
Kidding.
No, just kidding.
Kidding aside, kidding aside.
Uh, remote work has definitelybeen a big challenge here.
And if we're talking like morerecency.
You know, the fact is you usedto have the opportunity to take
photos pretty much any day.
You got folks sitting in theircubicles.
Nobody really misses that.
But the idea there was you hadeverybody together,
(39:23):
opportunities to show culture oreven experience culture were
easier to come by if, assumingthat the organization actually
put effort towards it.
another challenge that weconstantly run into is, is
organizations being paralyzed bynot knowing who to even feature.
On the website, you've got thebig challenge of turnover,
right?
It's the reality.
(39:43):
You put a bunch of effort intotaking photography and uh,
getting everybody together tomake'em look good for this
website.
And then the next thing youknow, Johnny quits, I.
So not having kind of a systemset up on how to build that type
of thing out.
Older websites that areinflexible to update, you've
gotta go to a developmentpartner to even make a switch to
a new employee that's a pain inthe butt, right?
(40:05):
So that's another factor that wecontinually hear about.
I, I'd say the worst of all isthat, they actually attempt this
and, and let's use that word.
Very loosely, and they put up abunch of stock photography or
copy and paste, DEI text from ageneric handbook to try to say
that they care about those typesof things.
(40:26):
So two areas of focus that wealways look for in a website.
And when we're evaluating awebsite, career section and
employee bios, what do thoseelements look like?
And this year's winner.
Assuming we do this every year,but I'm gonna set it up like
we're gonna do this every year,is Maxwell Locke and Ritter and
B, tell us about it.
Mary Blanche (40:47):
Sure.
Yeah.
So I mean, for me, one of thethings that immediately stands
out here is the visual andnarrative integration that they
have on their site.
Uh, just a ton of strong visualsand employee centered narratives
that align with the values thatthey promote as an organization.
And so it really just gives thatcohesive.
Portrayal of, of their companyculture.
(41:09):
And I also love that they reallykeep their core values at the
forefront of all of the languagethat they use.
So respect, inclusion,solidarity, empowerment.
And then they pair it withvisuals that, um, you can see
are deeply integrated, um, intotheir, their daily work culture.
And then the other thing I wouldsay too is, and you're scrolling
(41:30):
through it now, Joe, is liketheir community engagement.
Piece, ML and r you know, theyreally emphasize their
involvement in over, I thinkit's 300 community
organizations, which is justamazing.
And, and highlighting their,their culture and their giving
back and how they're making, um,how they're making a positive
impact, not only with each otherin the workplace, but beyond the
(41:51):
workplace and out in thecommunity.
So those are, those are twothings, uh, to me that just
right off the bat, um, kind ofhit you when you, when you come
to their site.
Austin_McNair (42:00):
Yeah, I, I think you summed that up really well.
And, uh, full disclosure, ML andR is a client of Hinge.
We had a hand in de designingthis website, and from what,
what I learned with the accountteam is that this w this meant a
lot to them.
They really wanted to stand outin the way that they featured
their people.
And the company culture and thateven, you know, worked its way
(42:22):
into the navigation level.
One of the things we were justshowing on the screen for those
watching on YouTube is, um, aculture page where they actually
go through and highlight most ofthose things that you were
talking about MB as well as acommunity involvement page.
So those, those things areactually called out in the
navigation and on specificpages.
Another thing that we, you know.
One of the aspects of thisaward, uh, or the superlative,
(42:45):
was the people themselves andbeyond kind of the, the company
culture.
we think about people inprofessional services as
experts.
Um, and so how do we feature theexperts on the website?
So for ML and R they reallyfollow the best practices that
we advise our clients to take,which is that even on, on pages,
(43:05):
like the services pages.
In this case, we're looking at,um, the financial statement,
assurance, and advisory page.
Right?
It, it's just very to the pointabout what they do.
But if you scroll all the waydown to the, to even this page,
you see featured experts thatwork in this line of the
business.
And then when you click intothat, so let's click on Leslie
(43:27):
Hargraves, who we know.
Um, the pages are very robustinto the level of detail that
they go into.
So, um, a little bit about.
Leslie and her professional, uh,experience including education,
community involvement, beingeven integrated into there, and
then, you know.
Extra features.
(43:48):
How many years of experience?
16 years at ml and r with 22years of overall experience.
Um, what does no success at workis worth a failure at home mean
to you?
Um, really tying in these likereally personal features and,
and making each expert kind ofhave a, have a say in terms of
what's featured on theirwebsite.
(44:08):
Some, you know, pictures of, youknow, who's there, why, like,
you know, what do they, youknow, a little bit of more of a
personal touch, but then alsobringing it to the, uh,
insights.
What has Leslie in this casewritten about?
So in, in this case, we can seethat recently she wrote an
article I.
Called revenue recognition forSaaS companies.
Um, all of it is baked rightthere into the website.
(44:30):
It's easy to navigate throughthat.
And so when we were thinkingabout issuing this superlative
man, ml and r really justchecked all the boxes for us.
Anything else that you guyswould want to add there?
Joe Pope (44:44):
No, I think we, I think we hit it and yeah, of
course we had to get a homerpick in here eventually.
But, um, ML and R really livesthose ideals and that's key,
right?
We go back to what I was sayingearlier in the lead into this.
If it comes across fake boy, Ithink it does worse for your
organization than not includingit.
And when you just take three,five minutes to click through
(45:07):
this website as a recruit, as a,as a prospect, even just your
own employees, and when you'reat a company starting to get
into the size of ml and r andbeyond, your employees are gonna
go to your own website, right?
There's information there to, tohave, you are living those
ideals.
And then ml and r is is anexample of that.
Austin_McNair (45:25):
That's right.
So congratulations to ourclient, MLNR.
All right.
We have one last superlative toissue, so let's turn to that
one.
Mary Blanche (45:35):
All right.
For our last superlative, it iscalled the Legacy of Excellence
Superlative, and this is gonnago to a firm that excels in
showcasing the past performanceof their work for.
Their clients.
So before we announce thewinner, tell us a little bit,
Austin, you know, why doesdemonstrating past performance
(45:56):
matter in BD and in marketing?
Austin_McNair (45:59):
Oh my gosh.
There's, there's probably noother area that matters more
esp, you know, depending on yourindustry.
Um, for, for one thing, ourresearch validates that buyers
care about past performance.
I mean, it's just one of the topthings.
Not just when you are talking tothem, but even at the earlier
(46:22):
stages of the buyer journey,when buyers are just evaluating
your firm, they're coming toyour website, they want to know
like, have you done the kind ofwork that I'm asking you to do?
Who did you do it for?
When did you do it?
And the degree to which youshare details about those
projects.
Uh, really makes all thedifference.
Now, in this case, we'reworking, we're, we're, we're
(46:44):
gonna issue this award tosomeone that's more in the, uh,
architecture, engineering,interior design space.
Um, and man, there's no otherindustry where this, this
matters more.
Just go to any of the toparchitecture sites, for example,
and you're gonna see superimpressive visuals of not just
(47:05):
the renderings that they'vedone, but videos and
professional photography of thefinished products.
Um, to go a level further, likewriting out a little bit of
information about theseprojects, um, I can't tell you
how many.
Websites I've looked at for saylike architecture engineering
firms, where the projectportfolio is just so limited.
(47:27):
Everything's limited down to onepicture in one paragraph, and
it's like, wow, this is an areawhere we could be so much more
expansive and really highlightto prospects and just to the
whole marketplace.
The impressive work that we do.
Some ways that we see companiesdo this, highlighting individual
experts on pages, video, lots ofimagery, storytelling.
(47:50):
I mean, the list really goes onconnecting it to industry and
services pages.
There, there's so much youshould be doing or thinking
about when you write a casestory or develop a project page
in terms of like the overallpotential that exists there.
Uh, I mean, Joe, taking thisover to the sales side, how
often are are prospects in a BDconversation asking about past
(48:10):
performance?
Joe Pope (48:11):
For all the reasons that you just outlined.
If they don't ask about it, I'mpretty concerned that there are
Val, they're a valid prospect inthe first place.
Is this somebody I even want totalk to?
Right.
Uh, kidding aside, demonstratingthat experience and expertise in
your sales conversations andbeing able to have it tie back
(48:33):
into what that experience thatthey went through before they
got to you, because we know.
Anytime somebody's gonna reachout to be a hand raiser, if you
will, I want to talk to yoursales team.
They're going to your websitefirst, right?
So they're wanting to see thoseconnective tissues and, and when
they get on that sales call,they're asking, you know, what
have you done?
That's exactly like me.
(48:55):
Without a conflict of interest.
So it is a continuous thing inprofessional services.
It's never gonna change.
And so having a website thatprops that up is gonna be a key
to being high performance and,and being a, um, a connected
marketing and businessdevelopment system.
Which leads us to the awardwinner.
(49:16):
Uh, this year's award winner isTeal and team.
Austin_McNair (49:19):
teal and team.
We, you know, these last twowe're, we're, we're kind of
playing favorites a little bit.
This is another Hinge client,but, um, it's one that, uh, our
team has direct experience, uh,working with here in terms of
this, theme of past performanceand how much it matters for
their industry.
So, talent team, they doincredible interior design work,
(49:41):
architecture work, procurementwork.
Um, they're a group down in, in,in Texas.
Um, but they, they worknationwide.
Um, with their clients.
And when they came to Hinge, oneof the key things that we did in
our engagement was we looked atother, at some other of their
competitors, and we lookedexactly at the portfolio section
and of these websites and madelike some analysis.
(50:04):
What are the things that matterthe most and where is kind of
the, the, the level at rightnow, what we saw in kind of the
competitive.
Uh, landscape was a lot ofreally high quality video, uh,
high quality imagery.
So that was like the basicstandard.
But one thing we noticed is likethere wasn't any storytelling or
there wasn't anything going muchfurther than that.
And so I remember talking withthe, the co-president of Telan
(50:28):
team, um, about, and, and justhow much she was stressing.
Like, we have put so much energyinto these case stories, we
really want.
Them to, to pop.
When we do a new website, wereally want them to, to, to be
able to use them in, in manydifferent, you know, just for
business development, but foralso for people visiting their
website and they have reallyknocked it out of the park.
(50:49):
Just going through theirportfolio section, you can see
how much they've invested intothe photography, how they've
invested into building outthese, um, different, uh, case
stories.
So just clicking into one inparticular, they're.
Doing a historic preservationproject with the Baker Hotel and
Spa.
Um, huge project.
(51:10):
And you can see the level ofdetail that they've gone into
explaining what this project isand why it matters and, and, and
really the.
Um, historical context to thisparticular project, including
even some, some video there.
Um, they have done a reallyremarkable job in terms of the
storytelling here, and I thinkthat they will continue to
(51:33):
greatly benefit from going sofar in this direction in
showcasing the talent of theirteam, the proof of work, and,
you know, all the projects thatthey've done over the years.
Joe Pope (51:46):
Yeah, Austin.
You used the word investment andI think one of the things that's
so striking about a website likethis that includes so many
different elements, videomotion, uh, you know, overlays,
different things along thoselines, you're going to,
somebody's immediately gonna goto a site like this and think to
themselves, there's just no waywe could pull this off.
This would cost hundreds ofthousands of dollars.
(52:07):
TE team is not a massivecompany.
They're a small business, andone of the biggest things they
talk to us about is how do weget these experiences in a
manner of which can, you know,fit within a budget of a small
business?
And, and it's possible.
Like that's the biggest thing.
And the results that you'reseeing here is tied to being
(52:27):
able to develop a site within.
Principles of using things likepage types and modules and
integrations and plugins, right?
So you don't need to go and do afully custom, every page is, you
know, coded out and so forth to,to be able to provide this type
of experience.
It's possible in today's modernwebsite development.
Austin_McNair (52:49):
Absolutely.
Good point, Joe.
Well, we have now wrapped up oursuperlatives.
I think we'll come back to this,uh, segment.
I felt like, um, we were reallyable to share a lot of details
and maybe give some behind thescenes looks into how we think
about things, especially on thedigital marketing front, the
things we value when it comes towebsites.
(53:10):
The digital experience, but Idon't think we covered all the,
you know, we only scratched thesurface in terms of the
different kinds of examples thatwe've, we could have talked
about.
so I'm excited to maybere-explore this segment in the
future with you guys, but Ithought we did a nice job here,
laying out some.
Some of the work of theseexcellent companies and the
great stuff that they're doing.
(53:30):
So, uh, this will wrap upanother episode of Spiraling Up.
If you're watching on YouTube,please, you're, you made it this
far.
Hit the like and subscribebutton.
Uh, and if you're listening,please leave.
Consider leaving us a review.
Again, this podcast is justgetting off the ground and we'd
love to hear your feedback.
If you do have any feedback forthe podcast, you can always
(53:51):
email us at.
podcast@hingemarketing.com andwe'd be happy to engage with
you, answer your questions, orif you have any topic
suggestions, guest suggestions,we'd love to hear those as well
as well.
Well, thank you Joe and B forall three of us here and team at
Hinge.
Thank you so much.
This has been another greatepisode of Spiraling Up.
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