I recently saw an ad by the Container Store (of all things) that said, “1 great person = 3 good people.” Talk about a hiring philosophy! Throughout my career I have held tight to a handful of folks who do incredible work. The sort of people you can recommend without reservation. So here they are: the marketing freelancers and agencies that are just too good to keep secret.
In this post:
Creative: Greg Newcomb
I said the phrase “Greg gets it” so many times my team threatened to make me a T-shirt! Greg is thoughtful, surprising, fast, witty, and a bargain to boot. Any time I have a special project – a direct mail piece, a conference theme, a story book – I trust Greg to deliver something I hoped for but couldn’t envision.
PR: Ink Communications
Starr and Kari have assembled the smartest groups of PR marketers I’ve ever met (and I’ve met dozens of agencies). They’re focused on tech companies. ✅ They’re not intimidated by developer jargon or boring differentiators. ✅ OMG they define measurable goals for the year and quarter! ✅ And they understand that B2B marketing is a grind of third party validation. ✅
Together we wrote hundreds of pieces of placed content in a year. No exaggeration. If you’re looking to grow your brand awareness (or even your domain authority), Ink will get you there.
Websites: Zizzle and West Jones
I once burned through four web agencies within 2 years. There were rookie mistakes, crappy templates, endless QA tickets, and too many nights where I worked until 10pm trying to get pages launched. When I started working with Brian and West, I got home on time. These guys are the real deal – they’re clear communicators, they design gorgeous pages, and they deliver clean code. QA takes mere days.
I will take these two everywhere I go, and indeed they built Sponge’s website. 10/10
BDR Teams: Lorraine Joseph
We’ve worked with Lorraine for years, and she literally wrote the book on BDR teams. If you need to stand up an inbound or outbound BDR team, she can hire the right folks, carefully coach them, write and optimize scripts, and report out.
SEM: KoMarketing
Finding a good agency for paid advertising and SEM is tough. Almost every time I work with someone new, they immediately recommend restructuring the account? Three months later, we’re just waking up to the fact that our copy and CTAs suck.
Mike Pickowitz and Jenna Bessemer at KoMarketing are the real deal – they keep track of all the moving parts, make proactive recommendations and quick changes without waiting for a status meeting, and are always thinking about how to get more from less.
SEO: Bryant Harland
I’m trying to lure Bryant Harland back into freelance writing and SEO. They’re the only writer I’ve met who can understand a technical concept, scour your site for missing keywords, and then write new content to suit. It’s a full package.
Video: Snack Video
Kyle Kehrwald once made me cry with a video edit. He’s fast, autonomous, and adept at filming and editing live action and animated videos.
Technical Copywriting: Maliha Balala
Maliha is a fantastic writer who can handle blogs, white papers, ebooks, and (!) technical documentation. When we have meaty software content to write, I try to book Maliha as soon as possible.
Powerpoints: Whit McCullough
Needing something clean and bold? Call Whit. You guys, he can make slides that move. At the very least, check out his 60-second Powerpoint tutorials on LinkedIn.
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