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In response to the evolving needs of modern customers, one truth has become abundantly clear: the consumer buying experience is now firmly rooted in the digital realm.
Regardless of whether you structure your customer journey as a sales funnel or a self-sustaining flywheel, a profound understanding of how your customers engage with your business is at the core of every successful marketing strategy.
But let’s be honest, buzz words and jargon don’t make a successful business, do they? What is really important is whether you understand what works, what doesn’t work, and what you need to do to hit those growth targets next year.
Whether you’re looking to establish a brand identity, create a community of advocates, or building enterprise value to exit in 2024, a solid marketing strategy is a huge piece of the commercial puzzle that can often be overlooked.
So, how do you actually craft a winning marketing plan?
Of course it is possible to do it yourselves! Just build up years of multi-channel marketing knowledge and a variety of diverse into your current team by hiring the best in the business. Allow them to experience the successes and failures of running a business over the next 10 years so they understand ‘how’ and ‘why’ marketing needs to function within a wider business plan. Establish a culture where creativity and commercial success go hand in hand without one taking undue precedent over the other. Then voila….a winning marketing strategy is ready to be executed!
Oh…were you looking for success to be a little quicker?
Engaging with the right marketing agency can be the spark that ignites your brand growth (or it could blow up in your face!)
Choosing who to entrust your business with is a very big decision, and one that shouldn’t ever be taken lightly. A friend of a friend runs a PPC agency? Your next-door neighbour’s daughter/son has just finished a graphic design course? Your sales admin has 10k followers on Instagram?
All ‘viable’ options to support your next phase of business growth, and likely to be much cheaper than engaging with an agency, BUT when you choose who is going to be a part of your team and help you achieve those next stage sales revenues, having access to actual marketing experts who have led some of the biggest brands in the UK to commercial success is worth its weight in gold (even if we don’t have the biggest personal TikTok account in your senior leadership team!).
So, who are The Underdog Agency?
Primarily focused on supporting businesses who have successfully gone through an initial growth phase and are now looking to move their businesses forward through a more strategic and sustainable marketing solution, The Underdog Agency provides both the high-level directional support and the day-to-day delivery support to help our clients to successfully navigate their next stage of the business.
Whether that means expanding your market share, activating new markets, or simply growing your current customer value, our team bring much-needed strategic directional support and whole-world marketing experience to our clients, filling a knowledge and resource gap that has held their brand back from reaching new heights.
Our senior team pride themselves on having high-level commercial backgrounds, allowing a unique perspective and empathy for our client’s journeys, offering strategic support on what is needed (and probably more importantly, what isn’t!) to create, execute and refine a successful business plan.
Oh, have we not mentioned the actual marketing yet?
The reason we haven’t mentioned anything to do with marketing yet is because our support is built on giving our clients a solid foundation to build their marketing strategy upon.
We don’t have a predefined agenda. We have no preferences to what marketing channel we create and leverage. We don’t have one single skill that is going to ‘transform’ our client’s business overnight. Put simply, we know that there are no magic bullets.
We create and execute the right strategies for each client, doing what needs to be done for them to achieve your commercial goals. Nothing less.
Our expert delivery team are all specialists in their fields, balancing real-world expertise with creative passion to help deliver on our word. We support with as much, or little, as each client needs to hit their next stage targets, staying flexible and agile enough to react to changes in the market and/or positioning as we continue to put commercial success at the core of our marketing delivery.
Want to see some social proof?
Of course you do. You don’t trust those LinkedIn InMails who promise to deliver 20 new client leads a month, so why should you trust us?
Well, we can show you our successes, and you can see for yourself a couple of the brands that have entrusted us with their commercial growth in 2024-
swim! (The UK’s leading children’s swimming lesson provider, spearheaded by Becky Adlington OBR and recently acquired by JD Group)
- Implemented a prospect ‘communication and conversion’ plan- leading to 130%+ of new sales vs target in first 3 months
- Drove average 93% increase in traffic from all social channels vs LFL
- Increased social engagement by 96% to 3 million monthly impressions, leading to 267% in received enquiry messages
- Instagram follower growth of 1,363% in 2-month period
Guinness Foreign Extra
- Created a 6-month campaign for Guinness Foreign Extra, raising the awareness of their product and warn of the health, and experience, risks of illegally imported Guinness FE.
- Worked with Guinness brand team (Diageo) to design over 30 ad creatives for the campaign (imagery, video, GIFs)
- Reached over 3.5m of the target audience using a combination of interest and demographic targeting on social and search, leading to a 950% uplift in website traffic.
These are Just 2 examples of our clients, each with unique challenges for their individual businesses, and differing markers for commercial success. Our ability to see a client’s whole business at a “high level” and understand what makes the business tick, allows us to create, deliver and steer marketing campaigns that work across any industry and market.
Why did you enter the Northern Digital Awards 2024?
Who doesn’t love a good Underdog story, right? And we thought there was no better place to share our story that the Northern Digital Awards.
With our 2 founders based in the North West, we understand how much amazing creative talent there is around us, and have always been deeply passionate about making sure our northern roots are showcased at every opportunity.
By being part of the awards and nominated for “Best Small Agency 2024” we think we have played our part in ensuring that the skills and talent in the North takes centre stage in the bigger UK digital scene, hopefully inspiring others and opening new opportunities for the next wave of exciting digital businesses to come through in the next few years.
“Being acknowledged for the work we have put into building this amazing team of Underdogs is a special honour for us. I have been lucky enough to see the amazing creative talent we have in the North, so to be recognised as one of the leaders of that fills us all with immense pride.”
– Craig Battersby (Founder/Director)
