Strategic Marketing for Aggressive Growth Goals
Summary
- Challenge
Maze aims to reach more European markets and has tough growth targets
- Solution
A clear marketing plan, a new profile and new sales presentations targeting different segments as well as an optimized website for a stronger brand. Smarkify is MAZE's external marketing division.
Background and Challenge
MAZE is a growing SaaS company founded in Norway in 2005. Today, large retail companies in the Nordic region and the rest of Europe use their app to increase customer satisfaction, increase their sales and provide employees with the information they need to improve their customer service.
“Through our app, sellers get access to feedback directly from customers. They can see what kind of response customers have been satisfied with and in this way the sellers can take their own responsibility and train in the areas where they can improve their response. Customers are more satisfied and come back more often, resulting in higher turnover and higher conversion,” says Catrin.
MAZE has been making a profit every year and has a growth rate of 20%. Now that they are aiming to reach more European markets and have continued tough growth targets, they chose to partner with Smarkify and focus on inbound marketing.
Solution / About the Collaboration
“Smarikfy overhauled how we used our CRM, gave us an overall marketing strategy, a new brand book, a new well-functioning website and a better collaboration between sales and marketing,” says Catrin.
The beginning of the collaboration between sales and marketing meant optimizing Hubspot usage within MAZE. They have had Hubspot as CRM for several years and with the right training they have now set clear procedures for both the sales and marketing departments.
“Now we're getting a lot more out of HubSpot. Now sales and marketing can make joint efforts to bring in more leads together,” says Catrin.
Smarkify and MAZE together created a comprehensive marketing plan to get a clear strategy and measurable goals
“We wanted to work longer term to strengthen the brand. With Smarkify, we started with a strategy work, where we developed a marketing plan to get a clear direction forward and partly worked on clarifying our target group. In the meantime, lead-generating campaigns are underway.
“Smarkify is responsive and effective. We chose them over other agencies because they have experience with software companies and showed such a great commitment to us. We didn't want to be one in the crowd, but we wanted to have a personal relationship.”
Catrin Wennerstein
Marketing Manager at MAZE
Results
Webinars are something they have seen that customers appreciate
“The webinar adds value to our customers while bringing in more leads. It's a really exciting way to work and it gives our salespeople even more tools.”
Optimized website for stronger brand
In the spring of 2024, MAZE was assisted by Smarkify to establish a new website. By switching from a hardcoded WordPress solution to WordPress with Elementor, the website became significantly easier to administer and more user-friendly for the visitor. Now MAZE can easily make updates themselves and do not have to be tied to long wait times and high costs from a web agency.
In connection with this, MAZE's brand book was updated and new copy made their offer clearer.
“Now we have a clear marketing plan, a new profile and new sales presentations targeting our different segments.”
A clear strategy for growth
Smarkify is MAZE's external marketing department, a solution that Catrin has been very pleased with.
“As a marketing manager, my dilemma is that there are big ambitions and you want to do a lot at the same time. But I can't do it all. We need copy, design, advertising, webinar production and web. It is necessary to have an agency we can trust.”
They are very happy with the cooperation
Going forward, MAZE will continue to grow, mainly in the English market. With a clearer brand and a long-term strategy for different segments, they can get the more ambassadors.
“The great value of Smarkify is its flexibility and its broad expertise. I get a whole marketing department. Having a set structure and a clear strategy is critical as we now grow even stronger outside the Nordic region.”