Appointments up 1.7x: the marketing consulting that became the foundation for business growth

PORTERS Inc.
Industry: system development, consulting and publishing for the staffing industry
Employees: 57
Problem: awareness through to acquisition
(or: advertising management / SEO content marketing / seminar acquisition)

PORTERS Inc. develops and provides a cloud matching system for recruitment and staffing companies. It listed on the TSE Growth Market in September 2022 and is a growing company. Its challenge was how to win customers within a specific B2B market and how to build awareness among its target customers. With NowVillage’s support, seminar registrations grew 140% year on year (from 1,700 to 2,500) and meetings secured from seminar attendees grew 170%. We asked Ms Kusuhara, executive officer, and Mr Kojima, marketing specialist, about it.

A niche, limited market. How to build awareness in a B2B market

First, could you tell us your roles and your team’s goals?

Kusuhara:
I am Fumiko Kusuhara, executive officer at PORTERS Inc. I am also deputy editor of PORTERS MAGAZINE, which we publish with content useful to everyone around the subject of work, not only staffing companies but corporate HR and candidates.

Kojima:
I am Masao Kojima, marketing specialist.
On team goals, I will speak about the marketing department. My department generates leads among recruitment and staffing companies.
The department’s goal is around 1,000 leads a year.

What stood in the way?

Kojima:　
To begin with, our service, a cloud matching system for staffing companies, is vertical SaaS, and our customers are recruitment and staffing companies.
Within that, the challenge was how to maximise the number of meetings.
With a small total target and a limit on how many times you can step up to the plate, the only option is to raise your batting average.
We knew it mattered to say things that fit the target better, but internal resource was limited and it was hard to evaluate what we were doing properly and switch to something new.

Kusuhara:
Advertising costs were also rising.
Cost per click on web advertising was going up while effect fell, and a large budget increase was not realistic, so growing leads within the existing budget meant improving the paths through the site and strengthening SEO.

Seminar registrations up around 140%, from 1,700 to 2,500.
With better content, meetings secured up 170%.

What were you doing before coming to us?

We already ran seminars. With the pandemic, the response to online seminars was good. But we were busy and could not run them often, so they were irregular.

For your situation, NowVillage proposed and provided consulting, advertising management, SEO content marketing and seminar support.What effect did that have?

Kojima:
It was very effective. In numbers, meetings secured from seminars, one of the measures we watch, grew 170% year on year. Seminar registrations were around 1,700 last year and will land at around 2,500 this year, up around 140%.

Qualitatively, the seminar content improved. For long-term branding we wanted to run seminars that are genuinely useful to customers, and we had struggled with the content. Since running them with NowVillage we have been able to bring in the right guest speakers. Mr Aoki read the industry, sensed what customers wanted to know, and supported us broadly, from planning the seminars to arranging guest speakers.
Without him we would not have achieved this.

Kusuhara:
The seminars also contributed to awareness, branding and customer satisfaction, and were very effective.
We listed in September 2022, and from the point of view of preparing for that, growth in new leads was an important measure for investors and the securities house in judging future growth, so we are very grateful.

Kojima:
The SEO articles you delivered rank first for many keywords and help us reach people not yet actively looking.

Solid knowledge and smooth project management made them feel like our own marketers

Why did you choose us?

Kusuhara:
Above all, because you know the staffing industry, which is our market. We also knew Mr Imamura, NowVillage’s representative, had founded UZUZ and been at the front of the industry. Among many web marketing firms, NowVillage had industry knowledge of staffing, and that counted for a lot.

―Is there anything from working with us that stayed with you?

Kojima:
That you brought proposals beyond what we had asked for, working from an understanding of the industry and of our company.
The way you ran the meetings was also very smooth.
Organising the discussion made the problems and their causes clear, and dense discussion with firm next actions felt good and led to results.
It may be a small thing, but you produced minutes immediately after each meeting, so even with other meetings on top of each other we could use them to move the project forward.

Kusuhara:
The first consulting meeting stayed with me.
You spent a great deal of time understanding how we work and what we value. That is rare.
Rather than applying general theory, tuning it to us and building strategy from there made real sense and was reassuring.
And when we had plenty we wanted to do in marketing but could not move because of internal resource, we could ask you as though you were our own marketers.

Kojima:
The impression is of consulting grounded in understanding the industry and the company.
The materials and the mind maps you used in meetings were apt, and we felt a real effort to understand the customer deeply.

Being able to ask you as though you were our own marketers is good to hear.If you were to introduce us to someone, which companies would you recommend?

Kojima:
Companies aiming to scale up.
And companies unsure what marketing strategy fits their market and their stage of growth.

Kusuhara
Above all you are strong at acquisition, so I would also recommend you to companies struggling with their own hiring. And because you can be asked for things as though you were our own marketers, I would recommend you to companies that know what they want to do but lack marketing resource.

---

PORTERS Inc.
HP：https://www.porters.jp/
Industry: system development for the staffing industry
　　　Consulting
　　　Publishing
Employees: 57

---