Summary
Mail Shark is a nationwide direct mail service that is geared toward restaurants and service providers offering programs that cover an entire year of mailings and promotions. The company has been named one of Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Privately Held Companies several years and counting. .
My role at the company was SEO Manager, optimizing the website for maximum organic search traffic. As I grew into the role I began to manage all digital marketing efforts including paid search, social media, email marketing, and more.
My first major accomplishment was moving the website in-house and removing the need to pay for an agency to manage the website for us. During this transition, I configured Google Analytics and developed a monthly reporting format that allowed us to set benchmarks early and identify technical SEO concerns before they became a major problem.
Accomplishments
- Develop a content strategy that resulted in a 497% increase in organic search traffic
- Sophisticated analytics configurations including Phone Call Tracking and vanity URLs to track direct mail efforts
- NAP alignment before it was popular with the SEO community
- Converted customer testimonials to text for more on-page keywords
Process & Methodology
My second and probably most important accomplishment was setting forth a regular content marketing strategy early on. A blog post I wrote on upcoming postage rate increases went viral and from that point forward website traffic experienced a “new normal” and what seemed like a permanent lift in traffic.
Mail Shark was also the first company where I converted customer testimonial videos into text format, transcribing the videos as they all contained keywords for which the company wanted to rank for. This strategy is still used by the company today and a tactic that I recommend when customer testimonial videos are available.
Mail Shark is when I realized the importance of Name/Address/Phone Number (NAP) alignment. There were numerous instances of the company that resided at Mail Shark’s address oreviously and was appearing in search results. Over the next 6 months, I hunted down the websites that had incorrect information and had them update or remove the listing. The more time I spent on finding and fixing rogue listings, the better our search results for the local-pack and nationwide search rankings. Keep in mind that this was before Moz Local, Yext, and other local SEO programs that are readily available.
Finally, a major accomplishment that I am proud of during my time at Mail Shark was the configuration of Google Analytics and our monthly report format that was used to springboard for discussions with the CEO and VP of Sales. I still use a similar format today with my clients showing month-over-month and month-over-year comparisons of site data.
What’s really cool is that we tracked more than just website conversions. Phone call tracking and vanity URLs printed on direct mailers were all on our radar. It was part of my job to prove conversions and I took this seriously.
In Conclusion
I am very glad to be part of this company’s history as in 2022 Mail Shark is still a leader in the direct mail industry. I will always have positive memories of my time at this company and have to give mention to Brian Johnson and Josh Davis for their support. Having a company like Mail Shark where I could apply what I was learning to a real-world scenario was a priceless learning experience that helped me get to where I am today.