Meet Rachel Axten, Digital Marketing Manager at V Formation.
Growing a client base with streamlined social media management is key and one of Sendible's most successful stories of this approach comes from Rachel Axten at V Formation.
We sat down with her (virtually) to find out how she's made full use of Sendible's offering to package services and create a benchmark social media strategy for clients.
The following conversations have been edited for length and clarity.
Tell us a bit about yourself! What do you do?
"I'm Rachel Axten. I'm Digital Marketing Manager at an agency called V formation. We are a marketing and PR agency. We work with a huge range of clients in different industries, from life sciences, professional services, charities, family, businesses, universities, loads of different industries and clients. A lot of what we do is digital marketing, PR, a lot of strategy planning and support, website design and build. It's really varied, but we also support clients with events, filming podcasts, and internal comms."
‘being able to have that visibility and approvals for – say if someone in the team is managing social media and the account manager needs to see it before it goes out’
What were your biggest challenges with social media management before using Sendible?
"Our previous platform, I'd actually never come across it before, despite I've been in marketing for nearly 12 years now. But it was just so outdated, it was so clunky, the interface was horrible, it was just horrible to use, it was a really basic platform. And there was just really minimal features on it, really. And that was across the board. So to do with scheduling, measuring results, team collaboration, which obviously, within an agency, you need to be able to have that collaboration and visibility across the board. It didn't really support any of that."
“Sendible was more flexible with how many users we could have, and had the ability for us to have a managing role while controlling the access each client gets."
What positive results have you seen since using Sendible?
"Sendible has helped us to streamline a lot of our processes. Previously, we would manually create branded reports for clients, for instance, which obviously for each client would take us probably three to five hours. Whereas obviously Sendible has got the reports feature. You can pull all that through and build a bespoke report within minutes.
It's also allowed us to implement a workflow, which again, in an agency is really important, because we have multiple team members working on client accounts. So being able to have that visibility and approvals for people not lower down in the team. But you know what I mean, so if somebody in a client team is managing social media, and the account manager needs to see it before it goes live, we could never do that before.
So being able to have that firmly in place on Sendible has really helped. The sense checking and obviously amending content before it goes out. And just the customer support and the ticket support we've had has been really great. And I can't say that about a lot of the platforms that I have worked with so far. So yeah, it's really, really helped us up until now, I think we're coming up to about a year now maybe, in fact, probably more. And yeah, we love it."
Do you have any measurable results?
"I think the main thing was not having the resource and the time to spend shopping around. And you know, I'm sure you guys know, a lot of the time, it's really hard to prioritise yourself as a business market yourself, you know, change your processes in house, especially when you've got a million clients to look after. So I think it was just a priority for me when I saw what they were using to be like, this is just not sustainable, because obviously every company has growth plans, right.
We were growing, and we had just a lot of things bubbling away in the pipeline, and like constantly getting inquiries and things and it just wouldn't have been able to stack up to what we need as compared to where we want it to grow. And looking where we are now and kind of where we're hoping to get in the next two or three years, we'd have stayed with that platform, it just would have been not doable, and it has just saved us so much time. But it's just streamlining both for our clients. And internally, we like the approvals thing. And, and has just made a really big difference.
I think it's focusing on growing the business, but also being able to give more to our clients. So obviously, it's not really a good use of time. If there's platforms out there, like sendible, and whatever else that can build reports, for instance, I know I keep coming back to that, but that's one of the biggest things for us. You know, those three to five hours can now be spent either working on BD for V or working on our own growth plans, which is a humongous focus this year, and we have been able to spend a lot more time prioritising those things. But also for our clients. Yeah, you know, they, they pay a lot of money for us, and they do get a hell of a lot for their money.
But now that we're not spending three to five hours on reporting, yes, they need that and they want that. But now being able to have that time that could be editing to videos now that they can get a lot more use out of rather than an analytics report, or it can be writing them three blogs, which could be three months worth of content for the website, instead of just looking at some stats and going Yeah, great. So it's a lot more beneficial in terms of meeting their growth and marketing strategies and plans, as well as freeing up time."
What are your favourite Sendible features, and how do you use them?
"I would say the content bank feature is really good. So we do use that for pre created content and images and graphics and things. But also being able to use the RSS feed feature which obviously guides and inspires content that really helps us and also being able to tag accounts within Sendible because a lot of scheduling tools you might be able to now But when I previously have used them in the past, that was never really a feature. And that saves a hell of a lot of time. You know, saving, going back and forth and having to go back in and add tags manually. Yeah, I think that as well as the approvals process, like I said, and also being able to just pull those reports build them. Totally custom for each client is amazing. So then on top three.
I think for us, just the overall usability of Sendible. And the streamlining. And the time saving features has made such a difference to us. It obviously might be different for in-house, people using it. But as an agency, like anything that saves us time and streamlines processes just makes a huge amount of difference. And I think the resources as well, from an internal up-skilling or training perspective, being able to have the video tutorials and the you know, best practice insight blogs is really helpful."
What best practices would you recommend?
"I'd definitely recommend taking advantage of the approvals feature. And as I mentioned earlier, the queue feature is really great as well, if you've got clients or obviously internal posts that go out at set times throughout the week. So obviously throwback Thursdays and things like that are really popular. And that helps to save a little bit of time and to kind of organise your content a little bit more. And I think it's just really helpful to be able to see all of the activity in one place for whether that's clients or internal activity via the social feed feature. So that just gives really, really good visibility, whether that's good or bad, there is obviously bad, bad things that happen on social media, but it makes them a lot easier and quicker to spot rather than having to go through different platforms at different times, where obviously, things can slip through the net a little bit. So yeah, definitely user reports function."
What is your advice to others who might be considering using Sendible?
"I think price was a big factor for us. Because you know, a lot of the bigger names which I won't name, but people do charge a hell of a lot of money sometimes. And when I was comparing the features, and obviously, it's different for everybody, some people do need more features whereby you would need to pay more, but for what we needed, I had a really, really good idea of what we needed and sendible met that, you know, completely. And then compared to other platforms, which were offering essentially exactly the same thing. We're just charging a lot a lot more. And I think for me that I've always been both in work and in my life, really into supporting or choosing, not the big guns, if that makes sense. So I think I'd rather give a smaller or medium sized business that maybe I'm not as familiar with, but offers the same thing more of an opportunity than somebody who's absolutely raking in the money and probably doesn't actually focus as much on customer experience and support and developing what they're offering, say go for it."
What is your advice to others who might be considering using Sendible?
"As I mentioned earlier, I've had a big, big, long old career in marketing so far, nearly 12 years, and I've used loads of different tools. And sendible is definitely up there with my top few in terms of usability and functionality and also account support, which I think is really important. A lot of people just get you over the line. You say yes, you sign on the dotted line, and then you just left. But I think Marcus, both you and the people in the team that we've that we've come across when you've been away and things like that it's just been so helpful and supportive, especially the onboarding process, that's probably the most comprehensive one I've had. And the tickets that we've raised have been sorted in a decent amount of time, which is obviously really important as well, for us to be able to keep using it as we need to.
Every time I go to Marcus, it's just like, No problem, I get a reply so quickly, you know, I get the help straightaway. It's not like, No, this isn't my domain anymore, you've signed you up and now your client and see later go raise a ticket. It's whether that's your job or not, you know, the help is always there. And it's like you can speak to somebody. And like I mentioned earlier, when Marcus has been on holiday, there's been somebody else who's contacted me or you know, like when we all put on and out of office, somebody else to contact whereas a lot of platforms I've used before you either raise a ticket, or you have to go on a live chat, where you waiting forever, or there's a customer support, general email, and then it's like, we'll get back to you within 48 hours or something. And that, for us is a really, really long time if there's something that we can't do or something that's not working. And we've got client expectations resting on our shoulders. It definitely makes you guys stand out. That's one of the main things I think aside from the features of Sendible.
It is that human element and the support that we've had and the onboarding was just amazing. I think Marcus did like three training sessions with us with people being on holiday things and I was like, I think me and him are both sick of going through this. But it was just no trouble. And yeah, it really helped us obviously get off on the right foot with using it and and we're still here however many months later."
Recap and results
By implementing Sendible, V Formation was able to offer tailored social media services that increased operational efficiency and client satisfaction. The platform enabled seamless scheduling, analytics, and client collaboration, resulting in significant business growth and customer loyalty
V Formation is a web marketing agency that offers SEO services, PPC services, social media marketing services, and web design services.
It is that human element and the support that we've had and the onboarding was just amazing.
