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We're very different from every Digital Marketing Agency you've ever met and worked with. You'll either love us or hate us, but this page is here to help you decide whether the way we do Digital Marketing works for you, your team and your websites.
What you get...

You Get An Expert

Most of our clients have worked with a Digital Marketing Agency (or two, or more) before. They know that usually you get a smooth sales pitch from a senior salesperson and then you're left to fend for yourself with a junior account manager who ends up struggling to do the work.

You'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that the expert you speak to is:-

  1. Not a dedicated Sales Person. We're Digital Marketers first, and secondly we like talking to prospective clients too.
  2. Talk to the Expert from Day 1. The expert you talk with will (very likely) be the person you work with. They'll be the one working on your website or at least coordinating that work.
  3. Communication. If we change something we'll talk you about it. As your needs change over time the expert on our team who takes the lead will very likely change too. Victoria takes the lead on Web Projects and SEO Heavy Campaigns; Sam takes the lead when the main component is Ads... and when all three are involved (often happens) we work with you to decide who is the best fit.

You'll Benefit From Our Experience

Our team have experience delivering comprehensive Digital Marketing campaigns.

  • Google Ads with Effective Landing Pages
  • WordPress Websites with Security and SEO in mind
  • SEO with consideration for your non-technical webmaster to add content

We've been around the block and we've got the skills, and the checklists to make this work effective, fun, and fast.

The likelihood that you'll have to wait around for a junior team member to learn how to do something before it is implemented is extremely low.

Speaking Up

If you ask for work that is outside the plan, or just want some help with something completely out of our skillset we'll give you options, in order of our preference...

  • First and foremost, we'll keep your campaign on track!
  • Recommend someone we know and trust to match our output, e.g. if you want branding or a fresh logo design.
  • Find someone we can recommend.
  • Turn down the "add-on" and stick to our campaign.

If you want to change something that .

We, well I (Ben), have made the mistake of describing our services, and showing the excellent results we've attained for clients, begun the engagement and learned the hard way that things just won't work.

Experience like ours is rare, especially so in Digital Marketing. We admit that a good chunk of that experience is hard-earned from mistakes.

Mistakes? Yes. Mistakes we won't repeat.

We don't make mistakes like this and haven't for many years, since at least 2015. This is why we want every prospective client to read and understand this page.

Clients are often their own worst enemies in many ways. Here are some of the biggest and best mistakes that we used to see clients make.
(best, or should I say worst?)

Hamstrung Expert

Hire an expert and then tell the expert what to do and what they can't do. Very often the thing(s) that the expert needs to do to deliver results push the client into new territory, towards the very actions that they've always avoided.

This doesn't just eliminate the potential for your website to succeed it is a complete motivation killer for everyone involved in the project. You, me, our team.

This is one of the biggest things we mean when we say we're not everyone's cup of tea and people don't like our direct approach. If you do this, we will tell you straight.

We ask clients to trust us, and we go get you the results. Hamstring us and we'll propose some resolutions.

Resolutions:

We'll tell you straight, and give you choices. The choices...

  • Let us implement the plan, and do it right.
  • Waterdown what we're doing - and you pay us upfront for the rest of the campaign because it probably won't work as clients in this modus operandi are often just rehashing what has not worked before.
  • Part ways ASAP.

Your Availability

Hire an agency, agree to an action plan that involves your input and maybe even some effort and then disappear.

Reappear and complain about the lack of progress.

Mitigation:

We're excellent at project management. 

  • We'll keep track of what you agreed to, and keep you accountable.
  • We don't let the client "Project Manage" the campaign. We do it, always.
  • If you miss a deliverable, we make sure you know and do our best to minimize the negative impact on our business (fees continue as agreed) and yours - we're ready to receive and implement when you deliver.
Resolution:

We work with busy teams, CEOs and Marketing Directors who over-commit and under-allocate investment of their time in their own marketing. There are ways to resolve these things, so we look at the right options for you.

  • BEFORE - We work with every client before planning a campaign to ensure team availability (yours and ours) aligns with what is needed.
  • DURING - As mentioned above, we always project manage campaigns and will actively follow up with you about deliveries, deadlines and the impact of missing them. 
  • OPTIONS - Getting back on track usually isn't hard, sometimes it just needs some additional resources, commitment or both. Simple and client options always exist, for example
    • Stick to the plan, and deliver your input+effort and work together to catch up or at least not fall further behind, or
    • Add a resource, e.g. a professional writer - instead of hoping a director will find the time.
    • Hand-holding-Meetings. Send one of our team members to sit with and extract the input we need. If this meeting is out of scope it'll have a budget impact, but this minor cost increase can be the unblock everyone needs.

Magpie Mode - New & Shiny

There are always new and shiny ideas, systems, plugins, themes and gurus.

We're not stick-in-the-muds, but there's a time for strategy and planning and a time for execution. Rewinding a running campaign back to the planning phase doesn't come without costs to time, effort and results. Again, we'll tell you straight.

Is this you? Get outta here!!! Just kidding.

If you recognize some of your past behaviour in the above scenarios don't worry.

Our view is that a manager or leader who recognizes this in their own (past) behaviour is a huge plus.

Our straight-talking approach and ability to focus leadership and marketing teams on the right KPIs and results mean that we usually win the day, and get the campaign moving forward.

Who are we?

The best way to think about us is that we're a small team - about as small as we could be. There are currently just four specialists in the business. We are a Micro Digital Marketing Agency.

Matter Solutions has been 15+ people and growing to this size was exciting it did result in a diluted focus on outcome for clients. This caused Ben, our founder, some concern and stress. We hired business coaches, we used consultants, we changed systems and we hired a full-time Agile Coach - everything worked a little bit but the outcome wasn't ever quite as effective as it had been when we were just 3-5 really dedicated experts... so when COVID came knocking wiping out our biggest clients and we were already moving to a work-from-home model it made sense to restructure.

We're super-efficient. People with 5, 10 and 20 years of experience know how to get things done effectively and quickly and we identify and fix problems before they even arise. As they say, if you think hiring an expert is expensive try hiring an amateur.

Who do you get the best results for?

A good way to consider this is about the type of clients we take care of.

Small owner/manager businesses

70% of our clients are owner/manager "small" businesses, they range from a couple of people up to hundred-plus companies.

We're proud that they trust us to give them Digital Marketing guidance we know that they value Digital Marketing, they value a direct line to specialists instead of an army of account managers and customer service buffers.

We also know that many of them have been led on a merry dance by digital marketing partners of all kinds around Brainerd and beyond.

The campaigns we run for these clients usually have multiple threads and range from $10-50k per quarter including ad-spend.

Corporate Clients

The number of "corporate clients" we look after is lower than the number of small businesses but they spend considerably more on their campaigns, naturally. They enjoy the dedicated expertise of the same people who helped bring them onboard and spoke to them before engagement. We don't have a team of client winners and junior-do-ers. 

We've worked with (and still work with) some well known Aussie companies. Some are United States Subsidiaries of Global Corporations who want a better (and local) option for high-quality digital marketing rather than working with the agencies that Head Office in Europe or the USA uses. 

Ben Maden
STRATEGIST & DEveloper (founder)
Ben Maden
Clarity - Results - educate
Free Resources
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Client Fit MAtters

Best Fit Clients

Clients LOVE TO WORK WITH

Client fit makes sense for us and for you. Here are some characteristics of the client's we've been able to help the most, and have fun doing so...

  • Clients who have a solid product or service offering.
  • Customers want/need the offering but they need help to connect.
  • Clients who value strategic thinking. 
  • Clients who want to build a solid long-term relationship. We know finding a good agency is tough but hopping from one agency to another is a bad sign.
  • You're looking to generate at least $350k-5M additional revenue over the next 12 months.
  • You're keen to get moving and have the resources to do so.

CLIENTS WE DON'T TAKE ON

There are some businesses that don't match the way we work. If you're on this list we're probably not able to take on your business.

  • If you're looking for code monkeys to just bodge together a website, that isn't us.
  • Clients who refuse to believe that websites and digital marketing can add value. Respectfully, when beliefs are firmly against the success of your own website (it happens) then it is a bad fit for us. We want to work efficiently and effectively and justifying every move, metric and moment is a tide we don't want to swim against.
  • If your business is on life support or worse. Last-gasp digital marketing isn't something we're able to offer.
Now you know our Contact Us page says to STOP and sends you here to learn about our direct approach. 

Is it right for you? If so, get in touch.
Are we the right Digital Marketing Team for you? If so, get in touch.

Use the form, please.
Calling and emailing isn't as efficient. The form means the right person can get back to you and we can put our best foot forward.

The Process.
We onboard (only a few) clients at the start of each calendar month and we like to plan ahead meaning we take a week or two to meet, review data and deliver recommendations and plans.

The Response.
We'll get back to you promptly, usually within a business day. We'll often hold an initial video meeting within a 3-5 days, and can arrange a discovery session shortly after that. 

The Queue.
Potential clients need to be engaged with a signed agreement by the 23rd ready to launch at the start of the upcoming month.

The Team

Ben Maden

Ben Maden

Strategist, Developer & Founder
Victoria L

Victoria L

Campaign & Projects Manager

Testimonials

Katrina Locke - Strategic Manager at Ontex Healthcare

Ontex has worked with Matter Solutions since 2014, and I have been involved since 2016; with the last year escalating our investment in digital projects.

The Matter team has been a critical resource to advance our custom Laravel platform and marketing activities; shifting our organization from minimal digital exposure to improving our digital performance ten fold to effectively compete in our strategic market.

By approaching our project work through a phased approach, we have been able to launch a number of successful initiatives through Matter Solutions which have exceeded project requirements at local and global levels through delivering not just on timelines and budget, but also the features and level of creativity expected.

This company is more than a typical digital agency - they act as true partners to your organization. 

This professional organization will work to your requirements and act proactively, suggesting best methods and not afraid to steer you in the right direction. 

I cannot recommend Ben, Victoria and the team highly enough.

Nick Moller - ADF Mentors

Their communication is outstanding and the end product was remarkable.

Elijah Bates - Formerly WestPac, now at Google

Ben is an articulate and intelligent speaker. I can't recommend him highly enough. I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation style and how he can provide tangible examples to real world problems. 

His engineering background gives him a platform to logically problem solve and find solutions for business problems.
More Testimonials

Considering other training options? Awesome, we encourage that!

First Class Reputation For Digital Marketing
We urge you to go and check out what people have to say about Ben, our founder, and the team at Matter Solutions

We're confident that you'll find that our team in Brainerd walks the walk, and we look after our clients for the long term.
Read Google reviews about usRead Facebook reviews about usTake a look at our Testimonials page
Google Reviews that highly recommend Matter Solutions