Company: The Audacious Agency, Australia
Company Description: The Audacious Agency empowers and supports women in business to enter business awards. Their mission is to help women embrace owning their successes and shine the light on all they do. Using their decades of experience in PR and branding, they educate and guide women to leverage the process to stand out and be well known, well paid and wanted.
Nomination Category: Communications & Marketing Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Marketing - Business to Business
 Nomination Title: ACCOUNTING HEART - THE AUDACIOUS AGENCY/BLUE BEAN MEDIA COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO PROFILE BULDING
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the nominated campaign or program - its genesis,development, planning, commission, and performance to date - OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions, provide them in the appropriate spaces below:
- Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched:
October 2020
- Describe the development of the campaign or program: the planning process, the goal setting, the creative and media development, the scheduling, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 245 words used.
The goal was to position Sonia as a go-to in the accounting space by securing media stories, speaking gigs, and business awards. The work was about helping prospective audiences get to know Sonia and to bring that same heart and warmth that she’s introduced into the accounting field through her business, into her marketing. The marketing trifecta, Accounting Heart, Blue BeanMedia and The Audacious Agency nurtured a unique level of trust between them, the service providers consistently encouraging, urging, and imparting patience on Sonia.
Sonia’s aim was never to go over 20k followers on LinkedIn, but rather to develop a smaller, consistent group of people she can go deep with and build long-term relationships. She wants to connect with people who want to learn from her and create a better life, build financial freedom and implement strong business growth. It was vital to position her as someone steeped in values and ethics, as a business owner, while still portraying her as someone real, down to earth, and not a stuffy suit behind a desk.
Implementing technological tools like social media automation (MeetEdgar), email marketing (ActiveCampaign & Encharge) and online project planning (Asana and Monday) simplified the process, provided consistency of output to the audience and allowed Sonia to make the best use of her time by creating content in bulk to schedule. The marketing and content strategy is reassessed annually in line with business goals, supported by quarterly reviews and weekly meetings between the trio.
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 250 words used.
This joint submission shows the power of collaboration and trust between small businesses - Accounting Heart, Blue Bean Media and The Audacious Agency. The overarching strategy was not about volume, but about taking an industry not known for being warm and fuzzy and infusing it with heart, values and good old fashion sensible insights. In under 12 months, Sonia’s business went from zero traffic and no engagement to a conversion rate of almost 20%. The project is mid phase - the next phase is about building volume and cementing thought leadership.
The support document showcases key milestones from the past 2 years - the numbers and wins - from being featured in over a dozen major media platforms: Fox, Thrive Global, Flying Solo, SmartCompany, Kochie’s Business Builders and Acuity, being asked to be on panels and meeting with key industry movers and shakers - exclusive breakfast with Xero’s MD, National Manager and State Manager, awarded Xero gold partner, expert Q&A panel at Xero Refresh event and a panel member at Better Business Summit. The media now reaches out to Sonia for insights into aspects of business and women in business. This project has helped add over 150 clients to Accounting Heart’s business. Sonia openly shared that her perception of her business over the past 12 months was that she was just surviving. When reviewing the results from the PR and marketing campaign, she found she was actually thriving. She believes the adage of “little things done consistently yield big results”.
- Describe the genesis of the nominated campaign or program: the reasons it was initiated, the challenges it was created to address, the problems it was developed to solve, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 248 words used.
Through a carefully considered strategic approach that started six years ago, Karen Moloney from Blue Bean Media worked with Sonia Gibson, Accounting Heart, to lay the foundations of building her profile. Knowing accounting is an industry steeped in tradition, stereotypes and misperception, Sonia wanted to change this - to show that heart and values have a place in business, supporting women in business with a woman in accounting. Accountants typically do not market; Sonia wanted to change this. The challenges they faced stemmed from the nature of the industry, such as lack of knowledge, and this project has called for enormous patience to achieve results. Getting into a creative headspace when she’s naturally a very logical person accustomed to transactional thinking, had Sonia going beyond her comfort zone and exploring her creative abilities. Accounting Heart’s marketing campaign grew slowly, methodically, and organically, based on Sonia’s budget, so she wasn’t spending money she didn’t have. Starting with newsletters, she revamped the website, simplified navigation and made professional advice easily accessible. This is about building a modular marketing system that is scalable, with different moving parts that work well together.
By mid 2020, Blue Bean Media's work on Accounting Heart's social media and online presence was the foundation for launching into PR. Engaging The Audacious Agency, Sonia wanted to elevate her thought leadership and service to a wider audience. Marketing foundations established, it was now time to generate backlinks, publicity and build her profile as the go-to in her space.
- Outline the activities and concrete results of this campaign or program since the beginning of July 2020. Even if your initiative started before July 2020, limit your response to activities and results since the beginning of July 2020 only (up to 250 words):
Total 250 words used.
In October 2020, an in-depth 12 month PR profile building strategy was developed. Its prime objective - take Sonia from accounting obscurity to a business thought leader. The strategy laid out weekly media and business award activities, tapping into the Hansel and Gretel approach to PR and marketing - dropping thought leadership breadcrumbs across multiple channels to build know, like and trust. The philosophy: to build an organic ‘Googlicious’ brand - when someone Googled Sonia’s keywords, the SEO built into the content elicits ranking on page 1.
Despite the first six months delivering great results in terms of content publication across many Australian key business media outlets, this didn’t translate into business growth. However, by month 7, Sonia noticed an increase in enquiries - 12 months on, almost 20% of her business was coming from online (adding $102,000 revenue to her bottom line). Sonia now has a wealth of content on her website and over 50 solid media placements with backlinks.
Given most accountants do not market, relying on referrals, Sonia doubled down with increasing content on her website, with Blue Bean updating the look and feel and simplifying navigation. Blue Bean used the content from the PR strategy to improve the newsletter, eliciting a consistent 50% open rate versus the industry standard of 17%.
This work has enabled Sonia to articulate her point of difference, winning gold, silver and bronze Stevie Awards, Accountant of the Year - Women in Finance and placing finalist in six other business awards.
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