Posts by Kelly Waltrich

In every economic downturn, a familiar story unfolds: companies pull back on spending, freeze growth initiatives, and slip into survival mode. And while this instinct is understandable—minimizing risk and protecting cash flow—it can create an unprecedented opportunity for bold brands to surge ahead. If your competitor is pulling back while you’re leaning in, you’re not…

One of the most important metrics for firms looking to grow effectively is the marketing-to-sales ratio (M:S ratio). This metric helps align your marketing and sales efforts by quantifying how much you’re investing in generating revenue. Whether you’re scaling a startup, optimizing a mature business, or navigating a new market, understanding and calculating this ratio…

When it comes to content marketing, we see many firms make the mistake of over-indexing on a single type of content—often at the Awareness stage—and neglecting the other stages of the buyer journey. This imbalance leaves prospects underserved, resulting in drop-offs during the Consideration and Decision stages. To ensure your prospects have the information they…

If you’re running paid ads but aren’t seeing your leads convert immediately, it’s easy to get frustrated and wonder if you’re wasting your budget. But before you give up, read this first. Don’t Abandon What’s Working Behind the Scenes Let’s take a closer look at the bigger picture and the momentum these ads are actually…

Your marketing agency can’t tell you what your goals are. It sounds obvious, but I talk to prospective clients every day who can’t articulate their growth or overall business goals. Worse, they ask us to come up with them. I’ve heard questions like “What’s a good growth target for an RIA?” or “How many leads…

Marketing leaders, tell me if you’ve been here before: Your CEO sets an MQL lead goal of {insert absurd number here}, without giving you any context for how that number is expected to impact the business. In reality, it’s an exercise to keep your team and the sales team busy. This becomes even more apparent…

As we approach the end of the year (!), I’ve spent a lot of time talking with my team and our clients about what they can do now to hit the ground running in 2025.  One of the most overlooked but wildly important elements of a firm’s success is determining how leadership is going to…

  In my role at Intention.ly, I’ve had the opportunity to help a number of firms build or optimize their in-house marketing teams, many of whom were also orchestrating outsourced work across multiple agencies. And I’ve learned there’s a distinct formula for success when it comes to the timing of who to hire in house…

Are you happy with what you’re paying your marketing agency for leads? For leads that convert to clients? If you answered ‘yes,’ – why? I’ve spoken with a number of prospects recently who have no problem paying what we know are exorbitantly high cost-per-lead and client acquisition costs – simply because they don’t know any…

I was talking to a firm recently that wanted feedback on their marketing strategy. But when I asked them to back into how they arrived at the strategy itself, they couldn’t tell me: ➡️ Exactly what happens to leads when they hit their CRM ➡️ How quickly prospects are moving through the pipeline ➡️ Whether…