Case study / Actionstep, in-house

Inbound only. ARR up 83% in 18 months.

Before RunLevel6, Matt spent two years as Global Marketing Manager at Actionstep, an Auckland SaaS company selling across New Zealand, Australia, the UK, the US and Canada. It had no full-time marketing, a website nobody was proud of, and for much of that time no outbound sales team at all.

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Client

Actionstep, Auckland, selling in five countries

Sector

Legal practice management software, SaaS

Role

Global Marketing Manager, full time

When

2016 to 2018, before RunLevel6

The problem

Actionstep had no full-time marketing resource. Campaigns happened when someone had time, and the website was run by the UX designer and developer, who should have been focused on the product.

The product was a general workflow platform, originally built around the construction industry. But law firms kept signing up and loving it, and legal was a far bigger market, especially in the US.

The website didn't help. It was dated and cheesy, it didn't speak to lawyers, and larger competitors owned the search results. Meanwhile Google Ads spend was leaking away on irrelevant clicks and spam.

With no outbound sales effort for much of this period, marketing had to carry growth on its own.

What we built

Matt spent two years as the company's first full-time marketing lead, covering strategy, brand, the website and the day to day.

Repositioned around legal

With the leadership team, Matt took the decision to focus solely on legal practice management software. Everything that followed, from the brand to the website to the ad accounts, was rebuilt around law firms in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the US.

Rebranded and rebuilt the website

He led a full rebrand with internal and external brand guidelines, then rebuilt the website from scratch: over 100 pages written for legal buyers in each region and structured to outrank larger competitors in search.

Stopped the paid search leak

He cleaned up the Google Ads accounts to cut out irrelevant and spam clicks, then put ROI tracking and reporting in place so spend could be tied back to leads and revenue.

Built the partner channel and ran the engine

He worked with the partnerships manager to give partners the marketing and sales tools they needed, which became a very successful channel. Alongside it he ran the day to day: lead nurture, events, CRM, explainer videos, product tutorials, NPS and customer feedback loops, and project support for the product team.

What changed.

With inbound marketing doing the job a sales team normally would, Actionstep grew quickly across five countries. It went on to be acquired at a significant valuation, with excellent returns for shareholders.

83%

Increase in annual recurring revenue over 18 months

50%

Increase in users, with no outbound sales for much of it

40%

Increase in organic traffic after the website rebuild

100+

SEO optimised pages built from scratch for four regions

During Matt's time at Actionstep, he was able to undertake a complete rebranding of the company, and build an SEO optimised website that was a significant sales lead generator. He also implemented analytics and reporting systems to ensure we were getting ROI on our marketing investment.

John Sherwood, Chief Sales Officer, Actionstep

Why it's here

This was in-house work, before RunLevel6 existed. It's where the approach we use today took shape: work out where growth should come from, build the systems that make it measurable, then do the work every week.

It's also why RunLevel6 is built the way it is. Most growing B2B companies need what Actionstep needed in 2016: one senior person who can look after all of the marketing, without the cost of hiring a full team.

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