Can a high-tech, digital marketing agency thrive on something as old fashioned as getting to know its customers? You bet! Batchbook customer Web Liquid understands the importance of building relationships with customers, often taking them by the hand through the fast-moving world of marketing in the digital age.

At Batchbook, we believe business is all about the relationships. So we applaud Web Liquid for the personal approach they take and we are happy to play a role in keeping those relationships alive and growing!

I interviewed Paul Burani, a partner at Web Liquid, to find out more about this high tech, but highly personal company:

Tell us a little bit about what your company does and what services you provide:

Web Liquid is a digital marketing agency with offices in New York, London and Lagos, Nigeria.  Our unique proposition puts word-of-mouth consumer insight at the foundation of all our marketing programs.  This helps our clients connect with customers and develop brands across the vast digital landscape (such as social media, display advertising, search engine marketing, CRM & email marketing, etc).  We also offer a range of consulting services, from audience research to e-commerce analytics to website conversion optimization.  It’s fascinating stuff.

How did you get started?

When we were founded in 2003, the concept behind Web Liquid as an agency was to focus purely on digital channels, and to provide the type of tailor-made solutions that were required in such a fast-moving environment.  We saw that our clients appreciated having a someone around to shepherd them through the maze, and this approach to our relationships has been an important part of our ethos ever since.

How many employees do you currently have?

Across our three offices, we employ about thirty-five talented individuals.

How does your company stay connected with clients and your business community?

We stay in front of clients, prospects and partners in every way we can think of.  Apart from a healthy diet of cold calling, events & networking, public speaking, email marketing, and blogging, lately we’re doing a lot more value-added thought leadership.  More research, white papers, columns on publications like Search Engine Watch, that sort of thing.

Even though we’ve been in the digital game (and social media especially) since the early days, we’re big believers in the value of profound, face to face and highly personal interaction.  These days, with so much noise buzzing around the internet, it’s nice to sit down and have a real conversation.

How does Batchbook help you run your business?

Above all, it helps us visualize the unique value of every single person in our network. We have key stakeholders we reach out to: clients, prospects, and publishers, as well as vendors of complementary marketing services.  Batchbook has been instrumental in allowing us to segment our audience in ways that really matter to our business: the industry in which they operate, the channel or technology they’re interested in, even the level of interest that a client has shown in a particular solution.  We’ve been able to use Supertags to create a very granular ecosystem where we can manage our business development pipeline, segment our outbound communications, and manage relationships in general.

I’d have to say that the social integration is my favorite function; when we find out that a particular prospect has changed job titles or companies, there’s nothing like a good LinkedIn widget to efficiently notify the salesperson.

How does Batchbook help you manage your company’s multiple locations?

I’d say the most important thing has been to use Batchbook to identify and maintain sales territories. We’ve also used a tagging mechanism to segment our email marketing efforts by time zone, which helps to drive a higher level of engagement with these communications.

More recently, we’re using Batchbook for HR purposes as well — when a job opens up in a specific region, we’re able to quickly pull a geotargeted list of past candidates.

Can you offer any advice for anyone else looking to start their own company?

Write the business plan; don’t settle for just talking about your idea.  Find your haters and naysayers, and give them your undivided attention.  Borrow as little as possible.  And make sure you love what you’re doing, because at times it’s going to get ugly (especially early on).  But if you can visualize your business as it gains vitality, you’re in for a good time.