Based in Manhattan, Forrest Solutions is a national outsourcing and staffing organization with approximately 2000 employees across 90+ office locations and is, today, the recognized market leader in delivering outsourced workplace experience to a significant number of the most prestigious law firms, financial services organizations, and large tax and advisory firms in the country.

Prior to 2020, the company was operating in 30 cities domestically with a desire to reach the market with a strong brand message to spur growth, relying on the strength of existing relationships.  At that time, marketing consisted of a dated website and an outbound program that consisted mainly of curating lists and sending emails on an ad hoc cadence with no tracking of intent over time–what some may call a “spray and pray” approach.

In late 2020, Anthony Davies joined Forrest Solutions as Chief Revenue Officer with a mandate to reintroduce the brand to the market and aggressively scale the business.

Anthony comments: “I knew if we were to be successful in meeting the remit of our growth objectives, marketing would have to be transformed. The existing marketing program was perceived as ineffective, but the CEO was open to investing and wanted to ensure we had a program that was built properly with a clear path to measure ROI.”

After a full investigation of the market and several competing agencies with areas of focus in legal, Forrest Solutions selected The Proxy Agency as their marketing partner.  Anthony adds: “We felt The Proxy Agency’s proposition was the only one that would help Forrest Solutions from top to bottom of funnel.”

90% of customers do their research on companies before they arrive in the funnel, and the place they go to is the internet. This means that digital assets that can be “self-serve” accessed by prospects is essential:  thought leadership including articles, white papers and survey reports; social media and in particular, LinkedIn; and, of course, a modern website that makes expertise, services and values easily accessible and digestible.

The Proxy team quickly kicked of a series of discovery sessions to collaborate with Forrest Solutions’ leadership to identify and define the market segmentation and messaging while simultaneously integrating Forrest Solutions’ key digital assets: CRM, contact databases, email marketing, social media, website design and analytics, etc., to build a top-to-bottom full marketing funnel strategy.

The output within 30 days was a verticalized approach with defined messaging to drive the top of the funnel in Legal, Advisory, Finance and Corporate verticals, a steady and persistent cadence of content generation and thought leadership to redefine the brand’s go-to messaging in the market around workplace experience, including what would become a trademarked acronym, WPX™.

In support of the thought leadership, Proxy built an email marketing cadence, and performed data cleansing on outdated lists to ensure the true value of thought leadership and the company’s new messaging would be consistently delivered to clients and prospects in appropriate channels, as well as marrying that email program with the company’s LinkedIn platform.

Importantly, LinkedIn was also identified in the early stages as the appropriate channel to broadcast the work of the company’s DEI committee, including creating a high value content engine for the committee’s selected celebrations and internal campaigns.

Lastly, to leapfrog awareness and generate inbound inquiries, the Proxy team also developed a Google Ads campaign leveraging the new messaging and rebrand of the workplace experience, WPX offering.

In the four years since Forrest Solutions invested in their marketing funnel, the company has more than tripled in size in terms of revenue and is now operating in 100 cities across the US with over 2000 employees.

Inbound marketing leads have grown from less than 10% to nearly 50% of net new business, creating a pipeline of significantly more closable leads.  “When a prospect rings you up and tells you all the reasons they need you, and it’s because we’ve done such a good job of explaining what we do, it’s easy to calculate the ROI on marketing,” Anthony adds.

For outbound lead gen, the sales team is empowered with high value collateral to ensure their interactions with prospects and clients create value, vastly improving close rates overall.

The website operates not only as one of the top lead generators, but as a source of truth that can be used to onboard new employees to introduce them to Forrest Solutions’ service areas and message to the market. “The website is now a definitive guide of our core service offerings, and provides clarity to employees, clients and prospects alike on exactly what we do.,” Anthony continues.

The Proxy team continuously manages the site, updating service areas to safeguard that source of truth, and adding thought leadership, articles and now podcasts.  Website engagement has soared YoY, doubling and tripling sessions and session times as prospects “self-serve” content and research competitors in the highly competitive space of outsourcing and staffing before ever getting on a Zoom meeting.

“The difference is today, before I walk into a meeting with a managing partner, they’ve already listened to a dozen webinars or podcasts, read four or five articles, and can describe Forrest Solutions’ value proposition to me before I have had to say a word.  That’s when you know the marketing funnel is working and doing its job.”

Anthony concludes:  “The transformation we’ve experienced is nothing short of remarkable. The Proxy team didn’t just help us reintroduce our brand; they revolutionized our entire approach to marketing. Their expertise and unwavering commitment have made them invaluable partners. Today, nearly 50% of our net new business comes from marketing-led leads—a testament to the power of their strategy and the excellence of their execution. We couldn’t have achieved this without them.”