How did the collaboration start?
Although it took extra work to get an overview of the competitive situation on Google 7 years ago, Rasmus could see that action was needed. Competitors were getting bigger and getting most of the visibility on Google. Rasmus learned that one of their competitors had collaborated with Henning Madsen, so why reinvent the wheel when you can see that something works. Rasmus contacted Henning to see if a collaboration was possible. Fortunately, it was possible, as the collaboration with the competitor was only a start-up project and therefore not in conflict with a collaboration within the same industry.
But for Rasmus and Spies, it's not just about finding the right skills - it's also very much about partnership: "The most important thing was whether there was a match. When we at Spies work with someone, no matter who it is, both parties must get something out of it. In addition, there must be chemistry and mutual understanding that you are working for the same cause" says Rasmus Panduro.
Therefore, the beginning of the collaboration was also a long talk about how it could best work. Among other things, it was important to make a plan for how both internal and external competencies could be utilized in the best possible way. "We are not an easy customer. We have many requirements for our partner. We were sitting with our own marketing department and copywriters, and a single dedicated SEO employee. So the need was really to figure out - how do we grow this together. Pretty quickly we found out what we were good at and what Henning was good at. This allowed us to put a team together and make a plan for how the collaboration would work best" says Rasmus Panduro.
What ultimately kick-started the collaboration and laid the foundation for a fantastic multi-year partnership was the flexibility and understanding that Spies was met with: "Henning was exceptionally good at understanding our needs and very good at understanding our situation and strengths, both business-wise and organizationally. What we had experienced with other agencies was that they had a hard time understanding us and how we work organizationally. But Henning wasn't preconceived at all, and was more concerned with - what are you good at and how can we utilize that and what are we missing to make the whole palette work."
How did the collaboration develop?
With chemistry and a good foundation in place, a pragmatic approach was needed. It wasn't the whole world that needed saving all at once, but one (strategic) step at a time: what works now and what needs work in the long term. Therefore, a plan was made for which tasks should remain in-house with the company's own SEO employee and how the strategic work should proceed in parallel. "Our SEO employee took care of the very technical and operational part. Henning and I could take care of the strategic part. At the same time, the team InboundCPH provided could deliver the part of the package that primarily consisted of quick wins."
Because the collaboration was focused on good chemistry from the start, an honest and open tone, it produced a partnership that was transparent and trust-based. This made it easy to utilize resources in the smartest way: "At one point we said to Henning "you don't need to make those reports, we have a very good handle on that ourselves and we can do Google analytics ourselves. You need to tell us what tools we need and how to use them. But don't spend your resources on something we can do ourselves. That openness and transparency made the collaboration work"
With the strategic overview in place and a growing visibility, Spies could slowly start to better equip their own employees with the right tools. The company had a plug and play solution that allowed them to optimize their internal resources. The tasks that Spies didn't have time for, such as keeping up to date with the latest Google updates, InboundCPH took care of.
"What the collaboration has evolved into is that we ourselves have become stronger and stronger, and our own SEO employee has gained more skills. In this way, we are slowly transforming ourselves to handle new things and get the right skills".
From a Danish to a Nordic collaboration
Over the years, Spies has gone from being a Danish company to a Nordic organization. This means that they have been able to pass on their learnings.
This also means that InboundCPH is not only a partner in Denmark, but a partner for the entire Nordic organization. Expanding into new markets meant that the collaboration and strategy had to be rethought for Spies to succeed: "What is very characteristic of InboundCPh was to say - if you're going to work with SEO in Sweden, you need to find someone local who knows the local market. Instead of just saying we'll take it and risk that it went wrong. We really appreciate the honesty and focus on what InboundCPH could and could not help with. What InboundCPH could solve was to keep us updated on Google updates, link building and site hygiene".
Results from the collaboration
Together with InboundCPH, Spies had developed a commercial model where the driving force was not visibility and traffic per se, but commercial gain. The partnership with InboundCPH has meant that the company has strengthened their SEO know-how and that they can draw on learnings that they would never have been able to do on their own before. In addition, they now have an advisor who is ready to guide them on how to solve different problems.
In addition, from the start, some simple goals were set for what was to be achieved through the collaboration: "Quite simply, we wanted to be the best in Denmark in terms of visibility in the travel industry. That was our goal. We didn't have a time horizon, but we were aiming for within a year. The most important result is that we have achieved that visibility and we are now number 1 in 3 Scandinavian countries."
What is the most important thing about our collaboration?
When you ask Rasmus what the most important thing is in terms of collaboration, you get a thoughtful and insightful answer: "It's about trust, transparency, mutual understanding and respect. There is no one world champion here - we are world champions together. I have three mantras I work with. One is unpretentious - meaning that we are all part of a process to make this happen. The second is clarity (transparent), the third is offensive - and it fits really well with InboundCPH and our collaboration. What InboundCPH has been really good at is understanding our issues and our challenges."
