Adweek released its prestigious list of 2022’s fastest growing agencies, and we’re excited to share that SalientMG (SMG) is ranked #16 nationally, #6 among women-owned agencies and #4 in the Northeast.
Agencies that receive this recognition have scaled significantly over the past three years, a not-so-simple feat as we’ve all experienced a worldwide pandemic and global economic turbulence. Despite these macro factors at play, our footprint has grown remarkably, which we attribute to our fierce dedication to our mission: helping early and growth-stage startups grow in real and measurable ways by giving them the marketing foundations, expertise, and tools to have outsized market impact.
“Agencies that grow successfully go beyond just knowing ‘who’ or ‘what’ they are. They know their ‘why’ and take that purpose to that next level,” said Mack McKelvey, Founder and CEO of SMG. “We absolutely could not have had this level of growth without our incredible clients and stellar team.”
Our mission is an important one. It’s been the core of our business since Mack founded SMG in 2013, and our clients, team, partners and Advisory Board are critical to our continued success in achieving it.
Positioning Clients as Market Leaders Using Their Salient Points
From Fintech to Govtech to Edtech to SaaS to Martech to Drones to HealthTech and beyond, our clients span all facets of B2B technology. While their offerings differ, they share a thread that makes them an ideal partner: their products and solutions transform industries.
We’re particular about the clients we work with because we want to make a real impact. Through our partnership, we transform our clients’ marketing organizations into growth engines for their respective industries. How do we do this? We dig deep into the strategic part of marketing — launching solutions, driving product adoption, understanding growth levers, and ultimately helping our clients understand what it will take to lead their respective markets.
After identifying our clients’ “salient points,” we create holistic strategies to leverage them to create growth drivers. While marketing can be a growth engine for companies of all sizes, it’s not one size fits all. That’s why our experts lean on data-informed best practices to propose and deliver the right marketing mix for every client. Then, we roll up our sleeves and turn these action plans into reality.
This work has a profound impact for our clients. By helping them scale, our clients create valuable brands that get them that much closer to their desired goals, whether that’s going public or having sustained long-term profits.
“SMG is the complete package. After coming highly recommended, we have worked with them on marketing strategy, content, and design,” said Jonathan Greenlee, VP of Sales and Marketing at Sparkfly. “Their experts execute flawlessly.”
Combining Expertise to Transform Industries
With 250-plus years of combined experience, our team delivers robust solutions including product marketing, demand generation, content marketing, marketing operations, field marketing and executive visibility. This breadth of expertise makes a real difference for our clients from a growth, revenue, and business impact perspective.
And as our client list grows, so does our team. But we’re doing so in a strategic way that allows us to grow and be nimble with our offering while maintaining our collaborative approach to work.
“We are fully remote, and have been for more than six years; yet collaboration and transparency are at the core of what we do. Our team ensures that every project gets the total weight of our combined experience,” said McKelvey. “Everyone on the team is exposed to marketing expertise far beyond their own. We subscribe to continuous learning and there’s nothing like hands-on osmosis for marketers to continuously hone and grow their skills.”
This year, we are doubling down on our team and we are expanding capability. We’ve hired nine individuals to our team of senior doers. With this measured growth, we have team members who want to make an impact and thrive in an increasingly changing industry. That’s what sparked the interest of SMG’s Director of Demand Generation, Amanda Klitsch to join SMG.
“Initially, I was thinking I was ready to move to the client/brand side, but I’d grown to love the fast-paced changing environment that comes with agency work,” she said. “When I met the SMG team and heard how they collaborate and how everyone brings such interesting expertise to the table, I knew I was on the right path.”
Having diversity of thought is vitally important to us as it translates to more creativity and better overall work. When adding a team member, we seek individuals who also prioritize inclusion, diversity, and belonging, including Yasmeen Johnson, Executive Media Relations Manager, who joined SMG last year.
“I get to work in the tech field and with more clients of color, which has always been a dream of mine and I honestly thought it was going to remain as a pipe dream,” said Yasmeen. “I knew SMG was a company that I wanted to be a part of because it followed through with its claims about supporting better representation in tech by regularly posting about people of color in and out of the industry.”
We have so much more work to do. We want to work with more female, BIPOC, LGBTQ and disabled executives and their organizations.
With an ever-growing group of experts, our possibilities are endless. We’ll continue to innovate, learn from each other, and ultimately make a splash for our clients and our industry at large.