Adrian John Ignacio isn’t new to the world of highly competitive PR & marketing agencies. Today he leads global PR agency, Baden Bower, and was formerly a journalist and writer for leading publications in his hometown. It’s an impressive career trajectory and his pr firm, Baden Bower, is truly unique in what it delivers.
Ignacio found his success taking a tailored approach to assisting smaller brands build their profile from scratch while gaining national momentum. More specifically, he opened the door for companies all over the world, including developing economies, to access global markets by building trust and credibility on leading news sites from London to New York, while helping them stay relevant to their target market at the same time.
As the world of business goes though, not everything is smooth sailing. Today Ignacio reflects on how his agency scored the biggest win in its history.
Started from the bottom, now we’re here
Ignacio says ”Google Ads was always an area of fascination for me, but the one experiment that always succeeded when I optimized a campaign was incorporating trust and credibility factors onto a landing page.”
“Sometimes, with a few logos of news sites, I could achieve a 2x increase in conversion rate,” he continued.
And how did he achieve the PR placements? Ignacio managed to earn top media placements through data driven publicity, analyzing trends to create statistically significant conclusions about various topics that he could attach to businesses he managed.
“Going head to head with other agencies that were much bigger than us, and beating them was something that always thrilled me. The adrenaline rush is unrivaled.”
“Fast track to 2022 and Baden Bower has helped over 1,000 small to medium brands create awareness among their audience,” he says.
Weathering a global economic storm
Launching a new business in an established industry is never smooth sailing even at the best of economic times. At the worst of times, say during a global pandemic, the challenges can be so dire that businesses could shut up shop in mere months.
Baden Bower launched with hyper-growth by offering something different.
“When Covid-19 hit, we saw a migration of clients away from traditional publicists to our unique model, which is guaranteed publication of news stories without pitching in the traditional sense,” he says.
Ignacio knew he was onto a winner as the firm won clients in 9 different countries in its first quarter.
“If we didn’t change the paradigm of charging customers a retainer, with no guarantee of performance, we would be in the red ocean of pr firms swimming in a race to the bottom.”
“We pioneered a unique pay per story model and started reaching out to a variety of industries that might be benefitting from Covid and lockdown – such as e-commerce brands. Our proven technique of landing guaranteed publicity on global news sites, coupled with my knowledge of landing page optimization, enabled our first clients to double their sales and halve their cost of conversion.”
It was this quick thinking that allowed Baden Bower to achieve consistent double digit CAGR and bought Ignacio some time to adjust to the new economic climate. It was also a move that came with its own risks.
“The biggest risk we took was relying solely on our performance, rather than contractually sticking clients with lock-ins. The pay off worked however. I have never enjoyed such rapid growth in any company I’ve been associated with. And our clients are delighted with the immediacy of the results and the speed in which a news story about their brand gets published in mainstream media.”
Success becomes addictive
With the darker days of the pandemic behind them, there’s only reflection left when it comes to seeing how far Baden Bower has come against insurmountable obstacles.
If Ignacio could repeat his journey, what would be the one thing he’d do differently?
“I would have started Baden Bower 10 years ago,” he says.
“Even though there is nothing inherently broken with traditional pr firms, they don’t deliver as often as they claim. Clients are often stuck paying monthly fees with few results. I knew this wasn’t an optimal model for most companies.”
Baden Bower is a pr agency with strong capabilities in press relations and guaranteed editorial coverage for companies and brands in any vertical. It is the leading global PR agency with a specialization in guaranteed placement of news stories across internationally recognized news brands.
