History & Awards

History

Erickson • McLellan was launched by Drew McLellan and Jana Erickson in 1995. We started out like all agencies begin — in someone’s basement. We quickly grew our business, reputation and team and had to move into real office space. (Sure we had the pop-a-shot and a fridge full of beer — we’re an agency!)

Between 1995 and 2003, the agency flourished and we earned clients all over the country. Jana decided to leave the agency in 2003 and we re-branded as McLellan Marketing Group.

We spent the first decade of our existence establishing our national expertise in:

  • Creating, launching and invigorating brands
  • Financial marketing (banks, credit unions, financial planners, insurance and those companies who sell into those industries)
  • Lead generation/sales
  • Client retention/growth
  • Social selling/Content strategies

Since 2004 — we’ve continued to elevate our expertise, grow our clients’ businesses and serve our community through our Adopt a Charity program.

We’re sneaking up on our 25th anniversary and we couldn’t be more excited about the industry, our work and what’s coming next.

Awards

Over the past 20+ years, we’ve won oodles of Addys, FMA and ABA marketing awards, Shortys, EFFIEs, and other industry honors.  That’s always a nice pat on the back.  We were even given a key to our city, which still hangs on our wall. (it doesn’t actually open anything — we’ve tried!)

But the awards that actually matter to us are:

From our clients’ perspective:

  • We have several clients who have been working with us for over 20 years.  Some have stayed in the same job that whole time and others have moved employers and states — and still retain us.  That loyalty is the best award we could ask for.
  • The bottom line. We don’t do our work because we are artists. We do our work to drive leads and sales for our clients. There’s no more tangible award than seeing their organizations thrive, sell more, serve more customers and create new opportunities for the internal team.

From our agency’s perspective:

  • Our average tenure of staff is 13 years.  In an industry where the turn over is less than 3 years, we take that as a huge compliment and a huge benefit for our clients who enjoy our consistency and seamless work flow that has been honed for years.
  • We were the proud recipients of the Better Business Bureau’s Integrity Award
  • MMG was named one of Central Iowa’s Best Places to Work (under 25 employees category)