01332 343281 info@jdrgroup.co.uk
Make an Enquiry

The Challenge

David Howard is an accountancy firm based in the South-West of England. We have been working with them since 2019 to improve their digital marketing and online presence. 

The company had two growth strategies. 1. Growth through acquisitions. 2. Growth through inbound and lead generation. The more sustainable route to achieving their growth plans was through inbound marketing as it was less time-consuming for the senior management who wanted to spend their time more on staff development and recruitment.

However, the business was facing some challenges with their website:

  • Their Wordpress site was losing traction - they lost 273 keywords they previously ranked for from 2023-2024
Google-updates-screenshot-david-howard
  • Their website wasn’t easily editable
  • Their website traffic was at a plateau
page-views-david-howard

If this decline and plateau continued, the company risked falling back to relying solely on the acquisition model, which consumed the directors' time and went against their goals.

Other challenges were related to their marketing: 

Unable To Measure Google Ads Investment

They couldn’t effectively measure the impact of their investment in Google Ads on the business they were winning, which meant they were unable to decide whether to continue scaling up Google ads or whether they should reduce budgets

Unable To Prioritise Leads Needing Individual Follow Up

Their database was growing, with over 150 new contacts being added per month, but as a small team they weren’t able to prioritise which leads needed individual follow-up vs. automated follow up, meaning many leads simply were not followed up and business was lost

count-of-contacts-david-howard

The Solution

We knew that we could use HubSpot’s Marketing Hub (which they already had, but used on a low level), and HubSpot’s Content Hub (which was new to them) to effectively solve all of their challenges and enable them to enter a new phase of growth.

To resolve their website challenges we:

Replatformed The Website

Replatformed their website into Content Hub and integrated SEO best practices into the build from the outset to overcome the challenges with the Google updates and allow them to rank for more keywords again

A/B Testing

Re-designed high traffic pages to prioritise conversion and used A/B testing through Content Hub to make data-led decisions on what worked well to enable better lead generation

1:1 Training

Provided extensive 1:1 training to their internal team on how to edit the website through the drag and drop editor in HubSpot to allow them to push changes through quickly and easily

Re-structured top nav

Re-structured their top navigation to prioritise user experience to impact lead generation

David-Howard-Website-Page

To resolve their other challenges we: 

  • Created new reporting dashboards, linking their Google Ads account through Marketing Hub to the deals they were creating on the HubSpot CRM so that they could attribute revenue to their ads and make better decisions on scaling
  • Implemented lead scoring through Marketing Hub to enable them to see which leads had engaged most highly with their nurturing workflow emails so that they could prioritise their individualised follow-up of these leads

These changes were made over the course of 9 months. This allowed them time to embed the training on the new CMS platform across their team, enabling them to make much-needed content changes to their website which hadn’t been updated fully in years. 

We also needed to make sure their growth was sustainable during this period, so that their internal team and structures could handle the volume of new leads and customers without challenge through the use of marketing automation with workflows. 

tofu-engaged-contact-score

The Results

The combination of a refreshed website on Content Hub, and renewed reporting and prioritisation through Marketing Hub enabled the David Howard team to achieve record growth through 2024. 

david-howard-contacts-monthly

In Just One Year:

49%

Traffic
Increased

25%

Website Conversion Rate Increased

86%

Leads
Increased

57%

New Deals
Increased

45%

Revenue
Increased

23%

Average Won Deal Amount Increased

The new website has enabled them to completely transform how well they are able to convert traffic into leads, meaning that their lead generation rate has increased significantly faster than their traffic, building them a fantastic pipeline for the year ahead. 

Content Hub’s powerful A/B testing tools and JDR’s conversion experts have worked together to ensure that the website is optimised for their ideal customer, with offers and layouts driven by the data gathered as part of the testing. 

The new user experience on the website, and the ability of the David Howard team to prioritise their leads better has also meant that their average deal size has increased significantly.

They are now able to win bigger and more difficult opportunities, as their positioning in the market has changed. 

The Impact

"The work JDR have done through HubSpot has had an amazing effect for our business.

I could not rate more highly in terms of professionalism, understanding of our business and goals, skills, knowledge and proactive ideas, all delivered with personality."

David-Howard-Team
Simon Bishop,
partner at David Howard Accountants
david-howard-icon-aim-green
SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
The impact on David Howard’s business has been significant. Their increased lead numbers, and the increased deal size has meant that they have taken on new staff to cope with the volume of work coming in. This sustainable growth was a key aim for them at the start of 2024. This has also given them the confidence to continue to grow into the future, as they have the data, systems, and structure in place to support this now. 
 
David-Howard-groth-icon-blue
INVESTMENT IN STAFF DEVELOPMENT
They avoided the costly, time-consuming process of buying a new practice in 2024. Instead, inbound marketing brought enough new clients to achieve record growth for the first time in their history. This has freed up the directors’ time to invest in their staff development, rather than paperwork. This is essential to their continued growth in the coming years, as their staff will be able to take on even more customers, meaning we can continue to grow the business.
David-Howard-Google-Ads-Icon-Orange
SCALABLE ADS INVESTMENT
The new reporting has given David Howard the confidence to more than double their investment into Google Ads, as they are now able to see with clarity the revenue that this is bringing. This has enabled a scalable solution that will allow them to replicate their record-growth year-on-year with further investment into paid advertising. 
 
 
 

Other case studies

Electrical engineer worker trained by a Specialist Technical Training Provider
Posted By  Andy Gibbins

Case Study: Specialist Technical Training Provider Doubles Website Leads & Hits Key Revenue Goal

16-10-2024

Inbound marketing is an effective way to grow website traffic, leads and enquiries for any type of business, whether you are a product-based sales company or a service business. This case study provides an overview of our work with a specialist technical..

Read More

Plasterer from a family-run plastering equipment business smoothing interior wall with machine
Posted By  Will Williamson

SME Marketing Case Study: Our Work With A Family-Run Plastering Equipment Business

14-10-2024

SME business owners are often forced to wear many different hats, and in family-run businesses, this can include marketing, on top of customer service, financial admin, and HR, as well as delivering the business’s primary service. In this case study, we..

Read More