Whilst 2020 has been a bit of a topsy turvy year so far, we have to say that, we’re also incredibly lucky that it’s brought us some incredible new clients; one of which is Practical Change Partners, an HR Solutions company based in St. Albans.
We first met HR gurus, Claire and Jo, the owners of Practical Change Partners way back in January at a ‘Jelly’ networking event where they introduced themselves and told us how they had been finding it a struggle to articulate their business proposition. At the end of the event, Emma offered to help them work through their business storytelling over a coffee at the Slug and Lettuce (which happens to be just opposite our office FYI….we’re always very happy to take prospect & current clients out for a coffee/cocktail to discuss their marketing challenges!).
All it took was Coffee and a chat…
At the end of the meeting, we identified that their main challenge was defining succinctly how they had helped HR Directors with organisational change and people challenges – they tended to arrive to complete one task and continue working across all HR and change areas of the business, which was tricky to explain in an elevator pitch!
We’re pleased to say that Claire and Jo felt in safe hands and enlisted the services of the OnBrand team to help them develop their comms and marketing plans.
The Approach: Looking through the eyes of the Consumer…
We needed to help Claire and Jo get their comms right, so that businesses could easily understand their offering and feel assured that, working with them, would mean working with two highly experienced HR professionals.
We really like the idea of positioning Claire and Jo as the ‘glue’ to help fix the gaps in the HR Director’s day to day delivery – whether through being in too many meetings, not quite having the right team to deliver, or simply needing experienced HR professionals to take on the challenges and get board level buy-in to deliver new data systems, leadership training or recruitment programmes.
Next, we established that the overall reason for businesses to invest in the services of Practical Change Partners; it became clear that this was, ultimately, to achieve accelerated business success.
Once we had defined the ‘what’ and why’, we decided there was a need to break things down even further in order to make their offering as consumer friendly and easy as possible to digest.
With this in mind, we created 6 core product areas to explain each separate HR discipline that Practical Change Partners could help with so that businesses can easily identify which area of their specialism is most likely to help them. Sometimes it’s about putting yourself in the shoes of the consumer and working out what they need to see and understand, in order to make an investment decision.
Finally, we redefined their proposition from a general sounding ‘HR & Change Solutions’ to a more end-goal focused ‘Joining the dots on your HR strategy: We turn complex people challenges into accelerated business success’ – elevator pitch = nailed!! 😉
Once the positioning was agreed and we had clear consumer-friendly content pillars, it was time to get busy bringing everything to life across the Practical Change Partners marketing channels.
- We updated their website from a simple 1 page brochure style structure to bespoke pages and site navigation that promoted their 6 core product areas, with an improved customer proposition and journey for prospects arriving at the site to understand what they could deliver, past success stories and high profile customer testimonials to reinforce their expertise and delivery
- We updated plug-ins, created SEO improvements and developed more detailed editorial copy to improve organic page ranking, as well as engaging content
- We created a 1 pager PDF as a new business tool, plus a rebranded PowerPoint deck that could be used for client proposals and further explanations of the company proposition.
Then it was time to tell the world….
- We then moved on to social media strategy, creating brand content pillars, rebranding the LinkedIn company and personal pages, and developing a content plan that could easily be delivered alongside their day to day client work.
The Results: Drum Roll Please….
LinkedIn followers grew from 431% (and counting!) in just the first month!
That’s not all though, we’re pleased to say we now have the pleasure of working with this dynamic duo on a retained basis on their new business growth strategy – right now, we’re focussed on helping them target specific industry sectors using things such as past case studies, customer testimonials and topical introductions…busy busy!
2 More Happy Customers…
Here’s what Jo from Practical Change Partners had to say about working with OnBrand….
“We are a relatively new business, and one of our challenges was how to get clear on our brand proposition so we could explain our products to potential clients. On Brand helped us explain our offer and develop our brand, collateral and contact strategy. What has worked really well is their ability to chunk the work into straightforward and logical steps while challenging us to take brave steps forward. Together we have tackled website content, LinkedIn following and direct marketing in ways that work for us from a time, cost and confidence perspective.
I would highly recommend them to any business looking for a fresh, innovative way of creating the right brand messaging. Experts in their field, they are challenging, positive and encouraging and we have been really happy with the progress we’ve made.”
We’re pretty chuffed to be working with Practical Change Partners too…
OnBrand Director, Daniel Graham says,
“We’re delighted to broaden our local St Albans client base, particularly in the B2B sector, and Practical Change Partners were one of our first new local clients as soon as we moved our agency to St Albans. They are a delight to work with as their marketing partner, and we look forward to helping them expand their business over the next year”
So there you have it. Another St. Albans success story.
If you’d like to be our next success story, get in touch for an initial chat….drop us an email: [email protected] or give us a call on 03333 220022……(and, importantly, don’t forget to tell us whether you’d rather meet for coffee or cocktails 😉 )
