Invictus Media

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Nagenahira Beach Villas is a boutique hotel located on the East coast of Sri Lanka. We cater to a niche customer who wants a total beach experience with luxury rooms with a typical chilled out beach vibe. I am the owner of the hotel.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Invictus Media?

Invictus was hired for designing and developing a web site with a booking system. Developing our Social Media reach using Instagram and Facebook and created compelling content through video and photo shoots.

What were your goals for this project?

To modernize our brand. To effectively communicate with customers through digital media

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

By positive recommendation and referral

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

We wanted a face lift of our brand, through developing a responsive and aesthetic website, and increasing brand awareness through growing social media accounts organically and creating engaging content through photo and video shoots.

What was the team composition?

There were 7 people involved , a project manager, web developer, graphic designer , social media manager , and a copy writer, a videographer, a photographer The number of the team stayed the same

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We have noted higher brand awareness through exceptional engagement rates on Instagram. Less than average bounce rates on the website. Website conversions from European visitors. Increased brand awareness through organic social media was our main goal and this was achieved beyond our expectations. There has been more organic engagement on content and increase in direct messages from guests as well as increased website conversions.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They communicated quite well scheduling regular meetings and deliverables were presented ahead of schedule. The vendor simplified complex topics.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

This company presented dynamic and fresh ideas, provided exceptional value for the price, and made the whole process seamless and enjoyable.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Everything they did was extremely satisfactory and we would recommend them highly to other businesses.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Event Productions Pvt. Ltd. is a professional event management company based in Sri Lanka. We’re a family business, and I’m the director. Most of the work we do is corporate events, from product launches to big international conferences, gala dinners, and cocktails.

We also offer a lot of production-related services, including lighting, sound, and AV. Right now, because lockdown is restricting us from working in physical spaces, we’re working on some online platforms and VR software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Invictus Media?

Even though we’ve been around for 30 years, we’ve never done any marketing; all of our work is through word of mouth and the vast majority of our clients are long-term clients. Over the years, the market has become pretty saturated, so we needed help standing out.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We brought Invictus Media in for our marketing strategy, mainly social media and our website. Invictus also came in to help us with our marketing data, to see how we could translate general ads into actual leads. In short, the aim was to up our presence and marketing in Sri Lanka.

Invictus Media manages our corporate pages on Facebook and Instagram, including general content creation. I’ve also fed them lots of content off the work I’ve done, which they would clean up and post. We give them a budget for Facebook Ads and things like that.

The team also completely revamped our website, giving us pretty much a fresh take. 

What is the team composition?

Anan (CEO) was my main contact person, and there were 5–6 people from Invictus in total, including copywriters, people who managed content and pictures, and developers, who worked with us on cleaning the website up and explaining things to us.

How did you come to work with Invictus Media?

We didn’t search for companies—my sister knew Anan through a connection, and she told me about the work he was doing. I’d told her that I was looking for a young team to handle my social media and things like that. She gave me 2–3 contacts, and I picked Invictus Media out of those.

How much have you invested with them?

The website cost about $1,000. For the social media management, I paid about 60,000 Sri Lankan rupees (approximately $320 USD) a month. In addition to that, I’ve given them $50–$80 for Facebook Ads.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Invictus Media in December 2018 or January 2019.

We’ve just launched the new site, and we’re making a few changes here and there, since we have some downtime now as we’ve been going through a bit of a rough patch. Invictus is still onboard, but I’ve held up work until I get on my feet again.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We haven’t used any tools for tracking metrics, but we’ve noticed that Invictus’ work has translated to quite a few leads. I started getting quite a few inquiries four months after I brought Invictus onboard, from people who’d seen our ads. Not all of those converted into clients, but I did see an increase in inquiries. Also, our social media presence was pretty bad beforehand, and Invictus picked it up quite a bit when they came on board.

How did Invictus Media perform from a project management standpoint?

I haven’t had any issues with deadlines. I’m a very busy person, and sometimes they were in touch with me more than I was able to respond.. They were on the ball probably a bit more than I wanted, but they were quite effective. I wanted a young team because I knew they’d be proactive. There are lots of big social media companies in Sri Lanka, but I didn’t want to get forgotten in the mix. Invictus has paid quite a bit of attention to us during the collaboration.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve learned a lot from Anan on the marketing side of things, in terms of how we can turn ads into actual inquiries. He taught me a lot about what we could do and gave me lots of ideas on how to post, how to maintain continuity in the content, and other effective strategies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would’ve liked to give Anan and his team a lot more of my time since I know that they pushed me a lot in the last year to get a few things done, which I didn’t both because of time and because I didn’t want to invest any more than what we had. 

For example, they wanted to get involved in our actual marketing strategy. I wouldn’t say there were any problems where I had to call and shout at them. We’ve had a pretty good dialogue going on, and, even though we don’t currently work together, Aman still reaches out to me, asking to get things done for us. That’s good, but I don’t have enough going right now to directly work with them.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

This is a bit of a tough one, because Aman advised me a lot on how to work together, as opposed to the other way around. They were quite proactive in coming up with what we should post based on the engagement from the previous month.

I don’t think I’d change too much about how we worked with each other. They were quite smooth, and I really don’t have another company to compare them with.