Leadhub

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are an installation retrofit air conditioning company. We also offer plumbing solutions. We've been in business for around 30 years and have an expected revenue of $9 million for 2016. We've had revenues of $5 million and $3 million for 2015, and 2014 respectively.

What is your position?

I am a co-owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Leadhub?

We wanted to gain more business through SEO [search engine optimization] and search engine marketing.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

I own multiple businesses within different industries. Leadhub act as my primary agency for another business involved in dust and pest control as well. They built our original site and offer us organic SEO, pay-per-click, and blog writing services on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. We've also dabbled in things like Facebook advertising.

How did you come to work with Leadhub?

I was a programmer in the past. When I bought my current business, it wasn't doing very well. It had a maxed-out line of credit, so we didn't have a lot of money for hiring an SEO agency. I did that myself and obtained some good rankings. I would spend multiple hours on the site and tried to manage the business. Eventually, I had to farm out digital marketing to someone. I went through many companies, and it seemed that every high school kid with a laptop thought he or she was an SEO expert.

I couldn't find a good company to turn the work to but, at the same time, I didn't have the time to do it myself. I also didn't want to use our competitors' companies because they were losing to us when it came to rankings and keywords. I interviewed 20 to 25 companies. I met Leadhub at a conference in Texas. Someone who had used them in the past introduced me to them. I was skeptical, but I called them and found that they offered exactly what we needed. They were on top of things and figured out ways to overcome the obstacles that I was dealing with. At a certain point, I flew down to Texas to visit their facilities. I was worried about turning any kind of responsibility to another company, because 80 to 85 percent of our business comes through online advertising.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The combined cost of their services is between $50,000 and $200,000 annually. I plan to spend around $25,000 to $30,000 this year for my pest control company and more than $30,000 for the air conditioning business.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work is ongoing for my pest control business. I had to make a change to my air conditioning company six months ago because of a prior business agreement. After this is finalized, Leadhub will go back to taking care of all my marketing. I don't have any plans to stop. I don't say this about many vendors, given that I work with around 100 of them for supply, marketing, graphic design, and so on, but I only recommend three companies without reservations. Leadhub is one of them. I recommend them to anyone. My budget with them has doubled year after year to include more services. Every time I track our business, I find that they've delivered. The agency I'm still using at this time, until their contract expires, charges just as much and gives half the return. As soon as I can get rid of them, I will.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We were the number one result for two keyword search terms. We were the first result for only one term within Google Places. With Leadhub, we went from that to having six or seven keyword search terms show us as the first results. I can't think of a search term relevant to our local area for which we're not number one in Google Places. This drastically improved our call volume. When we first started working with Leadhub, our annual sales were $1.8 million. This year, we expect to have around $9 million worth of sales. We have not increased our Internet advertising budget in order to achieve this goal. In fact, we've decreased it. Leadhub are responsible for all of our Internet spend.

How did Leadhub perform from a project management standpoint?

SEO aside, they are specialists in what they do. I try to tell people in our industry to get the fact that we're an air conditioning company out of their heads. We're a customer service company first, and happen to be good at air conditioning. Leadhub have realized the same principle within the Internet marketing world: customer service is first.

What distinguishes Leadhub from other providers?

When I would contact previous companies I'd worked with for making updates and changes to the site, it wasn't guaranteed they'd get back to me within a week. Leadhub react within the same day and give me regular reports through email. My general manager and marketing person love them. I can trust Leadhub to do what's in my best interests. Doing what needs to be done right away matters to me more than results.

Is there anything Leadhub could have improved or done differently?

Site build-out times could be improved. I talked to them about this and they told me that they don't want to grow too fast, otherwise they wouldn't continue to deliver the same level of service that I've come to appreciate about them. Hiring and training people is tough, but I still need them to grow faster. They've built three sites for three different companies for me so far. Leadhub usually require three to six weeks of development, even for simple projects. They'll have to find ways to bring people on and maintain their growth at a regular pace.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a physical rehabilitation center for athletes located in San Antonio, Texas.

What is your position?

I am the vice president of public relations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Leadhub?

We aim to get a higher ranking for physical therapy related searches within our area.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail.

They provide an extensive search engine optimization [SEO] and website management effort for us. Leadhub hosts our website and writes blog posts for our company. We engage in paid advertising as well as organic SEO with them.

How did you come to work with Leadhub?

We have worked with their owner in the past. He is part of the same entrepreneurial group as one of our owners. We bid several different companies a few years ago, when we were looking to start this process and dive into the world of internet marketing. We met with Leadhub as well as several other groups. We felt that they could do the best job for us, and at the best price. They were also local and had good references.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Our annual cost of working with Leadhub is between $10-50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our project is ongoing. We work with Leadhub through a monthly contract. We've been collaborating with them for the last two to three years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The work has been successful. Our name has been coming up within the first two results of relevant organic searches. Leadhub deals in a lot of what I would call “stalker ads”, or retargeting, which present personalized ads based on the sites a user has visited. A competitor of ours was recently complaining that we were showing up ahead of them within a town in which we don’t even operate. This is solely to do with the SEO that we employ.

How did Leadhub perform from a project management standpoint?

Their company does not have a lot of staff turnover and we've consistently worked with the same people during our collaboration. They've been there for us and have come to know what we want. I like that I'm not simply turned over to whoever the new person might be. Other companies we've worked with would pass us off to the new account manager constantly. This comes with a loss of focus. We would need to train that new employee. With Leadhub, if anything, we've had additional staff assigned to our account simply because we're a larger group. When that new person was brought on, she already knew all that there was to know about us. I didn't have to reintroduce myself.

What distinguishes Leadhub from other providers?

I also feel that Leadhub has made the time to meet with me. They've typically been the ones who requested meetings, not me. They always bring in new suggestions for what we should try. Again, this is atypical for the vendors we've used. Leadhub is a great group to work with. Every person I've spoken to in their company carried the same customer-oriented values.

I also appreciate that they're honest. If we ever came across a major issue, I know that I could go to Leadhub and ask what happened, no matter whose mistake it might have been. They would be honest and give me an accurate depiction, instead of trying to cover it up. Technology is not my main specialization, but Leadhub is by my side, ready to explain things to me. I can use their team in order to brainstorm ideas, instead of them trying things out independently, or being too afraid to bring something to me.

We're a physical training company. Our one and only focus is helping people receive the best care possible. IT is not a forte for us, so Leadhub's honesty is appreciated even more because of this. I always felt that other companies we worked with overpromised and under-delivered. The pricing that we're quoted initially will usually tend to be in the low end of the spectrum, ignoring hidden charges and fees. I've never been surprised by anything while working with Leadhub. There are no added fees in our collaboration.

Is there anything Leadhub could have improved or done differently?

As I've mentioned, our field is physical training. Leadhub's specialization is obviously different from ours. Sometimes, as a result, the blog writing they provide for us is weaker than we'd like. Right now, they've limited themselves to pitching ideas for us and let us know ahead of time what we should write about. We both had to realize each other's role over time. They can write a great blog post, but they still need our content in the end. We work together and make sure that they get all the clinical content that they need in order to make a relevant post for our end consumers. Aside from this, I can't think of anything that we're unhappy with.