Clickingmad Ltd.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of marketing at an independent financial advisory firm. We work with individuals and corporate clients.

What challenge were you trying to address with Clickingmad Ltd?

We hired them for web development and SEO services. We needed a website that could appeal to our growing client base after a period of rapid growth.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They did a complete rebuild of our website, this included mostly new content. We worked collaboratively to generate new content. The website was built using Joomla. They’re hosting the website for us as well. 

We’re about to begin SEM including advertising in the near future. This will include Google Ads. 

What is the team composition?

I worked closely with the CEO and most of their staff. 

How did you come to work with Clickingmad Ltd?

I worked with Sean at a previous company. I was impressed with their work, so they were my go-to agency for this project. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together at the end of 2019, and we launched the website in June 2020. We’re still working with them for SEO and SEM. 

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

It’s early days, however, we’ve had positive feedback from our existing clients and our internal team. 

How did Clickingmad Ltd perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was excellent. They delivered on time and did everything we asked them to do. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They go way beyond expectations in terms of adding value to the project. They dig deep to understand the requirements and scope. The team is very collaborative. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’ve been overall very pleased. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers? 

Work with them as an extension of your own team. Treat them as a peer and colleague. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Shaylor Group is a principal contractor throughout the United Kingdom. We handle construction, interior fit out, repair, maintenance, and heritage construction projects on a scale of up to £40 million. I’m the head of communications and marketing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Clickingmad Ltd?

We needed a brand-new website. When I came into my role, I inherited a very old website with an ugly design that wasn’t very engaging. The company that provided it established an ongoing relationship before my time at the company.

The website was a build and deliver option, so we couldn’t access it or edit it. The previous company had to handle editing, and they charged for it. I found that their service wasn’t good. They often didn’t do what we asked of them and took a long time to do any work. I didn’t have my own team and knew it would be a tremendous draw on my time and resources. Clickingmad made everything so simple.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I’ve never worked in the construction industry before, and my goal was to present a website with a construction-themed design, emphasizing a mix of architecture, design, and building skills. I wanted it to be more professional, slick, and imaged-based to make our company stand out. I had very strong concepts of our corporate branding and how our site should reflect that.

I gave initial briefs to Clickingmad and they were very good at asking questions. For instance, they wanted to know where I wanted the logo placed on the site. Nothing was left to chance. We drilled down to a detailed brief, and the designer took that and sent me back a dozen designs.

Every page has slightly different design aspects. I chose what I wanted for each page and tweaked the design as needed. I never felt like I was bothering Clickingmad with my changes—they were always very accommodating. They sent every page for final signoff before we proceeded to populate and add content.

I wanted a built-in interactive map that showed every live construction project we had throughout the country, as well as projects that were coming up. That feature cost about 50% of the going price. A lot of companies I met with in the beginning said it couldn’t be done or that it would mean a significant cost.

They’ve also helped with some websites for spinoff companies that we work with and our charity foundation. They’ve helped me run Google AdWords campaigns and have advised me on everything.

What is the team dynamic?

I worked with a couple of designers along with Shaun [Managing Director, Clickingmad, Ltd] and Ivet [Sales Manager, Clickingmad, Ltd]. Every member of their team is really attentive.

How did you come to work with Clickingmad Ltd?

In my role, I receive a lot of sales literature and introductions from external agencies. I was keeping a directory of web developers so that I would be ready when the project was approved. Clickingmad was one of the companies who reached out to me.

I had a very fixed price from our board of directors and went through a thorough search process, including top agencies from London. I narrowed the 20 companies I spoke to down to a list of 12 who felt they could deliver for my price. Then we narrowed it to three, and those companies presented to my manager and board of directors. I already knew at that point that I wanted to work with Clickingmad.

On paper, every company can do the same thing to varying degrees. I mostly work with people rather than businesses—I try to find a person who understands me and the way I communicate. I don’t need to know all the development jargon to grasp the concept I’m trying to achieve. The first people I met from Clickingmad were Shaun and Ivet. When I saw how they took time to teach and advise clients along the way, I knew they were the agency I needed.

My senior leaders also felt they would be a great company to work with. In the construction industry, senior leaders are not known to be technologically savvy. I faced a lot of initial opposition to building a new website, but Shaun won the trust of some of the senior team, which was amazing. They were all very happy for me to proceed with Clickingmad after meeting Shaun and Ivet.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent £20,000 on the website. The total we spent with them could be £40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The initial project began October or November 2013, and the site was live in April or May 2014. That timeframe didn’t have anything to do with Clickingmad’s speed of work. It was all based on my availability.

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

The map feature proved tremendously successful and met one of my main objectives: for people to think of us as a national construction company. We are based in the center of England, but we wanted to move strongly into the London market, so we opened an office in the far south. Still, people kept talking about us as a midland construction company. The map of England with little flags all over it showing exactly where we’re working changed that—the media started to refer to us as a national contractor.

My business development team has received incredible feedback. We deviated from our industry norm, which Clickingmad was very familiar with. They found it refreshing that I wanted to do something different. Top architecture practices in London have called our offices to say how much they love the clean design and usability of the site. We got a lot of praise and still do. They love the imagery and navigation–all guided by Clickingmad.

How did Clickingmad Ltd perform from a project management standpoint?

They were exceptional. They were very patient with me. I imagine that a company of their size found resource planning difficult for a client that drug things out over months. They understood my challenges with obtaining funding and the confidence of our board of directors. Shaun gave me updates every two weeks on the progress. He put things in a time scale that my directors could understand and used construction programming bar charts they were familiar with. Shaun created a system that automatically sent me updates I could present to my senior team.

Our offices are about an hour apart. They were very willing to travel to meet me based on my work schedule. Sometimes it was advantageous for me to go to their offices where they had all of their equipment.

I communicated with Shaun two or three times a day. Shaun knew how busy I was and made himself readily available to me. I would gather and email information to him and  then I’d have a phone conversation with him to ensure that he understood everything. That was a great chance for him to guide me and suggest things he thought might work better. We spoke on Skype and video calls. I’ve never had an instance where I tried to contact him directly and didn’t receive an immediate response.

They always deliver what you ask for. Many people miss that simple step. Clickingmad applies their knowledge as specialists rather than expecting their clients to have that knowledge. They delivered a range of options for getting a message across and introduced me to new user experience approaches.         

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s their people. As the years have gone by and the team has grown, every person I’ve spoken to has been so professional and courteous. When you talk to people who are very good in specialized areas, they can come across as patronizing or frustrated at having to speak to people without the same knowledge as them. Clickingmad takes the time to listen to their clients.

If they hadn’t familiarized themselves with my company, they couldn’t have gotten the feel for things that led to the designs and content they presented to me. Many agencies I’ve worked with over the years think they hear what the client is saying, but they don’t truly listen. Clickingmad really listens and keeps asking questions until they’re sure of the answers. I’ve never felt like I was a burden for not knowing something. They’re a great team to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. Where they’re located in England isn’t the most central hub. But they are very accessible and responsive by video, telephone, email, etc. They might argue that they don’t need a strong physical presence because they work remotely with so many clients, but proximity is the only thing I would improve.

I haven’t had a single even slightly unpleasant experience with them.

Do you have any advice for potential clients?

Pick up the phone and speak to them. You’ll find people on the other end will listen, guide, and deliver the project to exceed even the highest expectations. I had a very, very high standard in mind for what I wanted to achieve. I also wanted to impress my superiors, who I felt doubted my abilities. Clickingmad helped me do that and even more.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a local firm of estate agents with three branches and a lettings division. Our turnover is about £2 million a year. We have 28 staff but deal solely with residential sales and residential management of lettings of property. I'm the director.

What challenge were you trying to address with Clickingmad?

I merged with a business partner in 2006, and we needed a new website. Residential sales is very much now driven by the Internet. The first stop for people to look at property is on our own website or through a more global search engine like Rightmove.

We went into this with very little IT background, so we looked at some of our competitors to get an idea of what we wanted to do. When you're marketing yourself on your website, it's so important that you get all those key points and services, that it's a profile of what your business is like.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We took our ideas to Clickingmad. It was clear early on that they had much more expertise in this than us, certainly from a marketing point of view. They analyzed our business in great depth and portrayed that on the website.

For a long time, we were leaders on the Internet with our website just because of its functionality: the ability to view the properties and all the criteria that went with that. But five years on, it was outdated. They kept in regular contact with us and sometimes showed us what our competitors were doing in the same fields, and thought we needed to update ours.

I'm not a quick person to make changes, so they brought us into the forefront of this technology with the mapping, the criteria, and the virtual tools we were using. With all the latest gizmos that no one has in our local area, I think ours is, by far, the best website.

While they were responsible for the website design, they also did a lot of analysis of our market share and our customer types. Plus, they helped us with the logo a little bit. They didn't do any further marketing for us, but they did analyze the company, which was helpful for us to then go on and use advertising as a media as well.

How did you come to work with Clickingmad?

There were other providers we looked at—mostly just doing our own research on competitors that had their providers listed on their website. And we researched websites that we liked, that people were using for shopping, and other businesses similar in how they treated their customers. Clickingmad came up quite regularly in the ones we liked. Fortunately for us, they were a local company.

They're more expensive than others, but when compared with their competitors, we definitely made the right decision in choosing them.

How much have you invested with them?

Over the course of our engagement, it's been excess of $20,000–25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started looking at web marketing in 2005, and we launched our site in January 2006. Our second site launched in 2016.

Now, we pay a monthly subscription while they help us with social media marketing for our blog and Facebook. We have a review every quarter with them.

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

We are a service-based industry, and having a site that’s understandable and accessible by anyone is critical. Consequently, I would say the measure of success is the continued compliments we get from customers of all age groups using our website, as well as from other real estate firms who end up copying some of the leading-edge stuff we’ve done.

How did Clickingmad perform from a project management standpoint?

They don't have very high staff turnover, so we've dealt with some of the same people both in the background and on the sales side for many years. I really like having that one-to-one relationship with them. They know our business, and they're still really keen and show great interest. It's a good team to be working with.

I'd say we have regular contact with four lovely staff assigned to our projects, including some doing the background and watching the program, plus the people leading some sales information to display it to the public. We used to communicate mainly on the telephone, but of course, it's all email now. We still like to have face-to-face meetings, which we do twice a year.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm a business owner and I'm in my 40s. For me, it's the fact that they're real people who are very experienced in their field. They can guide me and give me ideas, rather than saying, "What do you want? We can build it for you." They give me the imagination and can lead me. So far, I've been happy with the results of that, and to be inspired by them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They're not the cheapest. We’re always being approached by other providers, but to be honest, I wouldn't go anywhere else based purely on the service levels. I've been very happy.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m managing director of a general communications agency that focuses on marketing, and we tend to outsource a lot of our digital marketing work to external specialists.We have a wide range of clients, some of which are fairly large companies for which we provide sale promotion activities and advertising work for.

What challenge were you trying to address with Clickingmad?

There was a management buyout from the vendors about 3 years ago, and their website was over 6 years old by the time we took over. It was looking very outdated, so we wanted to refresh it.

The golden objective was to raise profile awareness, as well as restore confidence in the existing clientele that the management team was adding a new dynamism to the company.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Shaun [Founder & Managing Director, Clickingmad] and Ivet [Project Manager, Clickingmad] visited the client and introduced themselves to that client’s management team, toured the premises, and asked questions about their business. They returned with some confirmed costs based on the detailed brief we’d given them, and then we started the creative process. The client had a choice from 2-3 different approaches Clickingmad had come up with. We were very involved in developing the website copy, and the entire process went smoothly. I was very impressed with Clickingmad’s proactiveness in terms of making suggestions and bringing in different perspectives.

The most important things were to make the website clear and simple. Many other engineering sites are heavy with copy, have poor image selection, and are not inviting to the external user. We decided to take a simple approach in terms of design, and focused on making the website more readable, with a specific emphasis on unique imagery. We were keen to make sure our imagery stood out in the marketplace and gave the impression that the company was going places. Clickingmad was very instrumental in that, and we actually used a photographer they recommended to us.

What was the team dynamic?

Shaun and Ivet have a very good working relationship, which was apparent because of how well they operate as part of a team. We weren’t heavily involved directly with the backend staff, but their work was delivered on time and complete.

How did you come to work with Clickingmad?

We submitted a request for tender, and Clickingmad was the incumbent. They came out very competitive and slightly more expensive than 1-2 of the other companies, but in terms of technical proficiency, they convinced me they could effectively undertake the work. I’m always a bit nervous with incumbents because they tend to become a lazy in terms of perspective, but I never felt that way with Clickingmad. They remained proactive throughout.

We had an initial pitch, and Clickingmad was very thorough. They were slightly conservative in the creative department, but this may stem from their engineering background. For this particular market and client however, their approach was spot-on. It was a unanimous decision that we would continue working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, we spent £10,000  for the main website, which included SEO, SSL certificates, and hosting. We also spent an additional £4,000 on a different website.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in September 2016, and the main website took longer than anticipated. The holidays caused delays, along with other projects, so it ended up taking about 6 months. We launched in mid-March 2016.

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

We don’t have any metrics apart from SEO performances, but they’ve been very good. We weren’t ranked at all on SEO for some keywords we adopted, but with Clickingmad’s help, we’ve ranked for all 10 core keywords. It took about 6 months for us to rank on the first page, but we’re making big strides and are very pleased with the progress.

How did Clickingmad perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was great. Ivet was very much the driving force in the project management, and she was very knowledgeable. Shaun was always available to offer advice and to help when he needed to, which was very reassuring from my perspective. I have no complaints regarding project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The overall technical awareness, the knowledge of what impact wording would have on rankings, the way they operated, and making sure the website didn’t lose its integrity were all impressive qualities of Clickingmad. They did a very good, clean job, and they answered the briefs accurately.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no suggestions for improvement.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

NCVO is the National Council for Voluntary Organizations. We're a charity in England and we are a membership organization for other charities, social enterprises, and community groups throughout England. We support them with the running of their organizations and help lobby government on their behalf. I lead the digital and communications team for NCVO.

What challenge were you trying to address with Clickingmad?

Starting with the OpenID project.  We wanted a way for our users to log into our websites without having to share their data, something secure. We had previously used the Persona Project which is being withdrawn by Mozilla. There was a hard deadline, and a need to replace that with something that users would trust, something that would allow them to keep control of their data.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Clickingmad, supports four of our websites. They also built and support an OpenID authentication service. That allows our members to log in to our websites and to access restricted content. Clickingmad is one of a number of web developers, web agencies that we work with. In the instance of the OpenID project, the previous authentication had been implemented by a different agency.

One of the websites that they developed for us, has an online shop on it. They implemented a WordPress blog and then styled it so that users would experience it as part of our main website. It has a calendar of upcoming events, various content types that we tag so that they pull into different parts of the site. We have a media center, press releases, and press briefings. There’s a members area which has content in it that you can only access if you're logged in as a member.

For the authentication project, we started by stating what we wanted, then Clickingmad made some recommendations. They ran through various options, such as using something similar to Google’ sign-in, and Facebook’s sign-in. Then they recommended the solution, which eventually became OpenID. We commissioned the work, and they set up the server and installed it. We starting testing, by integrating the sign-in with the website that they run for us, which is NCVO.org.uk, our corporate site. They then liaised with two other web agencies we work with who run other products, and integrated the authentication service. They shared documentation with them and worked to implement it on their sites. Afterwards, we did user test data and additional testing before going live with it. We employed a third-party company to do a penetration test of it. Subsequently, the test showed no issues, so we added a couple of minor suggestions to improve it which they then implemented.

What is the team dynamic?

We worked probably quite closely with two or three people there. We had one point of contact for support inquiries, and a separate one for development questions.

In a project, we would speak at least weekly, engaging more regularly as it reached the end. Clickingmad would also be talking to us several times a week on other issues such as ongoing bugs or anything that we're fixing.

How did you come to work with Clickingmad?

We took over a smaller organization for a merger. They were the agency for that organization. We asked them to develop the NCVO website because it felt like a good opportunity to work with a new agency. We're having problems with our previous agency for that site. We never went through a competitive tender or anything like that.

How much have you invested with them?

We pay £1,500 a month to support what's now four websites and the authentication service, and that includes kind of support but within a kind of small development. The Authentication Open ID Project, that was around £4,000. I think that the original build of the NCVO website was around £10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The beginning of 2013. four and a half years ago.

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

When we launched the new NCVO website it was a much slimmer and more focused site. The implementation of the WordPress blog led to more engagement from users because it was easy for them to comment on the site and also a lot more engagement from our internal staff. It’s become much more of an active platform for us since we did that, which was a big success.

How did Clickingmad perform from a project management standpoint?

I think they are very responsive and they're very flexible, which we really appreciate. They're very easy to work with. It's not bureaucratic, so we really like it. It's very easy to get hold of them. They set out timelines and work hard to hit milestones where we regularly discuss kind of ways of working. They're very open to feedback and open to adapting how they work to suit our needs as we've changed as an organization.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their technical expertise in terms of Joomla, which is the content management system that they use, is really good. We've always found their work to be of good standard and trust their recommendations.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve been working with them to work to shift into using a code depository that we own and to move our sites to a hosting environment that we own. I think they work with quite a lot of small charities and small businesses that may not want that. It’s been a bit of a journey for them. Whilst they're very flexible and very responsive, we've wanted a little bit more visibility around things like tickets and the use of our support hours and things like that. They're working on improving that as well.