Fade Digital

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of VR Vision, Inc., a virtual reality startup company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Academic Ads?

The company is brand new, and we needed to get our name out there. We needed everything in terms of SEO, website development, and content creation, to start to generate leads for the business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I didn’t get into the technical part, as that’s not my background. I looked at the kind of results we were getting. For a brand-new company, we’re getting results from some large brands, such as Porsche and BMW. We were also contacted by some of the major cities in Canada. For the amount we paid and the time we had, the service has been great.

They helped with the creation of the website and the content. It was developed on WordPress. We went through the functionality and the layout with them. We needed the site to have call to actions, needed to draw people to the site and it had to be mobile-friendly. We had a project manager and a couple different contacts on the development side. We had another contact for the design. They were fairly responsible. I had another person in my company leading that project, so I wasn’t very hands-on, but I knew that it was handled the right way.

We needed to rank for words like virtual reality, VR events, all the key stuff for our business. Right now, we have pretty good results for Toronto. We’re among the top three. There were some paid searches, there was content, and the website optimization aspect of it. They pretty much took care of everything for us. It seems to be trending in the right direction. Our focus for keywords was local around Toronto.

They’re creating content, and pushing content out, for all our social channels. We concentrated on Facebook and Instagram, but did Twitter to some extent. We didn’t want to push on that too much. LinkedIn has also been kind of secondary. They also created blogs for the website. They’re not a very big shop, but they can take care of a lot of our needs. Although we had an overview, there wasn’t a set number of posts per month. My main goal was to get results with quality content, rather than the quantity. The content was industry-targeted as well as geography-targeted, and it worked very well in Toronto for us.

How did you come to work with Academic Ads?

I received a referral from a colleague. I Googled them, then met with them, and we decided to go with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work started in December of 2016, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The ranking has definitely been affected. We’re ranked at the top, and from that, we’ve been getting leads that have converted into business. They have more than covered their end of the bargain in terms of business development. We’ve gotten some pretty big clients that way.

The feedback has been very positive. It’s definitely a work in progress, but as long as we keep adding to it, and they keep working on it, I think it’ll continue to get better. It’s really good for the amount of time and effort that’s been put in.

How did Academic Ads perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very organized, typically meet all deadlines and are pretty precise in their communication. They’re very good with coming on-site with us whenever we need extra clarification or when my team needs anything special. We have internal project timelines, and so far, they’ve been either on time or early. We use Asana for project management, but we do have monthly in-person meetings. The rest is done through email or phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about Academic Ads?

I like the people with whom I work. They’re very responsive to what we need. They’ve been very honest and transparent, which is different than other suppliers I’ve dealt with. It’s just the level of transparency around project timelines and budget. I like to see where my money is going, and they’re very good at showing that in a transparent manner.

Are there any areas Academic Ads could improve?

I think their process is good. They can definitely scale, and they’re looking to hire more staff. I don’t have anything negative to say.