Hop AI

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of a medical firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Hop Online?

We needed an experienced firm to help us with content marketing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Hop Online handles our SEO audits and most of our content marketing efforts. We collaborate on different types of marketing campaigns and brainstorm ideas for blog posts. They research relevant information and write the content that we need. Their work appears strictly on our website for now.

What is the team composition?

They’ve assigned a project manager and 2–3 content writers to our account.

How did you come to work with Hop Online?

I don’t recall how I initially found them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000–$150,000 thus far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2017 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s a combined effort with the developers and myself, but I look upon their work favorably. It’s contributed to the success of our company. For example, there’s more traffic on our website since we’ve hired Hop Online.

How did Hop Online perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re highly responsive and always on top of things. We use email and shared sheets to keep track each deliverable. Overall, I’m happy with their project management skills.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve worked with similar companies, but Hop Online produces better content than their competitors. As a result, I prefer working with them. I give them the scope of what we expect, and they do what’s required. They’re reliable marketing consultants.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. I don’t have any substantial criticism to offer.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be patient and have realistic expectations of when you’ll see results.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

We are a surety bond agency. Our main focus is offering surety bond approvals online.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the webmaster for the website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Hop Online?

We were looking to increase our online reach organically and through paid avenues, such as pay-per-click and even social media outreach.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

The scope of the work was mainly content creation through published articles on our blog and other user guides. Hop Online also performed social media outreach for us. They are still managing our pay-per-click campaign.

What was your process for selecting Hop Online with which to work?

We found them on moz.com, a really trusted website in the SEO [search engine optimization] industry. We contacted Hop Online for pricing information and tried to get an idea of how they would implement their ideas. We thought they would be a good a good fit for us so we decided to go for it.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

The cost was roughly between $50,000 and $100,000.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

We received an uptick in organic traffic several months after working with them, it wasn’t a huge gain, but I do remember an upward trend.

In our industry, the SEO tactics that are normally considered best practices don’t necessarily work as well. It’s a bit of a unique industry. Overall, it was beneficial to work with Hop Online. However, we have discontinued a lot of the services because they weren’t successful in our industry, but that’s not a reflection of the work done by Hop Online.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

Hop Online’s main benefit was definitely their pricing. Their pricing was much more reasonable than other companies that we’ve worked with in the past, which was one of the main reasons we decided to go with them. They offer very competitive prices, and the quality does not lack.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might have them do differently?

The only down side of working with Hop Online is that they mainly operate within Bulgaria. Sometimes, there could be a bit of a language barrier with communication. It wasn’t always an issue, but it was occasionally.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

The company is an online, personal asset lender based in Canada. We allow clients to tap the equity in their precious metals, diamonds, jewelry, and luxury watches so that, as an entrepreneur, you can quickly access cash to fund your small business.

What is your role and responsibilities?

My role is founder. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Hop Online?

I reached out to Hop Online as we launched. At the time of launch, we had zero Web presence. We had just put up our website. Our goal was to rank highly in the relevant keywords and to create a trusted brand across the country. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

At the beginning, Hop Online helped me to develop a digital marketing strategy. Once our strategy was in place we then executed on it. Specifically, they started by doing keyword research on competitors, and on the industry. Then, we developed a test pay-per-click campaign, and then we developed and executed on a comprehensive content marketing and social media dissemination strategy.

Hop Online helped to brainstorm topics based on relevant keywords, based on questions that I was getting, questions that clients would ask, and then develop blog articles on a regular basis. We then disseminated those articles through various social networks, increasing my followers on Facebook and Twitter.

The curation of content is another thing that they do very well. On a regular basis, I’m sharing relevant content to my growing social media network. They write four to six blog posts for me each week, so they curate lots of content so, almost every day, content is being shared. They also look for guest blogging opportunities and nurture my social media networks for me.

What was your process for selecting Hop Online with which to work?

 I interviewed several firms and received proposals from each of them. From there, I narrowed it down and spoke with a few references for each of the finalist firms, and chose to go with Hop Online for several reasons. They understood what it was that I had done. They liked the challenge of starting with a blank sheet of white paper, where I had no social media presence, had no content marketing, and wasn’t ranking for anything. They were a good value for the money, too. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

I paid them a monthly retainer, and I guess the total monthly cost is less than $5,000. Sometimes, it’s much less, depending on various projects, a la carte type projects might be a little bit more, but it’s never more than $5,000. It’s probably somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000 annually.

What were the results of the project?

It’s an ongoing relationship. I’ve now been working with them for almost two years.

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

From inception to today, they’ve increased organic traffic by about 1,500 percent in two years, and leads have increased somewhere between 1,200 percent and 1,500 percent. So, you’re talking about significant increases in lead generation, social media presence, and organic search. The value of that, to me, is significant.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

I’m very pleased with the relationship I have with them.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

The only difficult part is that occasionally there is more of a cultural barrier than a language barrier. They are based in Bulgaria, so they may not know exactly the North American syntax in terms of writing, or culture in terms of competitive landscape, or the way we do things here. However, they’re very quick to learn, and very willing to learn. So, that’s helpful and, of course, the founder of Hop Online is from the U.S. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

I work for AIMS Education. We’re an allied health institute. We’re basically a technical or vocational school that offers career training to students of various ages.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I work in the admissions department, with admissions, marketing, and international student recruitment. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Hop Online?

Initially, we were primarily looking to increase the organic traffic to the website. When we first started, we had a fairly low number of visitors to the site, and the majority of those were coming from traditional marketing campaigns. Most of the keywords visitors were using to search for us were brand keywords, like AIMS, AIMS Education, things of that nature. We wanted to increase the organic traffic that was coming to the website. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

Content marketing: Creation, strategy, and social media marketing

What was your process for selecting Hop Online with which to work?

I just did some research online and looked around at a lot of different companies. Then, I contacted them and had a preliminary discussion with all of them. The reason I initially approached Hop Online was because they were listed on the Moz.com website as a recommended vendor to use. I think I approached a few other ones on that list and a few other companies just doing some general research online.

Ultimately, what it came down to was the cost. Some of the companies that were in the running, the cost was just too high. Most of those companies would not even consider working with smaller businesses. Hop Online did focus on smaller businesses, and they were recommended by Moz. Those factors really tipped the scale. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

We’ve been with Hop Online for about two years. It might be a little less, and it’s been consistent. Per month, about $1,800 is what we’re spending. I think a portion of that is for the content creation. The majority is for the content marketing and social media marketing services that they provide.

What were the results of the project?

Relationship has been ongoing for two years.

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

The overall traffic to the site increased about 500 percent, so we saw a significant increase in overall traffic. Obviously, the bulk of that was from organic traffic. There was a fair amount that has also come through referral traffic, but the other nice thing is that we’ve also been able to scale back some of our traditional marketing because we’re getting so much just through the content marketing campaign and the social media marketing.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

We haven’t worked with many other companies solely focused on SEO [search engine optimization] so it’s hard to compare them in that way. In general, there’s a lot of cooperation from Hop Online. It’s not so much that we are just handing our request off to them, and they run with it. There’s a lot of cooperation, and we’re working together to come up with strategies and ideas as far as where the campaign should go. Whether it’s as small as the type of topics for the articles, or it’s just the overall approach to what type of market we’re targeting, we’re working together throughout the whole process. It feels less like we are contracting it out as opposed to they’re just working with us on the project.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

The one area that they have improved upon, at least specifically with our campaign, we had some issues with the content creation at some stages early on. At times, it was inconsistent, or I just wasn’t very happy with some of the content that was being produced. Hop Online has really become much more consistent in the quality of their work during the last six to 12 months. I would still recommend anybody who works with them to review and edit the articles before they are posted. Obviously, they’re focused on the marketing aspect, they don’t have the expertise of whoever is working for the school or the business, so it’s always best to make sure you review and edit it in-house. Overall, the content has really improved.

Occasionally, there were certain content pieces that were written from a different cultural perspective, they would see things and write things differently. Initially, some of the articles would be a little bit too heavy on opinion and because it was coming from somebody writing it from a different culture, that could cause issues. Usually, it was something minor that could be fixed while reviewing and editing, and like I said, now it’s gotten much better.

The only other constructive criticism I have would be that there is a lot of changeover in project management. I haven’t really seen this affect the campaign, but every few months I feel like there’s somebody leaving and a new person’s coming in to manage the campaign. That can cause issues. I haven’t really noticed any, but that would be the only other constructive criticism I would have.