Unbranded Manchester

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing manager of RussellWBHO, and we’re a construction company based in Manchester, England. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Unbranded Manchester?

Our website was outdated and made us look old-fashioned and small. We wanted a website that reflected the size of our organization — a regional player within the UK's construction industry. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Unbranded Manchester rebuilt and redesigned our website from scratch using WordPress. We left all details of the project to them, and we were mostly hands-off. 

They came to us with suggestions and ideas, and we chose the design they presented during our pitch meeting. They nailed the scope during our initial conversation, so we followed their lead. Additionally, they wrote some of the site’s content, and we tweaked their work. 

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with three people, including their owner, a senior project manager, and a project manager. 

How did you come to work with Unbranded Manchester?

I searched for midsized local web design agencies, and we made a shortlist of three providers. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around £25,000 (approximately $33,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2020, and it’s ongoing. 

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

We’re satisfied with our new website. It’s a massive improvement from our previous site. We can do more things with it, and it’s a good platform for us to grow.

How did Unbranded Manchester perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re excellent at project management — they’ve delivered the site on time and within my budget. They hit all their deadlines; we’ve been the ones who slowed down the process because of delays on our end. We use Monday.com to collaborate. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Unbranded Manchester can jump on things and solve issues. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have clear goals of what you want to achieve before engaging with any agency. Understand the agency’s capabilities on how they’re going to achieve their goals.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of marketing at a professional services company for M&A activities, tax advice, business restructuring, and insolvency work. I deal with our direct marketing efforts, database, and CRM systems. Given that, I’m effectively responsible for generating new customers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Unbranded Manchester?

We wanted to create a portal with a high-level bias. Our company was selling businesses, and we wanted to advertise them to a select audience of high-net-worth individuals, private equity houses, and venture capitalists.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we provided the Unbranded Manchester team with a brief overview of how the platform should look like. For one, it should give users login access, letting us know who was signing up. This way, we could control membership while determining the companies they were visiting. Customers could use the portal’s search function to identify relevant opportunities. When clients searched, it would show one-page documents covering key financial metrics, sectors, and locations of the businesses we were selling. 

Our team could also view users’ footprint across the site. Off the back of that, we’d received reports on their activities. This functionality allowed our team to proactively call them and discuss opportunities. Overall, Unbranded Manchester’s key deliverable wasn’t a simple WordPress site that was open to anyone; it was a controlled environment. 

At present, the portal runs on a functional site with around 100 businesses and 400 users. We currently market it to relevant audiences. We’ve also done a couple of other projects with Unbranded Manchester, including more generic websites for some of our brands. 

What is the team composition?

We work with Hamad (Managing Director) and a developer. 

How did you come to work with Unbranded Manchester?

Unbranded Manchester was recommended to us by the new business development manager who recently joined them. I’d worked with that person before. He explained how they stood out from competitors and what they could offer. Then, I met Hamad. By that time, it was clear that their development skills and knowledge were way better than anyone I’d worked with before. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested no less than $30,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around January 2018, and we have an ongoing relationship.

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

The portal has been successful in generating new clients, allowing us to grow our business significantly. Internal feedback for it has also been highly positive. It’s well-received by stakeholders as it increases the number of visitors on our site. 

How did Unbranded Manchester perform from a project management standpoint?

Unbranded Manchester’s project management is good. We typically discuss what they’ve done and compare it to the product’s performance in the real world. Our teams also have regular catch-ups to talk about any potential improvements that will allow us to overcome challenges. For instance, we have plenty of visitors on the website, but few of them leave their contact details. This prevents us from being proactive in contacting them. In this case, Unbranded Manchester helps us tweak our contact forms. 

In terms of communication, we reach out to them several times a week when we’re on an active project. If there aren’t any projects on the go, we catch up with them every two months. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their development knowledge is impressive. Unbranded Manchester always overcomes whatever challenges we set in terms of functionality. To do that, they develop the code by themselves. For comparison, other providers often look for existing plugins to allow them to finish the task quickly — that’s not always effective. Meanwhile, Hamad and his team code from scratch to ensure the results are exactly what we want. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes, it takes them a bit longer to make changes to the deliverables. There are times when we’re impatient; we want to do things then and there. That being said, this is a challenge for all businesses, and it’s not always commercially possible. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The Unbranded Manchester team is highly approachable, so maintain two-way communication. When they start on a project and they’re full-steam ahead, communicate consistently and provide feedback when they need it. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing manager at Foilco, one of the leading suppliers for stamping foils to the print industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Unbranded Manchester?

The whole premise of working with their team was to build a site that would elevate the old brand and align with a new, exciting vision for our rebrand. It was essential to appeal to our main target audiences – designers, creatives and printers. We also wanted to reach out to high-profile brands to see our capabilities.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Unbranded Manchester did a full audit of our digital market share. They had a look and compared us against our closest rivals. They then looked at where we should be positioning ourselves within the industry and where we could potentially get to. All of these early conversations took place in August 2018.

There was a lot of backroom development that came about from quite a tough brief that we provided because of the type of customers that we have, and the way our customers would use a website would differ from any other standard service provider. It’s a little bit more of a niche, complicated arena.

They had to do quite a few development phases in order to get both practical functions of the site. They needed to get the site to function properly to give enough information and detail about our industry and then be able to appeal to a completely different audience.

Their team had to do quite a lot of wire work to ensure that the UX of an individual using the site was exemplary. They also needed to work quite diligently over the development phases on the UI interface and make sure that the look and feel of the site were paired with what we were trying to achieve as a brand.

They just did the web development, building the site from scratch. They also had a proactive hand in the site’s content. They had a very proactive approach to suggesting new modules and applications for the website that would help and benefit our customers.

What is the team composition?

We had several team members working on the project, including an account manager. She basically looked after us from the beginning. Other team members oversaw her activities and helped with the development.

We also had a designated developer who would basically sit and code out and test the site's functionality. There were probably around four or five people actively working on the project.

How did you come to work with Unbranded Manchester?

Unbranded Manchester was recommended to us by another company that they’d worked on on-site development. We already knew about them. We were blown away by their formal presentation in our initial conversations. We felt that they could offer us a lot as a brand. We’ve had a strong relationship ever since.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent roughly £36,000 (approximately $50,000 USD).  

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement began in August 2018. Our soft launch was in April 2019.

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

What Unbranded Manchester offered was a personalized service. Their proactive team used their knowledge and skills to come up with interesting ideas and solve problems. They like to see results.

For all keyword phrases and SEO, we’re doing incredibly well. I put that down to work that they’ve done. It’s also allowed us to save money in other areas of the business because what they identified early on is that we’re essentially sending very costly materials to our customers that might not understand or realize what they’re requesting.

Unbranded Manchester created a user journey, depending on the target audience to pinpoint the individual requirements. From our point of view, they’ve actually helped us reduce marketing costs, and the production of marketing materials has reduced as a result of the thinking around the user journey.

How did Unbranded Manchester perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team met the budget range and deadlines. They use Monday as a project management tool. What that’s allowed us to do is bring an element of transparency over the work that was being done so we could communicate to them quite quickly.

We could see the entire process flow and see where it was in terms of the stage. That was useful from a customer’s perspective because that just meant we had some clarification on what was going on and having realistic deadlines to work to.

We typically communicate through emails, phone calls, and Zoom & Team meetings. If it’s something that needed to be ticketed, then it would go through Monday. We did have quite a lot of site visits before the pandemic, which allowed us to build a relationship with our account manager. She understood our needs better by being on hand to talk through options.

What did you find most impressive about them?

As a web developer, you hear of other developers building upon pre-existing work. They build upon templates. One of the most refreshing things we’ve seen is that their team took all of that apart to build something specific to our requirements. That level of quality drives results.

We’re in a better position now. We receive much more web inquiries as a result of them being meticulous and taking the time to find out what we need, how it should work, and implementing that to generate interest.

From our perspective, it’s just knowing that there were no hollow promises. It was very built for us to work in the way that we needed to.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so. We’re very happy with the partnership and how things turned out.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice would be to not be scared to ask a question. They need to understand exactly what you want before they can use their expertise to do that. Breaking down your requirements allows them to really dig down deep and develop a website that is going to work for you ultimately.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of digital marketing at an immigration services company in England. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Unbranded Manchester?

We hired Unbranded Manchester to build a specialist website that caters to all the technical and SEO requirements that Google imposes on websites. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with a consultation, and then we gave Unbranded Manchester a project brief. After doing the visuals and graphic design of the website, they built a prototype. During this process, we provided them with mock-ups and wireframes. We came up with the overall design idea, and their team implemented it for us. 

We did the content in-house, but they helped us launch them to the website on WordPress. They researched the best ways to display our website and content following Google’s guidelines. Since then, we’ve been working together throughout our processes, helping us grow and refine the website weekly or monthly. 

What is the team composition?

We work with four people from Unbranded Manchester, namely their director, a project manager, a lead developer, and a client manager.

How did you come to work with Unbranded Manchester?

We found them through a Google search. They understood our vision, and it was clear that they were experts in building websites that met Google’s criteria. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in May 2019, and the partnership is ongoing. 

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

Our website traffic has doubled, and it continues to grow month-over-month. On top of that, our SEO rankings have been the best they’ve ever been.

How did Unbranded Manchester perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is efficient and excellent. The projects are delivered on time. To communicate, we use emails, phone calls, and face-to-face meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a deep understanding of search engines and website development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there are none. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Provide a brief of the project before you start working with them. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of ShortSport, a sports news app for busy fans

For what projects/services did your company hire Unbranded Manchester, and what were your goals?

We hired Unbranded Manchester to build a mobile progressive web app with the goal of publishing it in both the AppStore and on Google Play. The app needed to have a personalised news feed of sport matches based on the clubs followed by the user, and therefore also needed sign in/sign up features too.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

They came recommended to us by another development agency as they have great knowledge and understanding of the technologies needed for ShortSport. We spoke to other development agencies but really felt that Unbranded understood the project and the desired outcome and were able to articulate the technologies they were going to use in a way which a non-technical person could understand.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The key deliverable was a working mobile app published in the AppStore and on Google Play. The app was built on a wordpress back end with a custom front end in Angular.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I interacted with the CEO of Unbranded throughout the development of the app which was great as he was able to explain where we were, what bottle necks and issues there were and expected timelines in a non-technical way.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

ShortSport was fully built and delivered within the agreed timeline and within the agreed budget which is, for me, the most important outcome!

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

I spoke to the CEO usually over the phone, with occasional email and text. The level of communication throughout the whole project was high enough that I felt up to date with where they were at any time without being too much detail.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They were a fantastic development agency, produced a great looking product which worked very well. They were very personable while remaining professional and were able to simplify the difficult or complicated bits so that I could understand.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nope, even after the project has concluded I've kept in touch with Unbranded as working with them is such a joy. Where I've needed additional work to be done, I haven't even thought about going elsewhere as all work is done on a timely, well communicated basis and always within budget.