Vicara Marketing

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a managing director of a small specialty engineering company with roots in the Ontario Hydro research division. We provide advanced engineering and condition assessment for high voltage power system and associated equipment.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Vicara Marketing, and what were your goals?

We struggled for a long time to develop a strong website to deliver our message as well as be able to host our technical content. Correct setup and structure to be able to easily duplicate the format across hundreds of pages was a fundamental requirement.

SOLUTION

How did you select Vicara Marketing and what were the deciding factors?

We had a web meeting to discuss the issues and requirements. Styling, colours, format and a few sample sites were reviewed jointly. Anthony's competence was abundently clear. With a strong background in marketing, he guided us to fine tune the project requirements.

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

Website was built with WordPress and Elementor and variety of plug ins. An intitial landing page was done to direct the traffic until the remainder of the pages were developed. Segments and styling was all done in template format to stay uniform across the site and be easily duplicated.

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

1, Anthony and he handled the entire project start to finish with grace.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Anthony produced the entire page structure and variety of page templates to be used to host all content. The quality of work was impeccable. The attention to detail is key in these projects from load speed to tagging and search engine strength and general graphic quality.

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

Excellent communication and on time for every meeting. Time line was very closely monitored/

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

The combination of over all knowledge of marketing, psychology as well as excellence in software, coding and web development.

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

In our case, no, we feel we received more than we had expected.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founding president and CEO of a small Canadian nonprofit organization, Communities in Bloom. Our vision is to promote the planting of trees, flowers, and shrubs in communities across Canada. We provide advice, guidance, and evaluations for municipalities engaged with us, and we also have international partners.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vicara Marketing?

We hired Vicara Marketing to provide technical support, including hosting our website and making updates to our site. We’ve also used their support for social media management. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Throughout our engagement, Vicara Marketing has provided a range of support. They host our email server and website, continually making tune-ups on it. They make updates on the WordPress platform, as well. Whenever there are any issues, like our emails being blocked or we need a changed password, they manage it all for us. 

As far as social media goes, they’ve been instrumental in setting up our Google accounts, opening our Facebook Business, and running our Twitter and Instagram accounts, as well. They design our ads for Google and Facebook. Our team provides content for these ads, but since they’ve gotten to understand our business, they bring their own ideas and content to the work, adjusting wording as needed. 

What is the team composition?

One person from their team is our main point of contact, Anthony (Digital Marketing Specialist, Vicara Marketing).

How did you come to work with Vicara Marketing?

Vicara Marketing came as a recommendation from someone who had worked with them in the past. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent a few thousand dollars on the project throughout the engagement. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since March 2018 and our engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Because of the work Vicara Marketing has done for us, we’ve seen between a 10% - 20% increase in traffic to our site. For social media, we’ve seen engagement multiply by 10 on a monthly basis. Their work has been excellent. 

How did Vicara Marketing perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team has been fantastic from the beginning. Depending on the season, we speak on a monthly or weekly basis. When Anthony doesn’t know the answer, he takes the time to research and returns to us quickly with information. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very cost-efficient—as a nonprofit, this is extremely valuable to us. Additionally, Anthony is always up to date on the newest trends. This is important in an industry like digital marketing since it’s always evolving and becoming more complex. They do the right research first to find the correct answer. Also, if we don’t agree with a suggestion or have the funding, Anthony is flexible and accommodating.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should continue doing what they’re doing. We don’t have any concerns. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s helpful to do some homework first. As with any project, being precise is important. I spent a few hours looking at ads from similar companies and it was great to do before contacting any provider.