Matthew Aitchison

MD & CHARTERED FINANCIAL PLANNER

Clear Vision

“Working with Naomi and the team to action our new marketing strategy was a joy. Naomi was always responsive and kept us up to date with progress. The team have delivered a fantastic suite of marketing collateral that have already elicited positive comments from clients.”

Andrew Neligan

CHARTERED FINANCIAL PLANNER

Neligan Financial

“I had previously set up my own website and managed it myself thinking I’d been saving a lot of money. What I discovered, though, was there was lots I didn’t know about effective websites. My site looked OK, but it wasn’t really doing a good job: it wasn’t attracting enough of the right people and those that did visit didn’t stay for long.

Initially I thought about using a local firm, but what attracted me to Yardstick was their unique insight into the financial planning profession. This focus meant they were able to provide a lot of experience and expertise to ensure an effective output. To start with we took a step back and considered my website in the context of a marketing plan. Phil and the team then advised other approaches to take beyond my website: Vouched For profile, Facebook campaign as well as local marketing, all of which they are also helping with.

In respect of the website, they have also produced a site that I’m really pleased with. It fits perfectly with my message and target market. They work collaboratively and are receptive to ideas which makes the outcomes unique to me rather than using off the shelf templates. If you want to see the finished website here it is: https://neliganfinancial.co.uk

Thanks Phil, Naomi and Gil (plus everyone else behind the scenes) for your help.”

Chris Budd

FOUNDER

The Eternal Business Consultancy

“Depending on your choice of cultural references, it was either Voltaire, Roosevelt or Spiderman’s Uncle Ben, who said “With great power comes great responsibility.”

The launching of a new business these days, often happens by way of the launch of the website. The design and layout of the site will have a massive impact on the success of the business. Have a rubbish home page, and no one is going to read that brilliant and incisive blog.

I needed a safe pair of hands, someone who would accept this responsibility for the website for my new business, The Eternal Business Consultancy. I found that in The Yardstick Agency.

Some of the excellence is subtle, such as the branding, which they developed, tying the look and feel of both my old business, Ovation Finance, and the cover of The Eternal Business book.

I think you’ll agree that the team at Yardstick exercised their considerable powers brilliantly!”

Sally Parr

MARKETING & EVENTS CO-ORDINATOR

Sovereign IFA

“We spoke with many different agencies and decided upon The Yardstick Agency as they specialise in Financial Services – this has proved to be the right decision. We are delighted with our brand new website, it captures the professionalism we offer together with the human side of us all and lets our prospects know the types of clients we work with and who we don’t work with. All the team at Yardstick are extremely knowledgeable in their own field and are very friendly to work with – nothing is too much trouble. We are now into the next step of the relationship which is helping us with our monthly content newsletters, as well as bespoke projects along the way. If you are reading this testimonial, please don’t hesitate in contacting Phil and his team.”

Brian Hill

MD & FIDUCIARY FINANCIAL PLANNER

Jones Hill

“In May 2017 we revamped the Jones Hill website to a cleaner, more up-to-date look and engaged a local web designer to do this. Most, if not all, of our potential new clients, will spend some time checking us out before engaging with us, so it’s important to get this right.

By the following month, our Google Analytics showed a slowdown of visitors and engagements and an increase in bounce rates. Unfortunately, this continued relentlessly downhill and each month it reduced we had to increase our Google Adwords expenditure to tread water.

In the end, we realised that both the content and the design was not where it needed to be, by a long shot. ‘Schoolboy’ errors had been made in transferring the old site to the new site, the blog was hosted elsewhere, and we weren’t addressing the trigger points which potential clients come to us for initially.

As such, we organised a rigorous beauty parade of five web designers, including the Yardstick Marketing agency headed up by Phil Bray. Over the course of a month, we had multiple conversations with the different agencies. It’s vital to understand that a web designer is unlikely to be able to do content, and UX (user experience) well without having specialists on the team, in the same way that we split out Advising, Paraplanning and Administration within our own business.

We selected Yardstick, as they were specialists within our field and had a multi-disciplinary team to deliver what we needed. They also were happy to work with our UX expert, Alex Gregory of Urban Sea Consulting.

Phil and his team worked with us very well indeed – and we are quite demanding (I counted almost 500 emails between us, between start and launch!), plus multiple face to face, telephone and Skype meetings.

Yardstick and Urban Sea have together delivered a great looking and intelligently designed website, as well as a new logo, and I recommend that any financial services business looking at their own website gets in contact with them at the earliest opportunity.”

Samantha Hayes

DIRECTOR & INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL PLANNER

C Alexander

“We made a positive decision last year to review and upgrade our ‘outdated’ website, this was something we had kept putting off for all kinds of reasons. I had known Phil for a number of years and started to receive his marketing blogs, when he had formed The Yardstick Agency. Therefore, having made our decision, we asked Phil to give us his professional opinion on how our new website should be formulated. From that moment on, we were more than impressed with his ideas and most importantly, he asked the right questions about how we run the business. I would certainly have no hesitation in recommending Phil and his Yardstick team.”

James Harvey

FINANCIAL PLANNER

James Harvey Associates

“Seven years ago, I spent time and money on rebuilding the website, and the general marketing strategy of the business; it delivered spectacular results. I had become aware that the site and the strategy had become a little stale and needed rethinking, but without throwing away some of the key qualities. I came across Phil Bray at The Yardstick Agency by recommendation. At our first meeting, Phil had done some research and knew exactly what I was trying to do. This helped because I didn’t; I am a financial Planner, not a Marketing Executive. What I did know was that when I visit other websites, sometimes they really work and sometimes I can’t get away quickly enough. Bearing in mind, we only take on a few new clients each year, I wanted those that I am seeking to work with, to just click, and come away thinking that this was a firm that they would like to deal with.”

“As a single adviser firm, the website can very much reflect my style. I feel Phil and the team have really come up with the essence of what I am about and what I am trying to provide. The videos explain the issues that I think are important and the client testimonials are displayed brilliantly. The use of the pictures provided by a client of ours are stunning, they are also on the walls of the office. A lovely link. I feel very happy to recommend him and his team and without reservation.”

Tamsin Caine

CHARTERED FINANCIAL PLANNER & HEAD OF FINANCIAL PLANNING

Smart Divorce

“We chose Yardstick, having heard great things from other financial planners who had worked or were working with them. The process of producing a new website for us was exactly as I had hoped. Phil came to meet me and we spent an afternoon discussing the business and who our target market was. A week later we were shown the site in terms of colour, graphics and layout. Myself and Steve were pleased with the professional look of the site. The Yardstick team then wrote the copy for the site and completed the addition of blogs that we had provided and suitable photos. On delivery of the site, we were delighted with it. The site was better than I had envisaged. It said everything I wanted to say to our potential clients. A month on and we have had excellent feedback from others about the site and have received our first direct referral.”

Claire Phillips

ADMINISTRATOR

Taylor & Taylor

“Well impressed, if only everyone was so efficient.”

Tom Orchard

INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL ADVISER

Annetts & Orchard

“I have been following Phil and The Yardstick Agency on social media and podcast appearances for a while now and have always been very impressed with their content and how much they are willing to share. This year we needed some business documents designing and although until now I’ve always been a DIYer with these things, decided it was time to reach out to the professionals. Well, it was certainly one of my better decisions! Dan and the team have been excellent, really taking the time to get to know us and how we all work, pulling it altogether into the production of the best-looking documents we have ever had. I’m so proud of them, I can’t wait to show them off! I’m a big Yardstick fan now and look forward to working with them on future projects.”