Weddings Case Study: Inviting Invitations

Inviting Invitations is an online store specialising in creating original invitations and greeting cards for every special occasion including weddings and engagements, baby showers, birthdays and Christmas with custom greeting designs available.

Inviting Invitations experience phenomenal online growth in 2010

In April 2010, Jacqui Tyack and Jo Quirke came to a crossroads in their four year business history, driven primarily by their previous SEO service provider’s assertion that they had reached their optimal performance in terms of Google rankings and website traffic. Ten months later, Inviting Invitations web traffic has virtually doubled, with an 89% increase in non-branded organic search traffic. Jo explains how choosing the right road turned the fortunes of their business around:

“We had used three previous SEO companies but sales were not increasing, traffic was not increasing, essentially we were not seeing the growth in the business we should have been. The (SEO) company we were with prior to joining ROI advised us that we had reached our optimum level – there was no way we were going to get any further up the Google rankings than we were,” Jo remarked. “We weren’t happy with that so I did some research and found and contacted ROI – the best move we ever made really.”

After some initial SEO research and discussions with roi.com.au, Inviting Invitations decided to entrust 100% of their marketing budget to ROI, convinced by a strong online presence and the honest, direct approach of the team at ROI.

“It was blunt, to-the-point advice – other companies walked on egg-shells around us but ROI just said ‘this is what you’re doing wrong, this is what you should be doing’…”

“I could see the success ROI had in themselves but there was something more. It was blunt, to-the-point advice – other companies walked on egg-shells around us but ROI just said ‘this is what you’re doing wrong, this is what you should be doing’ and I like that honesty. I put 100% trust in moving to ROI,” explained Jo before revealing that she and Jacqui were surprised by the speed of ROI’s impact.

“We’ve definitely had an increase in traffic. Rankings just shot up quicker than we ever thought. We thought it would take months to get up there but it took just six weeks to get to Number 1 for ‘wedding invitations’, which is our main keyword. We saw a massive change in traffic and sales at the time.”

While the global economic downturn has stifled growth, Inviting Invitations has maintained a consistent performance in the last 10 months, with their SEO and Google AdWords campaigns delivering hundreds of visitors daily at an extremely favourable rate of return on their online investment.

“The global financial crisis hasn’t helped – it’s difficult to measure exactly where our business should be but the work of ROI really helped to deliver a really quick turnaround – in six weeks it made a massive difference,” Jo noted, adding that roi.com.au’s input was far more than meeting their basic SEO requirements.

Reality Check Puts Inviting Invitations on the Right Track

“It was a reality check for our website, we were sitting here five years in, thinking our website looked great but we needed someone to come in and say ‘you need to do this, this and this’ – an external opinion. It’s critical feedback, which is sometimes hard to take, but when it comes from a place of good intention it’s worthwhile.”

“Everyone we have dealt with at ROI has been awesome. I love the fact that I can pick up the phone and get to speak to someone and get an answer immediately. At ROI, they look for other ways to see how they can help our business”

“It was an overall marketing evaluation of our website. It wasn’t ‘oh you need SEO, here’s what we do…’, it was the overall approach that made us look at our entire business and it’s had a big impact on us too.”

The proactive approach from roi.com.au continues to impress the team at Inviting Invitations who identify their partnership with roi.com.au as a driving force in sustaining the long-term viability of their business.”

“Everyone we have dealt with at ROI has been awesome. I love the fact that I can pick up the phone and get to speak to someone and get an answer immediately. At ROI, they look for other ways to see how they can help our business,” Jo added.

“If we hadn’t made the choice to move (to ROI), I don’t know if we’d still be in business today. I think we could have said: ‘too-hard-basket, we’re not growing as much as we should’. I just think we got hurt by the fact that this was supposed to be the peak for us. We get caught up so much in the day-to-day, it’s great to know now that we can trust 100% of our marketing effort to ROI.”

Despite almost doubling traffic to the Inviting Invitations website in 10 months, roi.com.au continue to explore new opportunities, with ambitious targets and traffic improvements in sight this financial year!

Visit Inviting Invitations at: www.invitinginvitations.com.au