A ten year old website, rebuilt. 145 leads a month.
A helicopter flight school whose website was its biggest bottleneck. So we rebuilt the site, and the funnel that feeds it.
- Client
- Project lead
Trav WhiteFounder and Head of AI Engineering
- Industry
- Aviation training
- Platform
- WordPress to HubSpot CMS
- Channels
- Google Ads, Facebook Ads
- Started
- Mid 2021
01 The briefA full rebuild of the website, and an ads-to-website funnel that teaches and guides a future pilot at every step.
Experienced pilots, an out-of-date website.
Aeropower is a helicopter company that leads its industry in aviation-based inspection and maintenance, and a registered training organisation (RTO) that trains new pilots, with over 15,000 hours of flying experience among its pilots.
In mid 2021, Aeropower's Adam Roy asked Neighbourhood for help growing its leads after months of no growth. The website was the biggest bottleneck: a WordPress site ten years out of date, slow to load, hard to use, and with no clear path to enrolling. It did not show how much Aeropower could offer.
To hit enrolment targets, Adam had tried a Facebook ad campaign himself. It brought in unqualified leads at a higher cost per click, and the team was stretched between running the campaign and answering people who were never going to enrol.
It stayed that way because the ads had nowhere good to send people. Paying for more traffic could not fix a website that did not explain the training or guide anyone towards signing up.
What Aeropower needed
- A website that sells. One that lets a future pilot learn everything before talking to the team.
- Ads that bring the right people. A paid media plan that sends qualified leads to the new site.
- Reasons to enquire. Sales tools and lead magnets that draw in potential students.
From a photo and a menu to three clear paths.
The homepage before and after, as published with the case study.
Who the pilots are, then the pages.
The work started from the future pilot, then mapped every page of the journey, then made sure the team could run what was built.
Buyer personas, At kick-off
A review of Aeropower's buyer personas, to learn how to attract and win over potential pilots and how best to position the training. With the who settled, the content and the ads followed.
The people the site is written for
The user experience, mapped, In Miro
The customer journey wireframed from the homepage to the contact page, finding the places where content could move a visitor from contact to customer faster.
Every page with a job to do
Training and onboarding, For the sales team
HubSpot Sales and Marketing Pro onboarding, so the team knew how to nurture the new leads once they arrived.
Leads followed up properly
A website that works like a salesperson, and ads that send it the right people.
Ads sending people to a website that does not convert?
The ads, the website and the pipeline, each handing on to the next.
Each part hands the next one a warmer lead: the ads bring the right people, the site answers their questions, and the pipeline follows up.
The ads
Google and Facebook, segmented by funnel stage.
- Google Ads and Facebook Ads
- An ad for every stage of the journey
- Unique selling points and training on offer
- The end certification shown at the bottom of the funnel
- Remarketing
The website
A fast HubSpot CMS site built to sell.
- New branding and web design
- Content that answers questions before a call
- Quick to load
- Clear paths to enquire
The pipeline
A sales process that runs on automation.
- Deal stages
- Tasks, reminders and automated emails
- Nurturing for every new lead
- E-signing connected
The site came first, then the traffic. Once the new site was live, the ads began sending people to it. Instead of relying on Facebook alone, the campaigns ran on Facebook and Google, with a segmented ad for each stage of the funnel. The early ads showed the selling points and the training on offer, and the ads at the bottom of the funnel showed the certification a student finishes with.
The pipeline picks up where the site leaves off. The sales structure had been blurred, so we built a pipeline in HubSpot with internal and external communications that trigger tasks, reminders and automated emails. The team spends less time on admin, every lead is followed up the same way, and the Sales and Marketing Pro training meant the team knew how to nurture each lead once it arrived.
Each part relies on the others. The old site was slow and had no detailed customer journey, so paid traffic had nowhere to go. The plan put a welcoming, fast site at the end of every ad, to turn visitors into qualified leads.
How the four goals turned out.
What Aeropower asked for before the project started, and where it stood once it was live.
Goal 01
A website that matches the brand's reputation
We built new branding and web design, with the content rewritten around the buyer personas.
45%
increase in session duration. Each visit now runs longer, on a site that shows what Aeropower offers, which the ten year old WordPress site it replaced never did.
Goal 02
Built to convert, and easy to use
We built the site on HubSpot CMS, with the journey from homepage to contact page wireframed in Miro first.
90%
Google page speed score for the new site. The old site was slow to load. The new homepage sorts visitors into three clear paths: becoming a helicopter pilot, booking a trial introductory flight, or further ratings for a qualified pilot.
Goal 03
Qualified leads from paid media
We built Google and Facebook ads segmented by funnel stage, with remarketing, all sending people to the new site.
145
leads a month once the new site went live, up from 18. The ads now send people to a site that explains the training and guides them to enquire. The team was taken aback by the jump in enquiries.
Goal 04
A site that sells before the team steps in
We wrote content a future pilot can learn from on their own, built a pipeline with tasks, reminders and automated emails, and ran Sales and Marketing Pro training.
25%
faster movement of deals through the pipeline. Tasks, reminders and automated emails follow up each new lead. Admin time came down significantly while the process stayed consistent.
The goal that guided the whole engagement was a website that sells, and that is what Aeropower now has. Leads went from 18 a month to 145, and each one is followed up by a pipeline that runs on automation.
With confidence in the website and clear customer journeys set up in HubSpot, Aeropower is expanding to other Australian capitals. It is also offering its pilots post-graduate flight instructor training.
“The team at Neighbourhood took our marketing/branding and CRM to the next level. We had reached the end of what we could do on our own and the Neighbourhood team picked up our marketing ball and ran with it. I would recommend Trav and the team to anyone looking to refresh and turbo charge their marketing efforts. We look forward to working with the team on our future marketing efforts.”
Adam Roy
Aeropower
Who ran it
Trav WhiteFounder and Head of AI Engineering
Led the personas, wireframes, new HubSpot CMS site, ads and sales pipeline, through to sales onboarding.
HubSpot Certified Trainer, Multi HubSpot Impact Award winner, Founded Neighbourhood in 2015
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