Digital marketing case study
Gnu World played a major role in marketing The Workspace from its origins as XtraSpace Flexi Offices to its evolution into a standalone brand.
Summary
The Workspace is a provider of serviced office and coworking space in Gauteng. Built on the success of the XtraSpace Flexi Office brand, The Workspace was created to cater for a bourgeoning need for flexible, premium office space and coworking solutions.
Gnu World acted as the marketing partner for the brand from its inception. Our role included creating a modern WordPress website, building brand awareness amongst its target market, generating leads and providing ongoing strategic input as the brand matured.
“What an amazing team to deal with. From their marketing knowledge and input to their designs for our social media and websites. It is an absolute pleasure dealing with Gnu World. Thank you for making the effort in understanding our business and always having our company’s best interest at heart!”
Mari Schourie, CEO, The Workspace
Services provided
307.15%
year-on-year growth in organic traffic in 2020
17%
year-on-year growth in conversions in 2020
55%
of targeted keywords ranking in the top 3 in organic search
631,594
Google local views in 2020
custom, fully responsive & conversion-optimized WordPress website
45%
engagement rate with Facebook content
A significant player in a competitive field
The Workspace contracted Gnu World in late 2016 with a massive challenge – to build a cutting-edge website and hit the ground running with a full-spectrum digital marketing campaign in just three months. The objective was to establish the company as a significant player in the competitive office space and coworking industry, as quickly as possible.
Building a brand
Gnu World created a professional website for the company and implemented a short-term strategy to drive immediate growth. This involved leveraging opportunities across third-party websites to drive leads and create links; and quickly achieving prominent rankings in local search results.
Gnu World proceeded with a targeted Google Adwords campaign; on-going content marketing – researching, writing and promoting premium site and blog content; and a comprehensive social media marketing campaign.
The Workspace was highly engaged throughout this process, providing photographic material and news of company developments and events to assist us in creating engaging content.
Steady growth
Within three months, The Workspace’s website was generating thousands of visits per month and hundreds of conversions.
By mid-2018, organic search traffic had overtaken paid traffic as the main source of traffic and leads on the website.
Consolidation
Generating continuous growth for a new brand required constant innovation. Aside from adopting tried and tested strategies on targeted digital channels, Gnu World also worked with The Workspace management and their PR team to develope innovative marketing campaigns.
These included running a high-profile national competition to identify South Africa’s top emerging entrepreneurs, as well as amplifying The Workspace’s sponsorship of popular community events like the Spar Women’s Run.
Gnu World also assisted The Workspace in generating community engagement with numerous social upliftment initiatives, ranging from collecting and distributing Christmas gift boxes for needy children and the elderly to blanket collection drives.
The Covid years
The Covid pandemic and ensuing lockdowns generated stiff headwinds for the office space industry, creating challenges on both the operational and sales fronts.
Managing the challenges of this era required intensive ongoing collaboration between The Workspace management team and Gnu World, and the development of highly responsive marketing campaigns.
This approach yielded excellent results, with brand visibility increasing substantially during 2020, at the height of the Covid lockdowns. Further, there were substantial increases in year-on-year leads during this period.
