When Clickability, an NDIS marketplace, needed help to acquire paid providers, they went fractional. Stewart was brought on board two days a week.
That was two years ago. Fast forward to today, and Stewart is still plying his trade for 16 hours per week, though Clickability looks quite different to when he began. Here’s what happened in between.
Background
Clickability is an organisation with a purpose: a digital marketplace that National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants can use to easily connect with the service providers best suited to their needs.
Clickability is free to use for those on the NDIS – only the service providers are charged. As such the platform needed to secure more providers.
The company turned to Stewart, a hands-on operator with deep, tech-specific growth experience. This fractional gun-for-hire would work as Head of Growth two days a week.
Approach
Tasked with increasing paid provider acquisition, Stewart dived straight into the strategy and execution of product management, UI/UX design and implementing lifecycle marketing campaigns.
During the first six months Stewart and his team did it all, forming a combination growth, marketing and product department that:
- Optimised the sign-up funnel and profile creation flow.
- Launched an omnichannel nurture journey to improve free-to-paid conversion.
- Initiated an automation-fuelled cold outreach campaign to contact NDIS providers.
- Launched an affiliate marketing program.
It worked. The paid providers stacked up. A healthy foundation laid and more internal help added Stewart adjusted his focus.
“Being a marketplace, we grew our provider side so quickly we needed to ensure the participant demand kept pace,” says Stewart. “This resulted in urgent requirements to get more service requests coming through.”
Stewart and his team have spent the last 12 months doing just that, by building both revenue and participant engagement:
- Launched new pricing tiers to drive revenue.
- Implemented customer education programs and retention strategies to reduce churn.
- Introduced advertising opportunities and a partner marketplace.
- Restructured paid ad campaigns to improve participant engagement.
- Launched a review program and adjusted the ranking algorithm to preference reviews.
Results
One glance at the numbers proves that Stewart’s efforts have driven incredible results for Clickability:
- The restructuring and optimisation of Clickability’s paid ad campaigns decreased CPA by almost 80%.
- The affiliate marketing program increased the conversion rate for new provider registrations by 158%.
- Free-to-paid conversion improved by 51%.
- Overall new paid account subscriptions increased by 133%, while demanding less ad spend and a lower commitment of internal resources.
- Revenue increased by 191% within the first 90 days of launching new pricing tiers, all while maintaining an acceptable churn rate only increasing a few percentage points
- Churn was then reduced to new lows through a range of targeted strategies.
- A streamlined service request flow drove a 45% increase in completed and verified requests.
- The implementation of a provider review program and algorithm tweaks drove a 300% increase in reviews, bringing in hundreds of new participants to the platform.
“Being a marketplace, we grew our provider side so quickly we needed to ensure the participant demand kept pace,” says Stewart. “This resulted in urgent requirements to get more service requests coming through.”
Summary
Clickability’s story is one shared by a lot of new companies. Deep knowledge and experience is most valuable at the beginning of the startup journey, when you can least afford it.
Unless you don’t pay for a full-time leader, but a fraction of one.
Looking back on what Stewart has accomplished while working just two days a week, the perks of fractional hiring become obvious.
You gain access to a professional who knows which levers to pull for maximum effect. The to-do list is prioritised, big wins attacked first. Experience saves endless time and effort: fractional leaders have already learned from mistakes that founders are yet to make.
Clickability is now the leading Australian disability service directory for NDIS providers. And Stewart played a huge role in getting the company where it is today. The arrow continues to point up as his Clickability journey continues.
Ready to find your Stewart? We’re ready to help. Dive into Shepherd’s vast pool of fractional leadership talent today to turbocharge your startup journey.
