We helped Lentune halve their acquisition cost

Construction isn’t an industry brimming with early adopters – if anything the opposite is true. The lack of tech means that tedious manual processes remain all too common, so errors and inefficiencies do too.

Lentune is working to change that fact, through a construction cost management solution that replaces manual processes with simple and sleek automated workflows. The results speak for themselves, with Lentune’s customers reclaiming endless hours and vast sums by simply working smarter.

Despite the construction industry being somewhat stuck in the mud, this proudly Kiwi company had worked hard to develop a significant presence in New Zealand. With that box ticked, their eyes fell on the next, slightly larger prize: Australia.

Construction cost management is far from an easy sell. In this inherently conservative industry, it’s a challenge to offer an entirely new way of doing things, even when that new way can slash costs and turbocharge profitability.

While Lentune had managed to establish themselves in New Zealand, in Australia they were more the minnow than the shark.

Initial marketing efforts were noteworthy, particularly given the limited resources at hand, but the Australian market was proving incredibly competitive: established players were willing to pay $100+ per click to simply drive out Lentune-style upstarts. Ultimately costs were high, while impressions and customer acquisitions remained low.

Lentune CEO Jono Bonifant knew Lentune needed quality help to significantly improve their inbound engine. He understood the value of a highly optimised engine, particularly in a unique off-shore market. The radical AI evolution within digital marketing was also front of mind.

An ambitious tech founder eager for fast growth, Jono was also looking for an agency that wouldn’t just increase performance by 10%, 20% or 40%, but that could multiply the results with 100%, 200% growth.

He soon found Traction Marketing – a company with a proud history of helping Kiwi companies go global. A team loaded with global experience, at Traction we guide our clients on which markets to enter, how and when to enter them, and their unique demographics and dynamics.

Subtle foreshadowing… we would soon be driving some impressive results for Lentune:
An 80% increase in paid search-sourced contacts.
A 155% increase in monthly organic impressions.
A 68% increase in organic website user acquisition.

We aim to show the world how incredible New Zealand businesses are, and to help drive unprecedented growth and prosperity in the Kiwi economy. Lentune represented an opportunity to do exactly that.

After gaining a sense of the (significant) challenge at hand, Traction immediately got to work improving Lentune’s inbound engine. There was a clear opportunity to pair organic content with super niche, highly effective paid ad campaigns.

Convincing construction companies to entirely transform their approach to cost management is no mean feat. The aim was to maximise touchpoints, consistently attracting, engaging and ultimately converting potential customers through ads and content that focused on the incredible benefits of such a transformation.

The initial strategy utilised conversion rate optimisation (CRO), search engine optimisation (SEO) and marketing (SEM), with all efforts refined over time through A/B testing.

The strategy also encompassed social platforms, particularly Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Inspirational and educational content was created for the Lentune website, and digital PR was employed to generate buzz.

“Traction created a plan and worked closely with our team to drive organic traffic,” says Lentune CMO, Dave Macken. “They provided valuable support initially to drive our organic traffic and worked closely with our limited marketing resources to lead our digital advertising efforts.”

18 months later, Lentune would be enjoying the significant fruits of this labour.

As a solution that helps construction companies to work smarter, to do more with less, to streamline processes and increase clarity, Lentune’s new approach to marketing took a leaf out of its own playbook.

Over the initial 18 months, Traction helped Lentune transform their approach to the Oz market.

• Overhauled the inbound engine: We created a niche, high-converting inbound strategy that prioritised quality over volume.
• Optimised brand visibility: We built awareness against the largest players in the market, driving full funnel visibility at one tenth of the previous cost.
• Revamped paid ads: We shifted to high-intent targeting, focusing on personas and efficient search terms.
• Fixed SEO issues: We solved an SEO cannibalisation issue where similar blogs were tanking their organic performance, and replaced clickbait with funnel-driven organic content.
• Landing page optimisation: We set up new pain point and persona-led landing pages, driving 4x performance gains.

The results were incredible. The headline number: Lentune’s cost per conversion (CPC) on Google Ads was halved. They could now win two new clients for the price of one.

The success of these initial efforts built the foundation for Lentune’s ideal next step. We’d help them switch to an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy: a B2B approach where individual companies are treated as their own unique market, and are targeted in ultra-customised ways.

“Having a great digital partner is critical to our success,” Dave notes. “As we look to build out the Lentune marketing team, having a specialist digital agency will be vital to support our in-market efforts”.

“Traction has provided valuable support in driving our organic traffic and have worked closely with our limited marketing resources to lead our digital advertising efforts. The processes set up to manage the actions between the Traction and Lentune teams are working well.”

Far from being viewed as a simple service provider, or even marketing partner, Dave sees Traction as something more:

“They’re an important part of the team.”