DFK Crosbie is a leading local accounting and business advisory firm in the Newcastle and Hunter region. They announced a merger with the local firm Pitcher Partners Newcastle and Hunter, part of the national Pitcher Partners brand.

With a short timeframe of three weeks for the ‘go live’ date for the rebrand and merger, Method+Marketing was approached. We were asked to help move the current website and content to the new Pitcher Partners Newcastle and Hunter branding, and merge the local social media platforms.

As existing support for DFK Crosbie, we had designed and built the current website and were familiar with the digital platforms which helped the process.

OBJECTIVES

Three weeks to rebrand the website and merge social media pages.

Website

All other Pitcher Partners firms were on the national Pitcher Partners website. DFK Crosbie and Pitcher Partners Newcastle and Hunter wanted to retain a local feel and personal brand, so had negotiated to keep the DFK Crosbie website and rebrand it to match the look and feel of the Pitcher Partners brand.

Digital

As Pitcher Partners Newcastle and Hunter and DFK Crosbie both had social media accounts and Google My Business accounts these needed to be merged, without losing followers on either side where possible.

THE PROCESS

Website

As we had originally designed and built the DFK Crosbie website in WordPress, we were familiar with the layout and pages which needed updating.

The main task was to have applied the new Pitcher Partners branding to the site by the ‘go live’ date.

• Brand -The brand style guides were requested and provided by Pitcher Partners, and the website design and styles were matched for consistency, with some local look and feel retained.
• Website  Design – The existing website interface was redesigned so that it matched a similar layout to the national website. All contact details and links were also updated to reflect the new domain name and email addresses. As the Crosbie Finance page was on the DFK Crosbie website this had to be exported and a new website created to keep the existing Crosbie branding.
• Content creation -Several web pages were rewritten to merge the existing DFK Crosbie content with the existing Pitcher Partners Newcastle and Hunter content, including the Homepage, About Us and Our History pages, and all other pages were edited to remove references to DFK Crosbie, and to marry any relevant content from the two brands.

Prior to going live, a process of testing all forms, links and pages was employed.

Digital  

Help was requested to merge DFK Crosbie and Pitcher Partners Newcastle and Hunter business pages on social media. As each platform has their own process, we reviewed what was required and actioned the change of page names and merger of pages, as well as posting to the accounts that were being closed to inform followers of the change ahead, to ensure follower loss was limited. Updates to the branding of the newly merged profiles were also implemented.

Along with the merger of social accounts a range of other digital channels were considered with action implemented to address consequences of the merger of the two businesses, including:

• Facebook Business Manager and Ads Manager accounts
• SEO
• Email marketing platform
• Campaign landing pages
• Google My Business
• Google Ads accounts and adjustments to campaigns
• YouTube channels

THE RESULTS

• A redesigned website completed and live within the three week timeframe.
• The Pitcher Partners Newcastle and Hunter website reflected the Pitcher Partner national branding.
• Content was updated on pages, any mention of DFK Crosbie was removed and any links on the pages to DFK Crosbie were updated. While keeping the great user experience of the original website.
• Merged Facebook and LinkedIn without any disruption or loss of followers.
• All implications for other digital channels anticipated and addressed
• A seamless and easy move across to a new brand and a happy client.

“This project is a great example of how utilising Method+Marketing as your outsourced, extended marketing team, we can take the pressure off when deadlines are tight and we can get the work done despite challenging briefs.” – Angela Henderson, Client Services Director – Method+Marketing

Check out our work on this merger at https://www.pitchernewcastle.com.au/

If your business has a merger on the horizon or your website needs a redesign contact us.