Christchurch firm Concentrate wins 2024 HubSpot Impact Award

Concentrate, a revenue growth agency based in Christchurch, has received international recognition by winning HubSpot's 2024 Impact Award for Product Excellence due to its work on the Chelsea Sugar website.

The HubSpot Impact Awards, held semi-annually, celebrate members of the Solutions Partner Program that successfully aid clients' growth. Concentrate achieved their award through a project that reimagined the website of Chelsea Sugar, a division within Goodman Fielder, which is a leading name in New Zealand's baking scene.

Chelsea Sugar was grappling with an outdated content management system, which endangered its status as New Zealand's preferred baking website. To address this, the company sought a user-friendly and modern platform that would accommodate its extensive collection of over 2,000 recipes and 20,000 consumer reviews.

To this end, the company chose HubSpot Content Hub Enterprise, with Concentrate tasked with the implementation. The deliverables included the development of a website offering enhanced user experience and improved management capabilities, enabling Chelsea Sugar's team to maintain their site, respond to consumer inquiries, and facilitate promotions efficiently.

Concentrate's Web Development Lead, Patrick Keo, managed the migration to a more stable CMS platform. His efforts included improving the user experience, transferring recipes and user reviews, providing training for the Chelsea Sugar team, and establishing a strong architecture capable of handling the site's significant content demands.

The revamped website has met with favourable results. Rosemary Martin, Digital Manager Retail at Goodman Fielder, stated, "User engagement has been fantastic. We've seen improvements in engagement rates across the board. Direct traffic has increased, page views have spiked, and our users are spending more time on the site." This demonstrates the enhanced engagement the new site has encouraged.

The site has approximately 450,000 monthly users who have seen a 14% increase in average engagement time and a 16% rise in engagement per session. Additionally, there has been a 20% growth in direct traffic. Martin noted, "We're receiving great feedback from customers. People are finding the site easier to navigate, and they're using the search function a lot more than they did before."

Beyond the increased user engagement and traffic, the new website allows the Chelsea Sugar team more autonomy and efficiency in managing their content. Martin explained, "The platform's drag-and-drop functionality makes it super user-friendly. I can quickly create landing pages and make updates without needing technical support, which wasn't possible before."

The project was selected by HubSpot from among numerous submissions by its global network of over 6,000 partners. Angela O'Dowd, Vice President of Solutions Partner Program at HubSpot, remarked, "Building meaningful connections with our customers is at the core of everything we do at HubSpot, and we are grateful to have Concentrate as a solutions partner who help us to deliver on this promise. Concentrate's customer-centricity and dedication have been truly impressive, and their innovative use of the platform is a demonstration of their deep product expertise."

Owen Scott, Managing Director at Concentrate, voiced his pride in the achievement, stating, "Growing up there was always home baking in the tins - often from a Chelsea Sugar recipe, so it was a huge honour to work with Chelsea Sugar to get them a digital-forward solution to transform their content processes and their user experience." He added, "Our team collaborated with Chelsea Sugar to design and architect a custom solution that worked for this complex project. For that I couldn't be prouder," highlighting the team effort behind the success. He continued, "And of course, HubSpot was the absolute powerhouse platform to deliver the goods in a tailored and masterful way."

The Impact Awards are noted for recognising excellence in four distinct categories: Product Excellence, Platform Excellence, Technical Expertise, and Platform Migration Excellence.