The city of Leeds has the infrastructure, talent, collaboration and the vision to be at the forefront of advancing health and care for all. Proportion Marketing was tasked to create the brand and resources that would provide the gateway to its internationally-renowned health and care research and innovation ecosystem.

Health Innovation Leeds is the result. A distinctive brand that reflects strengths in pioneering healthtech, digital, data, ai, academic research and collaboration. A single website solution that provides a global audience with clear signposting, full intelligence and access to its multiple partners.

Leeds was always on the health map. Our brand and website focus on its research and innovation credentials and make the compelling case for Leeds as a vital destination for innovators in the health industry. It’s simpler too. There is now one point of supported contact that provides clear points of entry to multiple partners.

https://healthinnovationleeds.com/

“Thanks to all Proportion Marketing Limited for doing a superb job, supporting us patiently all the way. From taking our complex, multi-stranded brief, conducting market research, developing a truly distinct brand identity and building a fabulous new website, your skill, expertise and service has been invaluable.”

North Yorkshire Sport is the charity for movement, activity and sport and the Active Partnership for York and North Yorkshire.

They work with partners across the county to help create happy and thriving communities that mean people are living more healthily for longer in a fairer, more equal society. They turned to Proportion Marketing for support with their rebrand and design of a new website.

Following a competitive tendering process there was a short window to develop initial branding options for sign off by the partners and then the project went to applying the branding to a new website. The site features a vast events listing, all submitted and updated by the North Yorkshire Sport team and Event Organisers across the region.

View our solution here https://northyorkshiresport.co.uk/

“PML were brilliant from start to finish. They listened to everything we had to say and all of our wants and needs for a new website, turning that into something we are really happy with and allows us to showcase the work of the charity. The PML Team have amazing expertise, and work in a collaborative and supportive way”

Smee & Ford partner with nationwide UK charities of all sizes to understand and grow their legacy income by supporting them with quality legacy insight they can trust. Theirs is a fascinating history dating back to the 1800s. With advances in data and technology, they have developed into an essential service for many UK charities.

We were brought on to create brand guidelines and a suite of visual identity assets which better reflect the organisation’s offering, values and desired perception, and which ultimately help them to achieve their marketing objectives. After a thorough audit of their current branding, we had an extensive brand workshop and worked closely alongside the internal marketing team to create the clear visual identidy for them in the form of comprehensive brand guidelines. Our work together is ultimately driving more awareness and trust in Smee & Ford as an industry leader in legacy giving.

After a successful brand development project, we were then asked by Smee & Ford direct to develop sub brand work and several further design projects, event brochures and a Legacy Report.

Web Development

Proportion Marketing were recommended to Leeds Health & Care Academy (LHCA) who needed urgent support for their website. The incumbent IT team were unable to update some parts of the website – the Content Management System wasn’t working properly and some remedial work was required during the Covid pandemic.

We successfully updated the site and as a result were invited to bid to undertake a rebuild that was subsequently completed in 2021. The site now has optimised user journeys, reflects their offer and supports their strategic and tactical plan. The LHCA team are able to manage content on the site and keep it fresh with new content.

Graphic Design

Our web support work, particularly the creative aspect lead us to bid to provide creative services. Again, they were suffering from poor support and were becoming increasingly frustrated not being able to respond to changes in the marketplace. They also had issues because of a lack of assets to support internal and external communications.

The client benefits from us providing a set price list for a wide range of items and this has been a boon to the team who are able to budget with confidence knowing there will be no surprises on billing.

“Working with Proportion continues to be a fantastic experience. Proportion’s creativity, knowledge and support with our ongoing work is invaluable. The team is responsive, flexible, personable in their approach and quick to understand our needs, meaning they consistently design and deliver engaging assets that reflect our brand. I really value how friendly and communicative they are as a team.”

We have worked closely with Novus in 2021/2022 to develop its business strategy for the next 3 to 5 years. Their change in direction, main services and holistic approach to local and personal care called for a major branding overhaul yet sensitive to its relations with commissioners, partners, staff and patients.

We created the NHS brand (in line with NHS guidelines), two private sub brands, their image style and key messages and rolled it out to include website, digital and printed communications and the internal and external appearance of its new high street premises. In tandem a digital tool kit for social media and internal/external presentations was developed in industry standard formats. Once the brand assets were in place, we and the in-house marketing team were able upgrade all business collateral.

“Together we have built a strong and professional presence in the regional health market with our branding, website and marketing communications and this creates confidence in our staff, our patients and our commissioners. Proportion Marketing have supported us in our journey and have always added great value beyond the brief in addition to the creativity and responsiveness we have come to expect. The monthly retainer set up provides us with full access to their studio and helps us budget and plan for future activity with confidence.”

IGRAC (International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre) facilitates and promotes international sharing of information and knowledge required for sustainable groundwater resources development and management worldwide. IGRAC provides an independent content and process support, focusing particularly on transboundary aquifer assessment and groundwater monitoring.

Proportion won this contract by tendering through an EU portal in 2015 and IGRAC has remained a client since then with various iterations and enhanced development of the existing site, including mapping and multi-languages. Our work has also extended to support UNESCO – a partner of IGRAC.

All of the project management was completed via video conferencing and electronic transfer of materials.

“PML has a team of very talented web developers and it really was a pleasure to go through the development process for IGRAC’s new website together. Unlike some other companies I have worked with in the past, PML has a lot of experience working with Drupal and that was really helpful during this process.

“They knew exactly which functionalities, applications and solutions were out there, so for every issue that I raised they were able to provide several options and for each, the pros and cons. This made my role as commissioner very easy. Apart from their technical expertise, all PML staff members I have worked with also have the same mentality of getting things done. Even after 7 years I am still amazed by how quickly PML implement new requests for changes. I picked PML out of 36 tender proposals and I am still very happy with this decision.”

GB Belting are the UK’s largest independent fabricator of light to medium weight synthetic conveyor belts. They supply original equipment manufacturers and end users of conveyor belts in a wide range of markets in the UK and ROI. Direct mail plays a key part of their communications strategy and we have developed a number of pieces covering specific product ranges and their whole range of belting products.

“We’ve worked with Proportion Marketing for over ten years and they’ve supported us with input into our marketing strategy, provided web development services (we have one e-commerce site and one brochureware site) and they handle our digital communications. They’re very quick to respond to any questions we ask of them and the quality of advice and standard of work has been excellent.” 

Thirsk-based Rural Arts recently appointed us to build their new e-commerce site and we’re thrilled with how it’s turned out.

Rural Arts deliver creative workshops, events and exhibitions from their Thirsk base at The Courthouse, as well as performances and outreach projects in rural venues around North Yorkshire covering over 3,500 square miles of countryside.

The team were increasingly frustrated and limited with their expensive, proprietary ecommerce solution and wanted a cost effective and easy-to-use solution for the suite of editors developing alongside a rebrand.

The site features a wealth of activities across the region, all submitted and updated by the Rural Arts team and supported year round by PML. Content includes images, video, visit information for hundreds of performance venues including GEO mapping.

The solution: Huge searchable hub of content, including workshops, performances and community projects, increased visitor dwell time, improved SERP for target user groups, all built and themed to meet WCAG 2.1 standards. Administered via multiple regional offices.

Our client is super happy too. Director and CEO, Max May told us “Working with Proportion Marketing was a dream. They’re creative, hyper-diligent and super speedy – the three perfect things to look for when finding the right team to build your new website.”

To see our work visit ruralarts.org

Cleveland Steel & Tubes (CST) are one of the largest stockholders of steel tubes in Europe and their product is used in a wide variety of projects including the Olympic Stadia, Canary Wharf, luxury marinas and wind turbine farms. They pioneer the concept of ‘greener steel’ by repurposing existing surplus tube stock in projects as it delivers massive carbon and cost savings compared to buying new steel made in a mill.

We were delighted to win the contract to design and build a new website for the business and following its recent launch we’re hearing the new design and its features are being warmly received by their clients. The new site was SEO optimised on launch and has a stock search facility that displays exact matches as well as similar products that could save their customers money. Future enhancements include hard coded translations to aid worldwide SEO and expanding their impressive portfolio of case studies.

The site is built in Drupal 9 and has robust security features as well as being future proofed for any technological advancements the internet may offer. It looks fabulous on hand-held devices and desktop machines and the team at PML are super happy with the end results.

Steve Paterson of CST commented, “We’ve been working with PML for 18 months across a number of projects, pulling together our marketing into one cohesive outlook. The website is the final major piece of our ‘marketing puzzle’, which pulls everything together under one, consistent brand per se. We hope our customers, new and old, enjoy the new website as much as we’ve enjoyed the process of building it with Proportion.”

See the site here at www.cleveland-steel.com

NHS Shared Business Services deliver modern corporate services to the NHS, replacing outdated, time-consuming and error-prone paper processes, with affordable digital systems which improve efficiency and quality, save time and money, and support world-class patient care.

We were delighted to bid and win the opportunity to develop a number of design assets to support the NHS SBS team deliver leading edge finance and accounting, procurement and employment services solutions to the NHS family. The bundle of work included brochure design and print, e-bulletin assets, a tool kit of icons for use in presentations, a brand toolkit and web page design.

A member of the NHS SBS team commented “We’ve been impressed with the quality of Proportion’s work and the speed of response from the team right from the initial briefing to final delivery. These resources will support our sales and cross-promotion strategy.”

The project: To create a central hub to coordinate and promote the activities of local authorities in North, South and West Yorkshire.

The site features a secure log in area for potential adopters to access application forms, reading matter, calendar of events as they embark on their adoption journey.

Fine-grained permissions allow three levels of applicants as they move along the adoption process with each permission allowing access to a greater amount of resources and support material. These features take advantage of Drupal’s powerful user/permissions settings and PML’s experience in building permission-based interfaces.

The solution: Regional adoption agency website with distinct user groups and multiple editor roles. It acts as the face of organisation, with a wealth of content. Includes news, events and adoption journey content all built and themed to meet WCAG 2.1 standards. Administered via multiple regional offices.

We’re super pleased with the end result and the marketing lead for One Adoption agrees too: “We are very happy with our bright, new website which has been created with the end-user in mind. From start to finish Proportion were always on hand with sound advice and quick to deal with any tweaks and changes.”

One Adoption is made up of three regional adoption agencies; One Adoption North and Humber, One Adoption West Yorkshire, and One Adoption South Yorkshire. Each agency provides all adoption services for the local authorities in their area.

See our work here at https://www.oneadoption.co.uk/

Some news on a recent website relaunch!

We recently migrated Euro Treadmill Belts’ existing web store to the WooCommerce platform. Our client is Europe’s largest manufacturer of replacement belts and decks for treadmill running machines with thousands of orders a year being shipped to over 80 countries.

The project involved building a shadow site with translated pages (into French and German) and featuring over 3,000 products to test functionality before switching over to go live. The site historically was very successful and so downtime had to be the minimum with no disruption to sales. Since the relaunch sales levels are up and we’re all very happy how the site is performing.

The new platform brings added benefits including better integration with shipping and accounting packages. You can see our work here at www.eurotreadmillbelts.com

When the Leeds Academic Health Partnership (LAHP) asked us to come up with a bold design to reflect the transformational work they’re doing in the Leeds City Region, it was a challenge we couldn’t resist. ‘Think big, start small, scale fast’ is their latest report on the huge strides they’re making on improving the lives of the Leeds population.

Read more here: https://www.leedsacademichealthpartnership.org/think-big-start-small-scale-fast-2021-report/

The LAHP marketing and communications team commented “We focus on innovation so, by definition, there is no blueprint. Nor is there a blueprint for how to present and promote our work, which sets a challenge for any marketing or design agency. We’re delighted that Proportion Marketing have achieved this so well. They’ve made our work look as exciting and distinct as it really is!”