ASSA is one of Australia's leading providers of workplace health & safety compliance.

Founded in 1972, they’ve built a strong reputation for quality, fast assessment turnaround, and support for contractors seeking to prove their compliance credentials.

Their clients include small and medium contractors across construction, housing, infrastructure, education, and public sector procurement. Many of these clients need to demonstrate compliance (and related prequalification) in order to bid for contracts.

Though ASSA had a solid market reputation, their funnel had bottlenecks. Many contractors would inquire, but get deterred by the perceived time, paperwork, and uncertainty around their ability to pass the assessment. Application drop-off was high. Meanwhile, slower processing limited how many clients ASSA could handle.

Competing schemes were aggressively promoting “fast turnaround” and ease of process, which threatened to steal market share. ASSA needed to reengineer the user journey and marketing funnel to turn more prospects into clients — faster — without compromising quality.

"We saw dozens of contractors start applications but drop off halfway because they feared delays or failure — we knew we needed a better funnel, or we’d lose them to competitors"

– Mark Davies, ASSA - Operations Director.

That moment made it clear they needed a marketing partner to sharpen their brand, amplify their presence, and turn operational excellence into market dominance.

While exciting and full of opportunities, ASSA's situation came with some major challenges:

Challenges they faced:

• The process for applying and obtaining full accreditation was perceived as slow, complex, and bureaucratic — a barrier for many potential contractors.
• Lead generation for this niche service was uneven; many prospects dropped off in the application funnel.
• Conversion from inquiry → application → full accreditation was weak, especially among smaller contractors new to compliance.
• The competitive landscape includes other scheme providers, so differentiation on speed, support and experience was critical.
• ASSA needed to scale while preserving service quality and client satisfaction.

Before leaping blindly into making changes, google ads, emails, CRO etc. We needed to understand what ASSA's members thought about their services.

In-depth analysis of ASSA’s positioning, audience, and competitive landscape through member interviews and surveys.

Here are the three principles we stuck to religiously:

1. Don’t just test yourself—test the competition.
   Benchmarking against other providers highlighted where ASSA was ahead (speed) and where friction still lived (form UX, trust messaging).

2. Do it often.
   We ran usability tests at every major touchpoint redesign—homepage, eligibility checker, and application steps. This kept the funnel sharp and contractor drop-off low.

3. Do it now.
   Usability testing isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s a 10-minute job that can unlock six-figure growth. Waiting only costs you conversions.

Every tool tells a different story. Heatmaps show behaviour. Funnels show friction. Numbers tell the truth.

We leaned on Google Analytics and Clarity to dissect how contractors actually moved through ASSA’s digital funnel. Instead of guessing, we could see—page by page—where they dropped off, hesitated, or raced through.

The result? We didn’t waste energy “improving” pages that weren’t broken. We zeroed in on the ones that were.

We built split testing into the process from day one. Every headline, CTA, and form tweak went through Convert (our testing platform of choice). Nothing went live without a test.

• Test → Learn → Switch → Scale.

• No guesswork. No gut feel. Just data.

In just six split tests, ASSA increased contractor application completions by 92 %. By the tenth test, the uplift was even bigger — and more importantly, it was locked in. The beauty of conversion rate optimisation is that it only goes in one direction: up.

"Once we saw the impact of testing, it became non-negotiable. We stopped launching based on opinions and started launching based on evidence."

– Mark Davies, ASSA Operations Director.

• We worked with ASSA to refine their core value proposition — “fastest route to SSIP, with full support” — and to segment target audiences (small contractors, mid-tier firms, public sector bidders).

The strategy gave us clarity. The tactics made it real. Every action in this campaign was designed to remove friction, accelerate the funnel, and convert intent into revenue. From targeted media and UX improvements to relentless testing and behavioural nudges, the tactics were where evidence met execution — and where ASSA pulled away from the pack.

"Working with Your Marketing Rules was beyond anything we had hoped for. We went from slow, hesitant growth to running at full speed — and our reputation soared. Their funnel expertise and strategic insight were exactly what ASSA needed."

– Mark Davies, ASSA Operations Director.

By the end of the 12-month campaign, ASSA had more than doubled their accredited contractor client base, exceeded the 150% growth target, and dramatically improved conversion efficiency and speed.

Key achievements:

• Increased accredited contractor clients from ~800 to ~2,000 (+150%)
• Reduced average assessment turnaround from 14 days to 3 days (target achieved)
• Improved client satisfaction (“excellent”/“good”) to 95%
• Enhanced renewal/retention to ~ 95%
• Grew inbound lead volume by ~63%

These results not only met but exceeded the SMART objective, helping secure ASSA’s position as a top scheme provider and fueling sustainable growth for years ahead.

"We cut the lead-to-certification time from weeks to days — and turned that into revenue growth."