Reality House helps ASP deal with the unexpected

A forward-thinking marketing company has helped accountancy service provider Liberty Bishop adapt after the Government effectively outlawed a significant source of its business.

Having revamped the company's website, Bath-based Reality House embarked on a pay-per-click (PPC) search engine marketing campaign to help it promote its 'umbrella company service'.

Before the 2007 Budget, IT contractors could avoid paying tax by invoicing the company they were working for through a managed services company such as Liberty Bishop.

This was known as IR35.

The new legislation meant the Harpenden-based firm had to refocus its business on the alternative umbrella company service, which officially employs the contractors but allows them to retain their independence.

Reality House MD Mike Fieldhouse explained how pay-per-click had helped Liberty Bishop adapt to the changes.

He said: "The new legislation meant Liberty Bishop had to compete with other umbrella companies for business from IT contractors, so they came to us because they needed quick results.

"Through PPC, we could secure a range of search terms or keywords our research showed were most popular when people were looking for companies like Liberty Bishop on Google, Yahoo et al.

"Before we started the campaign, they were getting no leads at all through their website - now, they get over 100 per month.

"This means they came through the changes relatively unscathed".

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