Hone PD
Developing a high-calibre, strategically designed website and sales management platform with Hubspot.
Client
Hone Product Design
honepd.com
Services
Website Redevelopment, SEO Optimization, Business Integration
Platform
HubSpot
HubSpot Services
Industry
Product Design & Engineering
The Challenge
Hone Product Design (Hone PD) is a design-focused, multi-disciplinary product development agency based in Australia. For nearly a decade, Hone PD has created innovative, commercially successful products like the World Mosquito Program diagnostic kit, with a client base increasingly shifting from startups to large-scale enterprise and corporate sectors.
The business had invested heavily in startups and this was hindering growth, their capability as a team was proven on high end product designs in defence and healthcare. Anthony Petterson being an “ideas man”, a true creative and also an engineer - had started two separate businesses one for a drop shipping’ type customer (Supply Wise) and one for high end bespoke product design (Hone.PD), in addition that that Anthony had started a distribution business for international footwear called HPD. The businesses were really connected in that they serviced each other, and a cohesive re-invention of these offerings was part of the jointly shared challenge.
Hone Product Design had HubSpot in place on a free plan, and Anthony had been using this for deal management and sales processes for some time. Setting it up to merge contacts from Mail Chimp was needed to get a single view of the customer at the top of the funnel.
The Squarespace website wasn’t built to support the transition to a new business model. It lacked the functionality, performance, and strategic integration needed to communicate their growing capabilities, more complex service offering, and enterprise-level professionalism. Additionally, Hone PD was effectively operating three semi-siloed business streams that weren’t well integrated digitally or brand-wise.
The Solution
Hone PD partnered with FrontStage Digital, a long-term collaborator over four years, to overhaul their online presence and support their move upmarket. The goal? Develop a high-calibre, strategically designed website and sales management platform that:
- Reflects Hone PD’s premium design ethos and innovative spirit
- Acts as the source of truth for sales people in the Hone business
- Integrates their three business units under one cohesive digital platform
- Supports SEO growth and is scalable for future client needs
- Appeals to enterprise clients with more complex product design requirements
The Process
Working with creative businesses that have a diverse service offering like Hone’s is exactly the kind of challenge we love at FrontStage Digital.
Discovery & Strategic Alignment
FrontStage worked closely with Hone PD leadership to understand the nuances of their services, structure, and evolving market position. This phase uncovered a key insight: the digital strategy had to mirror Hone PD’s internal integration and externally signal their step into the corporate space.
Mapping the Customer Journey & G2M Strategy
Our first step in the process was to do competitor research, find market trends and identify internal strengths on which to base our strategy. Owner and Founder of Hone.PD Anthony . Thus as with any great client / supplier relationship - we had a great starting point on which to build his go to market strategy.
Our Go to Market Planning
Being located in NSW, VIC and QLD we run all our ideation workshops virtually. We started with a Goals workshop, SWOT analysis, and then dove into a series of customer focused workshops to deliver the following.
- 2 Primary Personas (Savvy Startup and Eric SME)
- 2 Detailed Customer Journey Maps
- 2 Customer Acquisition plans, with advertising, content development and the associated technological infrastructure
- 1 Creative brief, with a new manifesto, language and value proposition, examples of page content and examples of imagery
- 1 New website design, leveraging the existing brand - the brand development was solid and needed a better execution in digital specifically.
- 1 Website development plan with new IA, new imagery, videos, copywriting, allowing us to merge three different business units into one cohesive view of the Hone.PD offering.
Design & Development
Being a design-led company, Hone PD required a visually sophisticated site. FrontStage delivered a custom build that was clean, performance-optimized, and connected to HubSpot for lead generation. Key features included:
- Enterprise-grade SEO: SEO score lifted from 68% to 80%
- Dynamic content structure: built to keep pace with Hone PD’s evolving service model
- Integrated architecture: unified all three business arms into one intuitive, branded experience
- Responsive & accessible design: ensuring an exceptional experience across devices and users
- Forms for supporting the sales process: a range of forms to find customers and qualify them were established
- Integration: Integration to LinkedIn and Google Ads - for tracking campaign performance over time and finding the highest value leads.
- Dashboards and Reporting - GA4 - Looker Studio and HubsSpot Dashboards.
- Content production - The Information architecture, copywriting, new site photography and live action videography were all created by FrontStage Digital
Performance Optimization
The backend was structured for lead generation, enabling the site to handle greater content volume and more complex client-facing communication without sacrificing speed or accessibility.
The Outcome
Since the site’s relaunch, Hone PD has entered a period of rapid growth and success:
- 90% increase in turnover
- Team growth doubling, scaling to meet increased client demand
- Successfully transitioned to a corporate clientele with more sophisticated needs
- Website SEO score improved from 68% to 80%
- Hone PD now has a future-proof digital presence that matches their ambition and capabilities
Why It Worked
- Strategic Partnership: A four-year relationship with FrontStage meant deep understanding of Hone PD’s growth journey.
- Design-Centric Execution: The new site mirrors Hone PD’s dedication to high-quality design, earning credibility with design-conscious enterprise clients.
- Business Integration: FrontStage helped merge previously siloed business arms, allowing Hone PD to present a single, powerful brand to market.
- Upmarket Enablement: This project was a cornerstone in Hone PD’s shift to larger, more complex clients, and it worked.
Ready to Scale with Confidence ?
The collaboration between Hone PD and FrontStage Digital is just one example of how our strategic digital transformation approach can unlock growth, align internal structures, and position a brand for the future.
Schedule a meeting with Dave
We love to take on challenges that involve every aspect of a digital project from journey mapping, content and information architecture to the digital delivery of websites in WordPress and CRM systems with automation in HubSpot CRM.