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Case Studies

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Lodestar Accounting

Social Media Management & Email Marketing

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Lodestar Accounting are a B Corp-certified accounting business who provide financial support to a wide range of purpose-led businesses, working with entrepreneurs who are driven by their beliefs and striving to make a positive impact. They support startups, individual sole traders, and B Corp businesses with as much or as little accounting support as they need.
Lodestar Accounting Orange
Challenge
Solutions
Benefits
Lodestar came to us when they realised their marketing efforts were swallowing up a lot of the time that they could be using to do what they do best – providing financial support to their clients.

Chloe, the founder at Lodestar, had been taking on the marketing side of the business herself, and while she had the essential knowledge of who their marketing needed to target, she didn’t have the time to consistently create and manage marketing content alongside running her accounting business.

Chloe was concerned that the inconsistent social media presence offered little updated information on Lodestar as a company and may put potential clients off.

Lodestar reached out to Planner Bee VA Services to take this workload off Chloe’s plate. They were looking for consistency in social media posting and the creation of content in line with their brand that targeted their potential clients.

Firstly, we firstly completed an audit of Lodestar’s social media platforms to analyse what was going well with their current social media efforts, and where there were areas to improve and opportunities to take advantage of.

Lodestar later decided to add Email Marketing Support to their support package with us to take their marketing one step further and better nurture warm leads.

We set Lodestar up on a more eco-friendly, B Corp certified email marketing platform, Ecosend. On this platform every campaign created on their platform funds verified biodiversity and climate projects. Through Ecosend, we created a strategy and template for monthly newsletters to send to current clients and potential clients.

This enabled us to build a solid social media strategy, which we followed closely to create content that yielded results:

● 565% increase in impressions on LinkedIn within the first month
● 1742% increase in views on Instagram within the first four months

This was well received by the audience, and over the past year of delivering these newsletters, there has been an average open rate of 67%, which is well above the average 27% for email marketing open rates in financial services businesses.

By handing over their social media and email marketing management, Lodestar gained a trusted partner they could rely on. This support cleared essential tasks from Chloe’s plate, offering both practical and mental relief.

Knowing Lodestar’s marketing was being handled to a high standard, Chloe was able to reclaim valuable time to focus on client delivery, attend industry events, and drive business development.

Tyler Grange

Executive Virtual Assistant Support

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Tyler Grange is a B Corp-certified environmental planning consultancy specialising in arboriculture, ecology and landscape architecture, headquartered in Birmingham. Since 2010, the team has grown to more than 120 people across eight UK offices, working a four-day week while supporting clients on projects across the country.
Tyler Grange
Challenge
Solutions
Benefits
Before working with us, the team of directors were struggling with the administrative burden that comes with leading a growing company and were worried that this may lead to things being missed later down the line.

Time that could have been used for paid project and strategic work was instead being spent on day to day admin and with so much going on in the business; tasks, emails and messages quickly built up.

Our executive assistance service changed that, and we were able to lighten the administrative load for key directors. Rather than facing a stacked inbox alone, the team now has support sorting what genuinely needs their attention from what can simply be caught up on later.

Whilst working together over the last 18 months, Tyler Grange has expanded the service we provide from supporting 2 directors, to 5 directors, as well as adding holiday cover for other members of the team.

This highlights our team’s ability to get to know a business at a deep level, and provide support that really makes a difference.

As part of our holiday cover support, we triage and organise emails as well as pulling together a summary of top priorities when you return to work. One colleague returning from two weeks of leave would normally lose a couple of days just getting on top of her emails. Instead, she was back up to speed in half a day – with the holiday cover support saving her a day and a half of administrative work when she returned from annual leave!

The support has helped to lighten the mental load of the directors, particularly through what has been one of the busiest periods the business has faced. Knowing someone is checking things behind the scenes has reduced the risk of anything serious being missed, and of people burning out trying to keep on top of everything themselves.

For Operations Director Carly Goodman-Smith, the biggest benefit has been that safety net: a reminder if something has sat untouched for weeks. Rather than the sinking feeling of realising months later that it was never dealt with. For Financial Director James Harmer, it has been supporting and coordinating complex meetings. This allowed management to coordinate more efficiently and find time for important meetings during busy periods, even when it felt impossible to bring everyone together. Our continued support has given the directors the extra time they needed to maximise their impact on the business.

Future Woodlands Scotland

Social Media Management

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Future Woodlands Scotland is a charity working to protect, create and restore woodlands across Scotland, from city spaces to wild places. Scotland is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and Future Woodlands Scotland helps address this through project funding, skills development, knowledge sharing and partnerships that transform urban and rural landscapes.

Future Woodlands Scotland is a partner of 1% for the Planet, meaning that they receive financial donations from business members who pledge at least 1% of their annual sales to protect the Earth.

Future Woodlands Scotland Logo
Challenge
Solutions
Benefits
Over the past 18 months, the charity has grown its support for projects across Scotland, helping communities, landowners and organisations restore woodlands, plant more trees and enhance biodiversity. New partnerships and fundraising activity are enabling the charity to increase its impact and contribute to a greener, more resilient Scotland.

As the organisation grew, the team found it increasingly difficult to dedicate time to managing its social media channels strategically. These platforms play an important role in sharing project successes, raising awareness of Scotland’s nature and climate challenges, educating audiences, and connecting with potential partners, supporters and grant applicants.

The team reached out to Planner Bee VA Services for support with their social media marketing to help them be more strategic with their content. This would help optimise their social media platforms to be more than just a platform for awareness, but one that helps secure partners, donations, and reach projects that could benefit from their funding.

Together, we created a content strategy which allowed us to be much more intentional and targeted with their posts when it came to their audience. By outsourcing their social media to Planner Bee VA Services, we were able to test a variety of different visual mediums on each platform and track their performance to see what works best.

Some of these posts have directly led to warm leads, and their previous CEO also noticed an increase in messages from the audience who are noticing the work the charity is doing through our social media marketing.

But we can go one step further and actually measure the difference outsourcing their social media support has made on their platforms exactly:
● 190% increase in impressions on LinkedIn over the first 6 months
● 255% increase in Content interactions on Facebook in the first 3 months.
● 18% average increase in LinkedIn followers month on month

Without the support from Planner Bee VA Services, the charity wouldn’t have had the time to optimise posts for each platform or raise the awareness of the charity quite as much as we have together so far. The results and benefits of our work together have led to Future Woodlands Scotland increasing their support package with us since we began to further optimise their social media marketing.

Our support has given back time to Hilary, the Communications Manager at Future Woodlands Scotland, who now has time for forward and strategic planning when it comes to the marketing and communications of the charity as a whole.

Electra Learning

Carbon Footprinting

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Electra Learning is a leading provider of change management services, with a mission to improve the productivity of people, processes and systems. With bases across the UK, USA and Canada, Electra has over 25 years of experience providing change management and learning strategies to help businesses plan and implement the rollout of new or upgraded software. People are at the heart of what Electra does, and as part of this, when we met the team, they were already a certified living wage employer.
Electra Learning
Challenge
Solutions
Benefits
Electra Learning were looking to build on their commitment to social and environmental responsibility by pursuing B Corp certification. As part of the rigorous B Corp application process, Electra needed to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions of the organisation. With a team of 30 and operations spanning multiple countries, this was a complex and time-consuming task.
Planner Bee VA Services partnered with Electra Learning to gather the required data and calculated the scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions of the organisation, in line with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

Examples of the data collated included business trips, employee commutes, energy emissions, water usage, and waste generated across their three international offices. In addition to calculating their organisational carbon footprint, we also provided Electra with a detailed report outlining suggested actions to lower their emissions and improve their environmental impact moving forward.

The carbon footprinting project we completed not only provided Electra with accurate emissions information, taking them closer to achieving their B Corp certification, but it also saved the team valuable time, which they could dedicate to other areas of the business.

Edge Urban Design

Executive VA Support

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Edge Urban Design (edgeUD) is a masterplanning and urban design practice based in Thame, Oxfordshire. Co-founded by Hannah Smart and Sarah Murray, the team has delivered planning permissions for tens of thousands of new homes across the UK, working closely with clients to create places that bring people together.
Edge Urban Design
Challenge
Solutions
Benefits
Before working with us, the edge team were dealing with significant administrative overload alongside their core client work. As part of this, tasks and diary conflicts kept building up, making professional support necessary to relieve the pressure. As Hannah put it, they didn’t yet know what it was like to have that kind of support, so it was hard to recognise how much they needed it.
We provided Executive Assistance support to Hannah, coordinating meetings on her behalf, helping to manage her inbox and diary, as well as providing support with research and administrative tasks, clearing away the admin that had been weighing on her. As part of our work together, we provided holiday cover for Hannah, managing her inbox to triage emails where possible and identify priorities for Hannah’s return to work.
For the first time Hannah was able to switch off completely rather than checking emails out of habit.

With that support in place, Hannah was able to bring more structure to her own diary. She began setting aside days with no meetings, using that time for focused work. That extra headroom gave Hannah space for business development that had often gone unaddressed and hadn’t been prioritised. Thanks to our support, having done the administrative groundwork on a batch of new tender opportunities, she was able to spend a full day working straight through them rather than losing time to admin first.

The EA support provided real relief for Hannah, allowing her to take full advantage of her neurodivergent way of working, instead of working against it. She describes her ADHD as having a hundred tabs open at once, and having help close a few of those tabs helped calm her nervous system and freed up energy for the creative work she enjoys most.

iON Consultants

Carbon Footprinting

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iON Consultants is a values-led consultancy supporting organisations across the UK with health and safety, asbestos assurance, quality and environmental standards. Driven by a strong commitment to people, planet and meaningful impact, they help clients create safe and sustainable spaces where teams can thrive.
Ion Consultants
Challenge
Solutions
Benefits
When we first met the team at iON Consultants, they were looking to improve operational efficiency and gain better support across their internal admin function. They knew they needed to recruit for a brand new role to streamline their operations, but they were struggling to pin down exactly what support was needed.
Instead of jumping straight into the recruitment process, we completed initial scoping work and a thorough gap analysis. Through this work and drawing on our experience providing operational and administrative support in similar roles, we were able to identify exactly where the team needed support and define the skills and experience that the ideal candidate would bring to the role.

Being crystal clear on the requirements for the new Practice and Operations Manager role enabled us to quickly start advertising the position and distil the list of potential candidates down as much as possible before starting the interview process. We then conducted initial online interviews on behalf of iON and passed on a shortlist of the top 3 most promising candidates. iON didn’t want to have to trawl through hundreds of candidates; they wanted a smaller, high-quality shortlist to choose from, so that’s what we provided.

We then joined iON to meet the candidates in person for the final interviews, where we found the right candidate for the Practice and Operations Manager role and offered them the position immediately. Through our comprehensive recruitment process, iON found someone who not only has the right skills and experience for the role, but is also “a jolly good chap” and, importantly, fits their team and culture.

Our tailored and specialised approach meant that the entire recruitment process was streamlined for iON. This resulted in the iON team saving more than 10 working days that would have ordinarily been spent on the recruitment process, freeing the team up to focus on their core work and reducing disruption internally.