Redesigning Hopskip's brand and website, and driving planner leads to 695% of target
Hopskip needed a marketing engine that could feed a two-sided marketplace of event planners and hotels.
Hopskip needed one leader to own marketing end to end, from design and web to pipeline.
Founded in 2019, Hopskip is a hotel booking platform that streamlines group and meeting bookings for event planners and hotels.
Kate (founder of Aloola) joined as VP of Marketing in July 2025. Hopskip needed her to:
- Own marketing from strategy to execution
- Redesign the website
- Create new print and digital materials
- Overhaul HubSpot to track every lead and deal
- Launch and manage paid ads
- Lead event presence and booth design
Two-sided marketplaces have to win both sides at once. Hopskip needed more event planners sending RFPs to keep hotels engaged, and a brand and website credible enough to win them. It also needed marketing tied directly to company targets, with clean data in HubSpot and weekly accountability for every number.
Kate ran marketing end to end. She started with deep positioning work on both sides of the marketplace, used it to improve visitors marketing and web experience, then built the systems to measure what it produced.
- Two-sided positioning: Defined how Hopskip wins with event planners and with hotels, with separate value propositions and messaging for each side.
- 8 new personas: Built 8, in-depth personas across planners and hotels to guide messaging, the website, campaigns, and sales conversations.
- Brand updates: Refreshed the brand to reflect the new positioning across the website, sales materials, and events.
- Design and web in house: Brand updates, the website redesign, and event booth designs were all led by Kate.
- Asana and Notion: Every project, campaign, and launch ran through Asana, with positioning, personas, and processes documented in Notion.
- HubSpot as the source of truth: Every lead, MQL, and customer tracked in one CRM (HubSpot), with lifecycle stages scored by engagement and fit. Reports will built to easily track progress.
- Weekly scorecard: Leads and MQLs tracked weekly against pacing targets, with a recovery plan for any metric behind.
- Full funnel focus: Marketing measured on new planner customers alongside sales, beyond top-of-funnel volume.
Brand and event design
01 · Brand updates
Refreshed the Hopskip brand so marketing, sales, and the product looked and sounded like one company.
Deliverables
- Updated visual identity
- Brand guidelines
- Sales and marketing collateral
02 · Event booth design
Designed Hopskip's event booths and materials to stand out on busy trade show floors and capture planner leads in person.
Deliverables
- Booth design
- Event signage and print materials
- Event lead capture and follow-up
Website redesign
01 · Redesign
Redesigned the Hopskip website as the front door for both planners and hotels, with clear paths to sign up or book a demo.
Deliverables
- Full website redesign
- Planner and hotel landing pages
- Conversion paths for signups and demos
02 · Paid acquisition
Ran paid campaigns that sent new planners to the redesigned site, with every conversion tracked in HubSpot.
Deliverables
- Paid ad campaigns
- Campaign landing pages
- Campaign tracking in HubSpot
HubSpot and lead generation
01 · HubSpot build-out
Built out HubSpot to track the full planner journey, from first touch to closed deal, so every channel could be measured.
Deliverables
- Lifecycle stage definitions
- Engagement and fit lead scoring
- Pipeline and attribution reporting
02 · Lead generation
Turned the new brand, site, events, and paid campaigns into a lead engine that beat its Q2 2026 target by nearly 7x.
Deliverables
- Multi-channel lead generation
- MQL handoff to sales
- Weekly lead and MQL reporting
- Hit 695% of the Q2 2026 planner lead target
- Grew planner leads 45% from Q1 to Q2 2026
- Hit 108% of the Q2 2026 MQL target, and beat the April target by 55%
- Redesigned the website and refreshed the brand in house
- Built HubSpot into the single source of truth for pipeline
"Kate [Aloola] did a phenomenal job at building out our brand and marketing function from scratch. Give Kate the goal and get out of the way. The execution and deliverables were top-tier."
