Website Marketing Directory — Search Engine Optimisation — Melbourne, Sydney, Australia

Web marketing in general suffers from a bolt-on philosophy in many organisations. It is little more than a means of promoting a fait accompli, an afterthought to be brought in at the conclusion of the product cycle to stir up some hype and be bundled it into a neat Powerpoint presentation. As a consequence it often fails to ignite as it should. Successful campaigns trip up on convoluted or slow sales processes. Unsuccessful campaigns get tossed in the branding bucket.

The biggest obstacle to overcome is often the knowledge gap and the incorrect consideration of website issues as an IT problem.  Many web business arms fail not because of poor ideas but in how these ideas are implemented online. The web is not TV, it is not print media, it is not a brochure, and marketing strategies along these lines generally fail. Successful web businesses maximise the delivery of customers THROUGH the website not just to it.

This has relevance irrespective of the nature of the business or industry. The key question is not whether you can sell through the site but rather streamlining communications. Web marketing can facilitate the delivery of information about products and services better than any other medium and can also provide a level of accountability and measurement lacking in many traditional channels. How many offline media will allow you to pay based upon the number of visitors or leads delivered to your sales team?

For the franchise industry the issues are fundamental. A coherent and consistent web strategy should form part of any marketing plan. The internet allows for centralised management and distribution of communications, branding, resources and leads.  Search engines can deliver customers irrespective of geographic boundaries.  Appropriate use of digital media can reduce overheads related to printing marketing collateral. Web site support can add value and immediacy to existing media campaigns.  

The following case study highlights how developing a solid web strategy enabled a small Victorian manufacturing company within 12 months to expand interstate, attract and secure an international distributor, gain national television exposure and negotiate its first master franchise agreement for New South Wales. 

The Company:

New Water were a company on the move with an innovative and environmentally friendly product (Rain Reviva), a motivated sales team and a network of agents & affiliates selling to the Eastern seaboard of Australia. With the manufacturing centre located in Eastern Melbourne and servicing customers in three states it was vital that all opportunities to streamline communications and lead distribution were exploited to the full. The website (www.rainreviva.com.au) was intended to be an integral part of this as the site expanded its distribution network throughout Australia to capitalise upon the growing need for water saving products.

The New Water business also was in the process of preparing for the launch of new products and services and it was considered important that any web strategy should allow for the development and management of spin off product sites and an over all corporate presence. 

The Challenge:

The website was under performing. Rather than allowing for the easier actioning of sales leads it often delivered unqualified referrals and incomplete data requiring time consuming follow up by internal staff and agents. The site was difficult to maintain due to the complexity of its management system and it often stood idle with stale content and was operating as little more than an online brochure. To justify its existence the site needed to start earning it's keep. I worked with New Water to isolate the key requirements for the business and then categorised these according to the Enedia four pillar web marketing methodology (EIES). 

Exposure: (Everything that contributes towards getting someone on site)

Increasing the number of qualified visitors to the Rain Reviva website. Focus was to be on quality not volume. The site is a sales tool and the emphasis needed to be on maximising the number of visitors who are interested and in a position to buy.

Interest: (Everything that contributes to keeping someone on site)

Getting someone to a website is just the start of the game. The content needed to provide sufficient interest to encourage further exploration within and through the site. The structure needed to streamline the flow of customers to the core site areas. These core areas (or sweet spots) were identified as being the Product Information page, the Downloads page, the Price page and the Contact page.

 

Engagement: (Everything that contributes to a web visitor interacting with your business)

As the primary purpose of the website is to generate leads the key metric for measuring engagement is the number of client contacts that can be traced directly back to the website. This includes submissions of enquiry forms, emails and phone calls to the 1900 number that are identified as being web sourced.

 Sale: (Everything that contributes to turning a lead into a sale)

Particular emphasis was on reducing the time lag between a customer submitting an enquiry and speaking to a sales representative.

 The Process:

After an initial series of briefing sessions with key stakeholders Enedia conducted a full web marketing audit of the Rain Reviva website and the broader New Water business. This covered all elements of online service and included a wide range of issues including usability, content structure and organisation, choice of technology, search engine implications, cross platform support, industry best practice, functionality and branding. These were categorised into quick wins (that could be implemented without delay) and items that should be considered for a future revamp. This included...

 

• Unnecessary segmentation of the site into members and non members areas which actively prevented full indexing of the core pages by search engines and acted as a disincentive for customers to engage with the site as they were required to register simply to view sales information.
• Use of images for navigation without corresponding text links
• Complex and unfocused web forms that generated numerous incomplete submissions, were inadequately vetted and required substantial back office time to process
• Confusing navigation and multiple pages named similarly
• Unfocused content composed without regard to search engine implications or stimulating customers
• Difficult to use Content Management System (CMS)
• Structural errors in certain browsers and platforms
• Heavy reliance on external web developer for menial day-to-day tasks

New Water and Enedia worked closely prioritising these issues and developed a strategic plan aimed at maximising the contribution of the site to net revenue.  Enedia examined and explained identified flaws and limitations, highlighted strengths for consolidation and considered future opportunities as well as potential and real threats. From this flowed a series of core recommendations that included …

·        Redeveloping the Rain Reviva website to incorporate a more flexible and easy to use CMS

·        Utalising a database more efficiently to capture and distribute, by way of postcode, leads generated by the site. Site was set up to store copies of leads and allow export of detailed reports in Excel format.

·        Ensuring website CMS was flexible enough to allow it to be expanded to eventually manage an additional product spin-off site and a small corporate site. (ie. 3 sites managed through the one Administration area)

·        Site to be optimised for core keywords and CMS to be configured to allow main site content to be tweaked over time to maximise search engine impact.

·        Navigation to be simplified and actively designed to push traffic to core site areas.

·        Onsite forms to be simplified and key qualifying fields to be made mandatory

New Water then engaged Enedia to prepare appropriate design and development briefing documentation for these tasks. These were then supplied to a short list of developers and we worked with New Water to choose the submission that best fit the requirements. Enedia then acted as a consultant project manager over the course of the development and rollout cycle. Once complete Enedia assisted New Water set up and run a range of Search Engine Marketing campaigns and establish a variety of link exchange and online affiliations to maximise referrals and search engine performance.

 The Results:

The Rain Reviva website was successfully launched in March 2005 and in July/August 2005 Enedia assisted New Water with the development of the additional new product site for the Grey Water Management system (www.aquareviva.com.au). To date the following results have been achieved...

 

• The combination of the restructured site, easier content management & assistance with Search Engine Marketing campaigns have enabled New Water to reduce their lead generation costs from nearly $60 per lead through traditional media to approximately $30. It is anticipated that this will reduce further as marketing staff become more adept at managing the site and campaigns, and accumulated knowledge re customer behaviour is ploughed back into it.
• The automation of the lead distribution from the site has significantly reduced the time commitment of the back office staff in managing leads effectively freeing up a staff member for additional duties.
• The use of restructured forms with mandatory questions has practically eliminated the occurrence of leads being submitted incomplete or with errors. This has increased the quality of referred leads and reduced the cost associated with follow up.
• The contribution of the website restructure to the ongoing success of the New Water business was recognised by a profile on the Channel Nine "Your Business Success" program on September 4th 2005 (repeated in December 2005).
• In early 2006 New Water secured its first international distribution partner for New Zealand. The New Zealand partner had become aware of the New Water technology solely through the websites appearance in Google.
• New Water have recently signed a Master Franchise Agreement for NSW. The developed websites now form a key component of their support systems saving the master franchise licensee the cost of having to develop a website and enabling New Water to maintain consistency of branding as well as an efficient communication tool. They anticipate having several franchises up and running in the next few months.

 

Andrew Pearce the CEO of New Water believes the web is integral to the ongoing success of the business. “The web is the most efficient form of lead generation because customers have already read the information on site and been pre qualified according to price, product and location before they make contact. We were a small business without a lot of marketing capital and the web provided an extremely cost effective tool to support and drive our expansion into new markets. It is now a crucial part of our franchise strategy.”  

The broad lesson is that increasing the yield of web marketing requires pre planning structured around three broad goals.

 

·        Streamlining existing systems to maximise revenue and reducing the costs of servicing the existing customer base

·        Preparing the company for successful growth through implementing best practice methods and appropriate technology

·        Ensuring that the company has the necessary tools, knowledge and business processes to be able to react quickly to market changes and cherry pick the best marketing ideas

           

Above all else you need to get your web marketing roadworthy before you are going to do well in the race. This has particular relevance for franchisors and franchisees alike.