Case Study: Roland Curtains Grows Lead Generation By Over 750%

ABOUT THE COMPANY:

Since 1965, Roltrans Group has been the world leader in the production of side curtains and graphics for the trucking industry. The company began its operations in The Netherlands, serving all of Western Europe. In 1997 Roltrans Group opened up their U.S. operation to better serve the growing demand for its products in the United States. In 2010 the company rebranded as Roland Curtains Inc.

As the US trucking industry looked for ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency in their delivery operations both large and small fleets began to embrace the use of side curtains to deliver lumber, building products, paper products, steel, automobiles, glass, beverages and much more.

THE PROBLEM:

Roland was wondering how to boost sales from a 10% growth per year to 25% per year in annual growth

3 Points of Frustration

1. Market Expansion with Limited Salespeople
2. Challenge finding New Product Markets
3. Unable to Find, Reach, and Engage New Customers

Background
After their introduction in the U.S. Roland enjoyed above average growth year to year. However, the price competitive nature of the business began to have a softening effect on annual growth and recent growth had stalled at 10% per year. This no longer met the company’s long-term goals as their business plan called for an annual growth rate of 25% per year.

Previous attempts to increase sales had been ineffective and the sales team was pushing management to add marketing to support their sales efforts and help them expand their market and find new leads. However, the Company had no Marketing Dept and the 3 people in sales largely depended on word of mouth and a website that was rarely updated to help them find additional business. In fact, the total marketing investment in campaigns since its U.S. introduction was very limited. What was directed toward marketing was generally spent on a few trade magazines and several small trade shows and these efforts never produced any real impact on growth.

In late 2014 Brandwise, a national sales & marketing growth firm was introduced to Roland’s Management to create an order form for one of Roland’s clients. After the project’s completion, Brandwise initiated a conversation with Roland’s Management and discovered their disappointment with recent sales growth. They also shared their desire to find new methods to stimulate sales and a way to reinvigorate their former growth patterns.

Discussions over the ensuing weeks and months focused on… advertising’s decline, the changing landscape of buyer purchasing habits, and how marketing, in general, was evolving to adapt to the Internet. Overall, Roland was in agreement with our assessment, but they felt “that these marketing concepts applied to other markets” and “consumer products”. There was no evidence that the trucking industry was ready for blogs, social media or other similar tactics which made it difficult for the client to get excited and go “all-in”. In addition, a 25% increase in sales to match their early growth seemed a bit aggressive given the nature of the sales practices and commodity perception of the products on the market.

In the end, the client agreed that our approach made the most sense, had a little-associated risk and if it worked, would put them in a leadership position, which was appealing. 

THE SOLUTION:

A Systematic, Verifiable, and Step-By-Step Process

Background
Mr. Johnson said… “At the end of the day, I am a manager. In order to run a company, I need to rely on systems and data. Brandwise’s systematized approach really made sense to me. More importantly, it allowed us to measure our success at all times, not just at the end of a campaign.”

The Game Plan
A game plan was created that would attack the Company’s goals in three phases:

• • Phase I – Website Redesign: The objective was to create a more modern and sophisticated look and begin educating prospects on the value of curtainside trailers. This phase was estimated to take about 2 months but that stretched to 5 months before the new site was actually launched.
    
    
  • Phase II – Traffic Building: To increase sales we needed to get more traffic to Roland’s site. This phase focused on traffic building, tracking activity and search engine results and took 3 months to rollout.
    
    
  • Phase III – Lead Generation: As we increased traffic our plan was to implement a conversion process to encourage site visitors to take action. This means getting visitors to download a white paper, download a case study, and/or request a quote. Tracking activity and results is more important as we review visitor site behavior and which allowed us to continually determine which type of offers are working the best. This took another 3 months to rollout and will evolve and improve over time.

The overall Business Goal was simple: Increase sales by 25% over the previous year. This number represents the type of growth Roland experienced in their early years and management felt was still possible given the potential within the overall trailer market.

THE IMPLEMENTATION:

Set a Baseline, Clearly Define Target Audience,
Work a Solid Methodology, Build Traffic, Generate Leads,
and Continue until Goals are Reached

Getting Started

The game plan centered around implementing inbound or content marketing driven first by a re-design of the client’s website followed by the implementation of various inbound marketing strategies designed to separate Roland from their competitors in the minds of their prospects and customers.

The Company’s website design looked dated and the content was not current. The new website would be fresh and professional with clean lines, updated graphics and photos. The main focus was to portray Roland in a light that was much more in line with their products and brand. The goals for the new site included:

• Improving SEO (search engine optimization) and increasing monthly traffic to the site
• Focus on increasing Organic search traffic with specific pages directed toward key market needs
• Publish regular blog articles to increase page count and attract new visitors via search
• Improve lead generation:
  
  
  • Offer downloadable content in the form of ebooks and other content with an industry focus to appeal directly to the major buyer personas in the industry.
  • Add forms and Call to Action buttons to encourage action on the part of visitors
  • Create several videos to highlight specific product advantages and educate customers and prospects
  • Launch an email newsletter to existing clients.

In addition to website improvements the game plan included social media; something the client had never used and was rarely used by any manufacturer in the industry. The plan with social media included:

• • Identifying the social networks that were being used by buyers and drivers in the industry.
  • Use social media to distribute the new content on a regular basis.
  • Track results, evaluate the data and make course corrections as needed.

Hubspot Analytics was used to monitor, track and report on key metrics including traffic, keyword activity, and page performance. Other measurement areas included:

• Regular monitoring of each social media network to measure growth of followers as well as social interactions
• Additional feedback came from HubSpot’s Website Grader to compare scores versus the baseline or existing performance.

THE RESULTS:

Short-term: Generated Qualified Sales Leads, Ranked on Search Engines, and Out-Performed Roland’s Competitors.

Long-term: Get to 25% Annual Growth.

Phase I Results

The goals going into Phase I were more focused on the site’s design with an emphasis to make it easier to navigate, improve SEO to make it more search engine friendly and improve its usability. The initial results were promising. A comparison of the before and after homepages below illustrate the dramatic improvement in overall design.

Homepage side by side comparison: