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A True Story – Results From the Four Step Process

downloadThe strategies and action items in “Winning the Website War” will help you grow sales for your company. You can now reserve a copy of the book from the sign-up box on our home page.  Following is an excerpt from the text, only the names have been changed in this true story.

“It is sure nice to see a record sales month, especially after the great year we had last year. This is a very pleasant surprise,” said Ralph Moore, sales and marketing director for BC Wire Carts, a leading manufacturer of industrial laundry carts. Their strategic digital marketing strategy prior to implementing the Four Step Process was to have a basic website with a few key products.

“We never thought our website could produce sales at a level worth the investment we would have to make to build a new ecommerce website. Most of our sales come from our distributor network and we did not think customers would want to buy at full retail prices when they can purchase our products at 20 percent less from a distributor,” reported Ralph.

As it turns out, customers will pay more to buy direct from the manufacture on a website they trust with full access to all available products. Distributor websites are often poorly developed and hard to use. Also, coding every product for search engine optimization (SEO) increased traffic 30 percent annually leading to higher sales.

They also tackled a high cart abandonment rate head-on by instituting a cart abandonment email program with excellent results. “If a customer does not complete their shopping cart and purchase, we follow up with an email reminding them about the product of interest. Many of these Website users come back and purchase,” said Ralph.

The key to success for BC Carts was keeping things simple and focusing on the products. Here are a few things they learned from the Four Step Process:

Strategy: They designed and developed an easy to use ecommerce website to target buyers of industrial wire carts and baskets. They also included the full complement of products found nowhere else on the Internet. 

Design and Development: They allowed website visitors to buy without a login and include all products on the website with their accessories. Up-selling accessories and using shipping incentives to improve conversion rates also helped increase their sales.

Traffic Generation: By coding every product page for SEO, they achieved a page-one ranking in Google for key industry search terms. Hundreds of products were coded for such searches.

Monitoring ROI and Tracking Results: They scheduled monthly strategic digital marketing meetings to analyze sales data and make changes as needed to increase sales. Follow-up on all prospective customers who abandoned their shopping carts with a personalized email and description of the products they left in their carts was critical to their success.

The Results: Consistent annual increases in sales and website traffic built the brand and helped grow the company on and off the Internet.

Thomas Young

Thomas Young is the CEO and Founder of Intuitive Websites. He is a consultant, award winning Vistage speaker and author of “Winning the Website War” and “Sales and Marketing Alignment.” Tom has helped thousands of companies succeed online and has over 25 years digital marketing experience.