Owners and marketing directors are hounded weekly if not daily regarding digital marketing. We at KriXis Consulting decided more than a year ago to take a different approach; create a data-backed, industry-specific case study.
This post has been written with two goals in mind, to thoroughly explain a digital marketing process and provide realistic attainable benefits from the explained processes. We realize you may be unfamiliar with some terms in this post, to help we hyperlinked terms-of-art to pages with easy explanations for your convenience.
We wanted to find the perfect machine shop; a company that understood an online presence was needed, but was not actively making improvements.
Our desired shop met the following criteria:
- Has an outdated or no website;
- Absent from social media;
- Sparse if any digital presence;
- At least 10+ years in business.
Shop Selection
Over a year ago (currently May 2017) we sent an offer via email blast for a discounted website, design and build, and creation of a digital marketing foundation in return to allow us to create a case study. We selected two machine shops – Southeastern Manufacturing Enterprise, based in Franklin TN; and O & S Machine Company, from Latrobe PA. Both met all (4) criteria, and were located in competitive machining markets.
Southeastern Manufacturing Enterprise Initial Online Presence
Shop had dated and not responsive, not mobile-friendly, website (SEE screenshot below).
Social media signals and profiles were not present and the website had zero back-links. However, due to having a website, SME was able to build some domain authority.
O & S Machine Initial Online Presence
This fifty year-old machine shop had no online presence at all.
Both companies were given similar plans-of-action, processes and timelines, each are discussed in further detail below.
Timeline and Process
Due to both businesses having different starting points we tailored separate plans to ensure both were given a strong digital marketing foundation. However, each strategy followed a few basic principles: designing and building a responsive website, ensure focus of all major on-page SEO elements, create social media accounts, and correctly submit business listing citations.
At KriXis Consulting projects always kick-off with market research by MBAs utilizing a variety of tools, such as Google Keyword Planner and FreshKey, creating a clear marketing picture.
The two machine shops in this study were no exception to this rule. This tactic gives us insight into the volume of searches queried for specific terms or phrases, with results being based on monthly averages over 12-months, these can even be pinpointed to specific geographical areas. To simply put it, we uncover what potential customers are searching in your area, and make sure marketing efforts are geared towards those searches.
If that sounded confusing, don’t worry, it will all make sense when you see the plans in their entirety, followed by the results. Specific details for each company are listed below.
Southeastern Manufacturing Enterprise Marketing Plan
SME Responsive Website
We allotted 7-business days to conduct the research, present a mock-up layout, and build the new website.
On-Page Keyword SEO Focus
- Nashville TN Machine Shop
- CNC Milling
- Turning
- Machine Building Services
Created Social Media Accounts
Completed within 30-days.
- Tumblr
- Google+
Business Listing Citations
Completed within 60-days.
- Top 50 Directories
(Sample of correctly formatted business directory submission.)
Additional Blog
Within 90-days of project commencement we built SME a blog page, as well as produced an optimized article.
O & S Machine Company Marketing Plan
O & S Machine’s Responsive Website
We allotted 14-business days to conduct the research, present a mock-up layout, and build the new website. Extra time was provided due to no website existing prior to project.
On-Page Keyword SEO Focus
- South Western PA Machine Shop
- Pittsburgh Area Machining
Created Social Media Accounts
Completed within 30-days.
- Google+
Business Listing Citations
Completed within 180-days.
- Top 80 Directories
(Sample of correctly formatted business directory submission.)
Current Standings (May 2017)
This is everyone’s favorite part, results that affect the bottom-line.
Search Engine Results
For each company we ran over 50 variations of common search phrases regarding services provided. We then selected (4) search terms using keywords for each shop’s geographical area, which averaged at least 50-100 searches per month; this provided a total of 200-2,000 opportunities for their machine shop to be found per month. These numbers only account for Google and their search partners; when considering Bing, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves, those numbers are easily doubled.
Feel free to test the following results for yourself.
SERPs | Southeastern Manufacturing Enterprise
Tennessee Machine Shop
- Ranking: First Page, #10
Machine Building in TN
- Ranking: First Page, #6
Franklin TN Machine Shop
- Ranking: First Page, #3
CNC Machining in Franklin TN
- Ranking First Page, #3
SERPs | O & S Machine Company
PA Machine Shop
- Ranking: First Page, #1
Greater Pittsburgh Area Machining Services
- Ranking: First Page, #1
Southwestern PA Machining
- Ranking: First Page, #2
Pittsburgh Area Natural Gas Machining
- Ranking: First Page, #1
Google Analytics Data
We added Google Analytics tracking to both websites. This software allows web admins to gather data ranging from the number of times a website was visited, geographic location of the visitors, how someone found a website (ex. search engine or directly typing in the web address), even exactly how the website is navigated during the visit. Not only does this information track marketing effort progress, but also allows admins to seek out bottlenecks preventing visitors from what is most important, making visitor into customer.
Below we added screenshots for both company’s data over a 6-month period, November 1, 2016 – May 1, 2017.
Google Analytics | Southeastern Manufacturing Enterprise
- 597 unique visitors during a 6-month period.
Google Analytics | O & S Machine Company
- 505 unique visitors during a 6-month period.
Case Study Overview
- Two machine shops, in different locations and markets began with little to no online presence.
- KriXis Consulting provided tailored plans to build a strong digital foundation.
- Both companies generated awareness and business within a year time period, backed by data directly from Google.
We cannot stress enough that digital marketing is not an overnight success. You will not see immediate results unless you implement paid ad campaigns, which we highly discourage doing for the machining and manufacturing industry.
Additionally, it’s important to note both projects have been complete for almost a year, which provided the necessary time to have all aspects of the foundation indexed.
Our goal is long-term partnerships with clients that provide years of growth and online dominance. If you have any questions regarding what you have read or if you are interested in seeing what we can do for you, fill out the contact form below, or visit our contact page and it will be our pleasure to provide a free consultation. Thank you for taking the time to read this post, please share it via social media or with anyone whom you think it could benefit, if you’d like to learn more about our services or see more posts like this, all you need to do is click either link.
We Look Forward To Hearing From You!