ELEVATOR PITCH:
In late 2022, we recognized the opportunity to market Saddle Creek’s order fulfillment solutions more effectively on our website. While our corporate website (www.sclogistics.com) provided information about our fulfillment services, we wanted to present our fulfillment solutions in a more robust way that would better resonate with clients and prospects.
We had three key objectives:
- Provide a better user experience for website visitors
- Showcase the breadth and depth of our fulfillment solutions
- Expand opportunities to engage with site visitors
We set out to create a microsite specifically focused on order fulfillment, enlisting the support of our marketing agency partner, Roger West. To help guide the development of the site, we conducted competitive analysis and SEO research and interviewed members of our sales and leadership teams.
On Sept. 29, 2023, we launched a dynamic, customer-centric site that clearly conveys Saddle Creek’s value proposition and key differentiators and offers visitors numerous opportunities to connect with the company.
The 20-page site can be accessed via its own URL (www.sclogistics.com/fulfillment) or from the Services page on our corporate site.
The microsite has been extremely successful – far exceeding expectations. In the first six months, page views increased over 1,171%, and average engagement time is up 74% compared to the fulfillment pages on our corporate website.
MEASURABLE RESULTS AND OBJECTIVES ACHIEVEMENT:
Objective 1: Provide a better user experience for website visitors
- Customer-centric approach
The customer profile for Saddle Creek’s prospective order fulfillment clients is somewhat different from the traditional 3PL audience for our corporate site. They are a bit younger, more technologically savvy, and very focused on their brand and their customers – consumers shopping in stores and online.
To better reflect the perspective of this target audience, the microsite boasts a fresh, modern design with engaging consumer “hero” photos as well as photos and videos featuring our advanced technologies in action. Crisp, concise copy focuses on addressing their unique needs and issues.
We took great care to make the site easy for visitors to navigate. The microsite homepage essentially provides a “front door” to welcome visitors interested in Saddle Creek’s fulfillment services. It has its own navigation bar which includes: Fulfillment Solutions, Capabilities, Our Network, Industries, Resources and About Us.
Saddle Creek supports fulfillment clients in a number of sales channels – each of which have unique needs, so the Fulfillment Solutions section is broken out by channel: Ecommerce, Retail, Subscription and Omnichannel.
Numerous links throughout the site allow visitors to pursue various avenues of interest.
Visitors are clearly engaged in the site, as evidenced by the 74% increase in average engagement time.
Objective 2: Showcase the breadth and depth of our fulfillment services
The Fulfillment Services section of our corporate website was comprised of just five pages. With four times as many pages, the microsite allows us to share much more information.
We made it a priority to highlight six core Capabilities that our research indicated were key points of competitive differentiation for Saddle Creek. To help unify these services and give them more prominence, we opted to brand them with new names and logos. There is a web page with a featured case study devoted to each capability. This year, we plan to promote these capabilities in our marketing efforts.
Recognizing that certain types of products that we handle routinely have unique fulfillment requirements, we also added an Industries page which identifies the unique fulfillment requirements of eight vertical markets and links to a related case study for each. Going forward, we will build out separate pages with more information and related resources for each industry.
A new Our Network page provides more context around our corporate Locations page.
We also made a point of incorporating client success stories to serve as “proof points” of our experience and expertise. Nearly every page on the site includes one or more client case studies, videos or testimonial quotes.
The remarkable 1,171% increase in page views demonstrates site visitors’ interest in exploring the site and learning more about Saddle Creek.
Objective 3: Expand opportunities to engage with site visitors
The new microsite has helped expand our fulfillment audience. In the first six months after the site launched, the number of users increased 1,364%.
To help drive traffic to the new site, we partnered with Industry Dive, a respected trade publisher, to conduct an industry survey. Based on their objective research, we developed a fulfillment trends report which we posted in the Resources section when the microsite launched.
With extensive promotion on social media, our blog and paid ads, the report garnered nearly 28,000 page views and achieved a 22% engagement rate.
The microsite Resources page boasts an extensive content library. In addition to the research report and case studies mentioned earlier, blogs, whitepapers, ebooks, and infographics give site visitors ample opportunity to engage with our content and spend more time on our site.
Videos on other key pages also help increase “site stickiness.” In fact, the heat map we installed on the site shows that the technology video is one of the top areas that visitors focus on on the homepage.
Throughout the site, Get Started and Contact Us buttons help optimize the user experience by giving visitors the opportunity to complete a form requesting outreach from a Saddle Creek expert.
For an extra personal touch, the Connect with an Expert section at the bottom of every page features photos of Saddle Creek business development team members and thought leaders.
BLAZING A TRAIL:
Saddle Creek has been a leading 3PL for nearly 60 years, but the order fulfillment segment of our business is comparatively new – growing along with the evolution of ecommerce. The performance of our new microsite shows that an industry veteran can successfully demonstrate relevance to this newer audience.
The microsite has blazed a trail internally as well. When we first began planning to upgrade the web presence for our fulfillment services, we reached out to stakeholders from across the company – including sales, operations and IT – to get their perspective. We continued to connect with them throughout the site development process and update them on our progress.
Since they were involved every step of the way, they were extremely satisfied with the end result and supportive of efforts to promote the site. Case in point: Before we even launched the microsite, the head of our parcel team ordered shirts with the new logo for SCShip, one of our branded capabilities, for her team to wear at Parcel Forum this fall.
When we update the corporate website later this year, we can rely on the support of this engaged team of advisors.
