Manufacturing Website Converts Engagement into Action
Challenge
Alto-Shaam first engaged Ascedia in 2014 to develop a web experience that would establish them as an industry digital leader, while providing the superior experience Alto-Shaam customers expect. That iteration of the website served a very distinct purpose over the last four years, but business goals and opportunities changed. Alto-Shaam desired a fresh design and more flexible presentation components to allow the site to better align with the trajectory of the overall business. Despite being a leader in its industry and digital space, Alto-Shaam’s leads were not increasing like they hoped. The site structure was not intuitive and navigating the site proved challenging to users. Alto-Shaam also realized that customers didn’t understand the buying process and sought an easier way to demonstrate what the process entails to potential customers. Additionally, Alto-Shaam’s site admins needed a way to easily publish new product, marketing and on-demand content to the site without development assistance.
Solution
Strategic Planning We began this project with strategic planning, which laid the foundation for all work moving forward. During this process, we conducted competitive and content analyses, created user personas and journey maps to outline the website’s main audiences and their respective touchpoints on the site, conducted keyword research to help inform content strategy, gathered functionality and technology requirements and defined preliminary post-launch website goals. Content Management We continued to use Kentico EMS, upgraded to v.11, for content management. The newer version allowed Alto-Shaam the flexibility they were looking for by providing drag-and-drop widgets to assist with new page creation, while maintaining a consistent user experience across the website. Integrations Alto-Shaam uses a third-party translations vendor to provide a multi-lingual experience for its users. A website connector was built to assist with sending web content out for translations and make the entire process more seamless. We also built a connector to Alto-Shaam’s digital management system, Widen, which allows Alto-Shaam to have one central document repository. Documents are synced daily to ensure the most up-to-date documents are on the website. Azure Search Azure search was implemented to help provide a more robust onsite search experience. With the vast number of documents and product-related content, Alto-Shaam needed a search tool that could keep up with its users search requests. The onsite search and Resource Library sections are both powered by Azure search. Continuous Improvement After the initial site launch, we continue to work with Alto-Shaam to identify enhancement opportunities and functionality additions, to continuously optimize and improve onsite user experience. We enhanced the product listing pages, to provide more details to the customer, including exclusive features for each product line, more definition around the various product types, on-page filtering and a new product comparison tool. Coming soon to the site is a new ‘My Account’ area for Alto-Shaam customers. Within this area users have access to a dashboard that houses all recent orders, including shipping information. We also built a decision tree widget, which helps customers and prospects who may not know which product is the best fit for them by giving users a few simple prompts and matching them to the product that best fits their criteria.
Results
In additional to increases in overall sessions, organic traffic and conversions, the new website improved Alto-Shaam’s video library and its accessibility. Year-over-year, the number of times videos were watched in their entirety increased from 700 in 2018 to 139,940 in 2019.
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