When global business printing and payment solution provider Relyco came to Raka they had a number of goals for their disorganized and dated website.
Website build objectives
Their primary objective was to improve the user experience, create a website that would generate leads, and ultimately increase revenue.
Secondary website objectives
Beyond their primary goals, Relyco had several secondary objectives for their new site and marketing efforts as a whole:
- An intuitive back-end that would be easy for the Relyco staff to update and maintain
- A reduced dependency on email marketing to drive leads
- A reduced dependency on Google AdWords/paid search to drive website traffic
- Increased market visibility in core verticals
To address these concerns, we started by completing a proprietary questionnaire with their team. This helped us to understand their overall goals at a higher level. Then we got to work.
Buyer personas to inform content & conversion paths
Early on in the process, Relyco recognized the need for its website and its marketing to serve very different audiences.
As part of an inbound marketing strategy, Raka worked with Relyco to identify different buyer personas. Going through this inbound strategy helped Relyco and Raka understand what challenges and motivations Relyco’s customers have.
Identifying these buyer personas helps inform the content that Relyco now produces through blog posts, webinars, and white papers, but it was also key to organizing the website architecture based on the needs of Relyco’s current customers and future prospects.
Reimagined content presentation
While Relyco’s previous site had a lot of content, much of it was disorganized or duplicated on different pages (not good for SEO!). To get a sense for what we were working with, our first step was to gather all content from the previous website, then thread it into the new site architecture page-by-page.
We created an outline, then filled out and organized all content from corresponding pages on the current site. We edited for clarity, then made recommendations for metadata, word counts, and strategic asset presentation to complement the new design.
Working with the client through a number of reviews and revisions, we arrived at a final content document which we worked from to upload all content via the WordPress admin panel. This process helped to ensure that all content on the new site was as fresh, relevant, and search engine optimized.
User-focused design approach
Our approach to the design was to create a clean and modern looking site that would help Relyco’s diverse users intuitively navigate to the content they need.
Previously, Relyco’s homepage was entirely product-focused, devoid of any direction for the user. Their new homepage welcomes users with a clear entry point, calling out their key verticals with a solution-focused approach to best serve their clients’ interests.
To improve user experience, we used bold color to distinguish the various user personas and help drive people to their desired content quickly and easily.
We also created an optimal user experience by designing a responsive website that adjusts to any screen size.
WordPress, HubSpot, and Magento, oh my!
Relyco’s new website is an integration of a few of our favorite technologies: HubSpot, WordPress, and Magento.
WordPress CMS
The WordPress platform was a good solution for Relyco for a number of reasons. Not only did Relyco want a website that they could easily update in-house, but WordPress’ robust library of plugins makes custom functionality a breeze and it integrates well with our favorite marketing automation tool, HubSpot.
HubSpot marketing software
WordPress served Relyco’s content publishing needs, but they still needed a marketing automation solution to create calls to action (CTAs), track leads, send marketing emails, and generate reports. That’s where HubSpot came in.
HubSpot also let Relyco make tangible use of their buyer personas, allowing for contact segmentation based on interest or vertical. Finally, HubSpot allowed for easy SalesForce integration, an essential step which allowed their sales team to get lead intelligence on sales-qualified leads (SQLs). With the integration between HubSpot and SalesForce.com, Relyco was able to adjust to the new system without disrupting their workflow.
Magento E-commerce
We chose Magento for their e-commerce site, store.relyco.com. We love Magento for builds that require advanced functionality because of its open source platform and adaptive API. These features provide the flexibility to customize myriad e-commerce templates as we see fit, as well as easy integration with a number of third-party applications.
In Relyco’s case, among other benefits, it offered them the ability to group similar products and display them as one, making it easier for customers to browse inventory without wading through a sea of duplicate products, as had been the experience on Relyco’s old e-commerce site. It also offered them a whole host of new ways to promote their offerings, including highly-customizable coupon and discount functionality.
The integration of these platforms works well for clients who require a high degree of customization or who have existing processes in place that the new site will need to support.
Custom technology integration
These various technologies come together to present the user with a streamlined experience and to provide the Relyco staff a useful and intuitive content management system. But behind the scenes, this ease of use is supported by some advanced technology integration.
We integrated HubSpot in two different ways. First, we installed HubSpot’s official WordPress plugin. This provided a simple CTA content type, WYSIWYG CTA integration, an embedded HubSpot dashboard within the WordPress admin backend, and HubSpot analytics tracking.
Using this as a base, we then built out custom fields for the CTA content type, allowing for additional functionality including the ability to use the embed code from HubSpot generated CTAs. This allowed us to use designed calls-to-action throughout the body and sidebar of the site.
We also built custom CTA-selection into the WordPress admin backend, allowing Relyco to take full control of which CTAs display where. This integration provides Relyco and Raka with a simple way of managing the website’s CTAs, while making full use of HubSpot’s CTA tracking statistics.
“Working through the inbound marketing strategy with Raka early in the process really helped us understand how our website should be laid out to best serve the needs of our clients,” said Julia Kuziomko, marketing manager at Relyco. “We love the way our new website speaks directly to our various verticals and buyer personas and look forward to finding new ways to serve our customers using the inbound marketing infrastructure and integrated technology solutions that Raka has put in place.”
It took a lot of moving parts and even more collaboration, but Relyco’s increased visits, contacts, and customers demonstrate how the new site successfully serves the needs of both Relyco’s diverse client base and their internal team.
