Challenge:
It was Spring of 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic had just hit businesses in the US. I was working for an HR and payroll processing company, targeting small and medium sized businesses. We had to keep the pipeline of leads flowing in an environment when organizations put software evaluations on the back burner to focus on the new challenges brought forth by the pandemic.
Approach
The target persona, people managers and HR teams, needed guidance on a wide array of obstacles they hadn't previously navigated. After researching Google Trends and seeing massive spikes in queries such as "furlough employees", "social distancing at work", and "remote work policy", it was clear there was an opportunity to provide useful resources to HR teams. These resources came in the form of templates, checklists, and guides to allow the HR teams to quickly implement policies necessitated by the pandemic and communicate them with their workforce.
The power of giving something useful away for free is ginormous, and when executed properly the results can pay off for many years ahead.
The correct implementation of the templates was key and they had to meet 2 main criterion.
1. They had to be indexable by search engines. To ensure indexation and aim for high rankings, the implementation included writing landing page copy using a strategic keyword approach. The headline and H1 of the page included the keywords that were identified in Google Trends. A supporting article was created to boost the potential of capturing organic traffic. Once the landing page was published, a request was put in for immediate indexation via Google Search Console to meet the the urgency of demand.
2. Lead generation. While the assets and resources were being giving away for free, capturing contact details including name and email address was essential to the success of the effort. The assets were placed behind a form which once filled out, allowed the user to access the resource. The contact information flowed directly into Marketo and and the user was added to a database of prospects.
Results:
- Over 20 templates were published.
- Lead counts soared hitting YoY growth rates of 998%.
- Organic traffic increased 276% YOY.
- Booking revenue increased by 335%.
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