Online Marketing Case Study: Results 6 Months vs. 2 Years

Many B2B manufacturing companies focus their time and resources on operations, production, and growing the business, often leaving their website as an afterthought. In reality, your website should function as an extension of your team, working around the clock to educate prospects, answer questions, and generate new opportunities.

Think about it: Especially nowadays, your company’s website could be the first interaction it has with your company. A confusing user experience, outdated design, or lack of helpful information can quickly drive visitors away. On the other hand, a well-designed website can build trust, showcase expertise, and guide prospects toward becoming customers. 

So where do you start when it’s time to redesign your manufacturing website?
That’s where an inbound marketing agency can help. And that’s why McHone Industries came to us to create a manufacturing marketing strategy centered around a stronger, more effective website experience and content strategy. 

Keep reading this online marketing case study to see our work in action, and how we helped McHone turn its website into a powerful business tool. 

Who Is McHone Industries?

McHone Industries is a family-run manufacturing business located in Salamanca, NY. Their metal manufacturing journey began in 1974, focusing on steel tube production. Since then, they've grown into a full-service metal fabrication vendor. 

They're talented, creative, and work hard to make projects as cost-effective as possible for their customers.

What Was Their Problem?

McHone Industries’ challenge wasn’t unique. Like many manufacturers, they had built a successful business, but their website wasn’t generating the traffic, leads, or ROI they expected from their investment. 

President of McHone Industries, Arnie McHone, Jr., wanted to grow the company, but he was struggling. He was relying heavily on word of mouth to find new clients because the website wasn’t doing its part to attract and convert potential customers. He'd tried traditional marketing tactics (email lists, cold calling, etc.) but wasn't seeing any results.

At least they had a website, right?

Or, not so much.

McHone's website started out like most small-town manufacturers'. It was four pages small. It produced no ROI. Overall, it felt like a poor investment.

But, Arnie understood the power of the Internet. He knew they had to be online to stay competitive. He wanted to see a return on the website. Above all, he wanted people to know McHone Industries exists.

That’s when McHone Industries turned to protocol 80. They had heard positive things about our team and were ready to invest in improving their online presence. While digital marketing for manufacturers was still a relatively new concept to them, they recognized that other companies were successful with it, and they were willing to see what it could do for their business. 

What Was Our Approach?

We had to build a strategy that met their two biggest goals:

1. Get the word out about McHone Industries
2. Show ROI for their website AS WELL AS the cost of p80's marketing services

Of course, they needed a full inbound marketing strategy (and that's ultimately the service we're providing). However, their biggest obstacle to success was an all-encompassing lack of valuable content.

They had no blog. No links. No conversion paths. No downloadables. The website was full of sales-y, self-promotional copy. Nothing interesting, relevant, or valuable to anyone but committed buyers. This had to change before we could make progress.

So, we put together a comprehensive content marketing strategy focused on brand awareness and manufacturing lead generation.

McHone Industries' Personalized Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing and manufacturing seem like unlikely friends. But they work well together. Especially since the vast majority of manufacturers are still floundering about offline. That was the biggest secret behind McHone's quick wins.

1.  An Easy SEO Win

Here are the things that came together for McHone's perfect storm of content:

• The manufacturing industry is still focused on traditional marketing. This provides huge opportunities for unique content, search rankings, branding, and thought leadership.
  
  
• Lack of content on common manufacturing topics. (Only 20% of manufacturing marketers have a documented content strategy)
  
  
• Lack of access to valuable manufacturing information. It was easy to create and distribute the info that buyers would usually call a manufacturer to obtain.
  
  
•  The lack of existing content on their website created an opportunity to target high-volume, low-competition keywords.
  
  
• They preferred to take a more hands-off approach to content, which allowed our team to move quickly and produce results more efficiently.

We took advantage of these opportunities for both their blog and premium content.

2.  Interest, Value, & Opportunity

We started with the standard buyer persona identification and buyer's journey mapping. Through interviews with current and previous customers, we identified two main personas: the Buyer and the Engineer. Both of these are involved in the buying process at different journey stages.

Through direct interviews with McHone Industries, we gained a clear understanding of what mattered most to their target audiences. Buyers, who were typically in the decision stage of the purchasing journey, wanted information about services, pricing, and proof that McHone could deliver quality results. Engineers, on the other hand, were focused on research, seeking technical information about manufacturing processes, materials, and design capabilities. 

Luckily, we found one area of overlap: Detailed product and manufacturing specifications. That shared interest became a valuable content opportunity. We’ll explore that next.

3.  Ongoing Blog Efforts

McHone's blog went from nonexistent to churning out about ten posts a month. Thanks to the advantages listed above, they're now ranking #1 for multiple incredibly relevant keywords (both long-tail and short-tail, representing all stages of the buyer's journey). 

Here are their two top-performing posts of all time:

• Aluminum vs. Steel: Which Material Is Right for You?
• Carbon Steel Tubing Advantages and Disadvantages

4.  Premium Content Offers

Aside from a blog archive, the McHone site also needed conversion paths and lead-generation-focused website design. Over six months, we created multiple premium offers covering a range of topics. Each offer is supported by site links, blog posts, CTAs, and a landing page + accessories.

As we mentioned earlier, both of McHone Industries’ primary audiences shared an interest in technical specs. That insight led us to develop one of their most successful content offers: a Tube Sizing Quick Reference Guide.

This offer is by far the most popular with engineers AND buyers. It's generated a number of highly qualified leads, leading to valuable quoting opportunities. These prospects enjoy having concrete numbers and guides to follow for engineering and purchasing. 

Along this vein, they now offer a comprehensive Tube Bending Design Guide as well. 

5.  Analyzing, Measuring, Reporting

After only a month, our efforts produced ROI for both the website AND our services. Not just lead generation - actual, real-life revenue. 

Throughout our partnership, we met weekly to review performance, report on results, and continually optimize the strategy. As Arnie’s testimonials through this article demonstrate, the McHone Industries team was extremely pleased with the outcomes we achieved together.

The Results

Here are the most notable results after just 6 months of intensive content marketing for manufacturers:

• 1500% increase in leads per month
• 600% increase in qualified sales opportunities
• 570% increase in monthly traffic
• 1107% increase in mobile traffic

So, after six months, our strategy far surpassed their initial expectations. The increase in traffic and leads indicates a definite increase in brand awareness. And, our favorite metric: we were able to produce ROI for the website AND our services after only one month.

(Another qualitative result: they had to hire a full-time salesperson to handle all the new leads coming in. If that isn't a success, I'm not sure what is.)

We also did a check-in after 2 years. And the results continued to speak for themselves.

Notable lead generation improvements included:

• 1,415% in monthly traffic
• 1,730% increase in new monthly traffic
• 75% decrease in bounce rate
• 12,700% increase in leads per month
• 13,200% increase in sales qualified leads (SQLs)

The continued growth in traffic and lead generation proved that the success wasn’t a fluke. The inbound marketing strategy, tailored specifically to their audience, successfully brought the right prospective customers to their website, and converted them into qualified leads.

The results were so impactful that they found themselves with more opportunities than they could accommodate, allowing them to be more selective about the projects they pursued.

From Strategy to Success: McHone Industries’ Results 

High-quality production and traditional hard work can do a lot to build a company’s reputation. But as McHone Industries’ success demonstrates, combining those strengths with a strategic inbound marketing program can significantly accelerate growth by increasing website traffic, generating qualified leads, and creating new business opportunities.

Through a customized inbound marketing strategy tailored to their goals, McHone Industries was able to quickly meet – AND surpass – their ROI expectations.

When a proven manufacturing operation is supported by a data-driven marketing strategy, the potential for growth is substantial.

We were able to propel a company from zero online sales opportunities to these great results, which far surpassed the client's dreams. As a marketer, there's nothing quite like it. You can explore our collection of case studies to see how we’ve helped more B2B companies grow with smarter marketing and better websites.  

Check out the phenomenal growth of McHone Industries in our case study. Download it for free below.