Ideagen's brand, corporate literature and website all received a revamp.
The Project
Ideagen’s previous web site had served them well for five years but had started to look out-dated. Its content was unfocused and it was lacking the functionality it needed to work effectively from a marketing perspective.
Their main competitors had recently invested in up-dating their own marketing collateral so it was the right time to take a fresh approach to Ideagen’s branding and web site. The goals for this project were:
- Refreshing the Ideagen brand to stand out against the competition and creating brand guidelines.
- Redesigning all marketing materials including brochures, leaflets, banner stands, PowerPoint templates, word templates, CD/DVD cases, business cards, letterheads and compliment slips.
- Reducing the need for physical marketing materials, moving them to a digital format.
- Creating a web site that could be easily managed by members of Ideagen’s team and that would act as both a shop window and online resource for potential and existing customers, capturing prospect contact information so that the web site will contribute towards customer acquisition.
- Increasing the number of visitors to the site through better search engine rankings and through cost-per-click management.
- More accurately measuring the effectiveness of the site through understanding analytics, as well as through increased customer registration for web demos and roadshows, and increased brochure requests.
Challenges
Ideagen’s requirements for user registration for the site required bespoke modifications to the standard Kentico CMS behaviour to provide custom roles and permissions, restricting access to some areas of the site where appropriate. Whilst this work affected the planned timescales, Ideagen say that it “was definitely worth it as it allows us to take a much more targeted approach towards specific customers.”
Since Ideagen staff were now to be responsible for updating the web site, they required training on Kentico CMS to a much deeper level than many clients.
Solutions
Kentico features enabled the client to achieve their objectives. We used:
- The portal engine development model to give the client more control over page templates. Comprehensive training enabled the client to create new, or edit existing templates with ease.
- Custom document types to make adding new information very easy. The editor can be confident that the pages will all look right.
- Document management to allow junior staff members to edit the site without the risk of compromising content.
- News management so that the client can easily keep the site’s content fresh.
- Google mapping to show the client’s location.
- User access rights which restricted access to parts of the site to existing customers and required registration of new visitors to the site to access specific content.
- User-specific navigation to create a different experience with different functionality for different users (e.g. existing customers, new prospects, sales consultants, etc).
- Event management and booking for the clients regular roadshows to showcase their products.
- FAQ section to provide useful information to site visitors.
- Web analytics to provide detailed tracking of web use.
The client was happy to select Kentico because it is:
- Easy to learn how to use – even for beginners;
- Search engine friendly with plenty of flexibility with site content;
- Uses workflow and versioning to manage multiple versions of a document and control who can authorise changes;
- Includes user access rights – a vital criterion for this project.
The full scope of marketing materials that we designed included:
- Revised logo, supplied in various formats ready for print, web, etc.
- Abbreviated brand guidelines document to assist in the consistent use of the new brand.
- New A4 folder design to hold the data sheets and case study templates.
- New case study template allowing Ideagen to produce new case studies as and when they are required.
- New datasheet template allowing Ideagen to produce new data sheets as and when they are required.
- New business card design.
- New Microsoft PowerPoint template for presentations.
- New CD cover design that the software will be sent out in.
- New banner stand design for use as training events and exhibitions.
Results
The web site has recently been launched and has already seen improved numbers of visitors with good levels of user registration. The new marketing datasheets have received favourable response and the site now reflects the client’s professionalism and expertise effectively in comparison with competitor sites.
The CMS has proved popular with client’s staff, being easy to manage and update and thus allowing them to work more efficiently and to reduce bottlenecks.