One of Optiweb’s key strategic pillars is built on the efforts of the entire team not to be seen only as a provider of digital solutions, but as our client’s loyal long-term partner who is tightly entwined in their digital growth and development. Our goal is to build a relationship in which we use our proactivity, enthusiasm and comprehensive services portfolio to provide first-class support for all our client’s digital activities and thus help them reach new business heights.
Case Study: A Comprehensive Strategy Opens Doors to a First-Class Digital Experience
We built one such partnership with the company Inotherm that is a giant in the field of aluminium entrance doors and whose reputation nowadays reaches far beyond Slovenian borders. We are proud and honoured to have contributed to the establishment and growth of this reputation. Read on to find out what we did during the almost 3-year-long partnership…
About the client
The company Inotherm, located in the Slovenian town Ribnica, is specialised in the production of aluminium entrance doors for houses and commercial buildings. In the last years, it was chiefly characterised by its exponential growth, which its almost 300 employees achieved through excellent innovation, a compromise-free dedication to quality and continuous investments in the digitalisation of the buyer journey.
After almost three decades on the market, Inotherm can boast the title of the largest aluminium entrance door producer in Europe, since 95% of their products find their way onto foreign markets. Chief among them is the demanding and extremely competitive German market.
The entire entrance door production is situated in one location near the town Ribnica, which is one of Inotherm’s greatest advantages: they maintain control over the entire production process, from the design all the way to the finished product. Still, not all entrance doors bearing the Inotherm logo are produced solely in Slovenia, as they feature elements from the most advanced manufacturing plants that are equipped with their own glass production facility and a robotised paint shop.
Inotherm is known as an extremely innovative manufacturer that is situated at the top of the field with its new breakthrough solutions in the field of noise and thermal insulation, anti-burglar protection and smart locking. Therefore, it is not surprising that in light of the ever increasing digitalisation in the construction business, the company decided for a complete redesign of their online presence and an upgrade of their digital marketing activities. Their main goal was clear: increased sales, chiefly on the foreign markets.
Main Project Goals
Based on the client’s wishes and the defined strategy to increase Inotherm’s online presence, we defined several goals that guided our efforts in redesigning their online approach:
- Increase the number of inquiries received via the online configurator users can find on the website.
- Gain new distribution partners and deepen the relationship with existing ones.
- Educate and guide customers so they can confidently decide that high-quality aluminium doors are the best solution for them.
- Support Inotherm’s business partners throughout Europe via the redesigned B2B portal.
In the following chapters, you can read all about how we started our mission, which obstacles we encountered and how we overcame them, alongside the results we have achieved with the redesign.
Project Execution
A redesign of the company’s digital presence is usually not done in one fell swoop, but it is divided into a series of smaller steps which we need to take in tight cooperation with the client to achieve the best business results. This allows us to organically develop the platform that will enable an undisturbed online business performance, its monitoring and incremental optimisation of the implemented solutions. All this will naturally positively affect business growth.
Here it is vital to highlight that all project phases are heavily reliable on the client’s active input that guides the redesign process. Only by combining our digital skills with the client’s familiarity with their own business field can we design a product that is adapted to a specific niche and the client’s business goals and needs.
By working tightly with the customer, we have defined the following digital processes:
- Preparation of the strategy to increase Inotherm’s digital presence
- Redesign of the company’s website and their B2B portal
- Goal-oriented digital advertising
- Regular SEO activities
Preparation of the Strategy to Increase the Client’s Digital Presence
When we started reviewing the client’s online activities during the beginning stages of the project, we have noted that Inotherm’s online presence in the past grew mainly organically or based on current customer needs. The company understandably did not have an online presence strategy that would define their mid- and long-term goals.
As most companies that hold a leading role in their field, our client was mainly focused on perfecting their product and increasing their quality standards. In the search for technological excellence, there is naturally very little time or right personnel for the digitalisation process and a structured, strategic development of their online presence.
Designing a digital strategy is similar to creating a design for building a house.
Therefore, it was our team that designed the digital strategy and precisely defined the target groups, customer journey, selling processes, purchase channels and of course the digital marketing goals. We combined all above mentioned elements with Inotherm’s strategic guidelines, needs and business goals.
We could compare the preparation of the strategy with creating a plan for building a house. A good builder can build a home without extensive planning, but if there is a larger team involved in the project, it is essential to define the foundational tasks, individual steps and responsible persons to ensure harmonised work. A well structured plan is key to success and to fulfilling our predefined goals in the shortest and most stress-free way possible.
Redesign of the Website and the B2B Portal
With the help of Inotherm’s team, we defined the website’s key goals during the planning phase, while also heavily relying on the above-mentioned strategy of increasing the company’s digital presence. In the next step, we defined the methods and approaches for achieving those goals. Based on those, we also selected the website’s technical foundations, whereby we decided on the WordPress platform, which enables full customisation to the client’s requirements and needs.
One of the main advantages of WordPress is its ease of use, which enables the client to perform edits and add content on their own, without the developer’s support. Our motto is that the website is largely composed modularly, which enables faster and easier design of campaign landing pages and therefore more agile marketing activities.
We managed to finalise the nine-month-long project of redesigning the website and the Inoportal business portal over one weekend. As is expected for such a complex project, we were faced with many challenges, but we managed to overcome them very quickly. The entire system therefore went live without major interference.
Bojan Lavrič, Marketing Manager, Inotherm d.o.o.
*Inoportal – Portal for Inotherm’s B2B partners
While developing the website, we also redesigned the B2B portal (Inoportal), which is exclusively dedicated to partners, as they are our client’s most important selling channel on foreign markets. During the redesign of the Inoportal B2B portal we fully blended together the existing functionalities, upgraded them to fit the modern user experience and added some new functionalities (e.g. enabling partners to track entrance door shipments, automatically make appointments for door servicing, review selling statistics data…).
We merged all mentioned functionalities with the client’s back-end system and thus ensured that the Inoportal always shows current data and that new solutions are seamlessly integrated into the existing infrastructure.
Goal-oriented Digital Advertising
Our advertising team joined the project as soon as the website was launched. Optiweb’s advertising specialists used the right combination of approaches to set up the foundations of the digital advertising campaign in a very short time and then they ensured its fast progression with continuous testing and adjustments of advertising contents. To reach the best results week after week, we heavily relied on our incredibly cooperative client, who was with us every step of the way when implementing changes that were key for achieving even higher goals.
The latter included not only brand advertising, but also an increase of inquiries, submitted via the company’s online configurator. Our goal was to increase the average number of monthly submitted inquiries by 100%, which we succeeded. Even more: the strategically perfected and disciplined approach caused more than a 148% increase in inquiries on the Slovenian market and on the strategically vital German market, the non-binding proposal was requested by 273% more users!
Since online advertising is a living organism, we are always prepared for new challenges or obstacles, but our appetite for better results does not decrease. We always set ourselves bold and ambitious goals and then we do everything we can to reach and even surpass them.
Execution of Daily SEO Activities
Since the beginning of the project, we have been expanding Inotherm’s organic reach with a strategic combination of diligent technical optimisation, qualitative content marketing and active acquisition of strong backlinks.
We take care of the SEO technical hygiene with regular website reviews, which we perform with several tools simultaneously to guarantee accurate data. We simultaneously note the detected and potential issues and remove them in coordination with the development team and the client. This approach allows us to quickly implement changes and to monitor their effect.
Strong technical foundations are at the same time vital for an effective content optimisation. In Inotherm’s case, its heart lies in the blog, which in the past two years has developed into a thematically diverse and informative content hub that offers visitors numerous advice regarding the selection, purchase, mounting and upkeep of aluminium doors.
New topics for a greater organic reach
In the past year, we started expanding the selection of standard content with new topics in the construction field which allows us to position the Inotherm brand as a credible and qualitative source of information for all that wish to build or renovate their home and equip it with the best entrance door possible.
In developing and expanding the content strategy, we follow the current search trends, but also the client’s business needs and current activities. Our starting point was the compiled keyword list, which we defined in cooperation with Inotherm’s team at the start of the project, but we are also constantly adapting it if needed.
At the same time, we are carefully monitoring the website’s position in SERP for the most important keywords and are quick to act if there is a substantial drop. Based on the findings of the keyword position review, we also plan the design and optimisation of new landing pages so they best fit the needs and search queries of potential customers.
Alongside content optimisation, we also carefully monitor its localisation, whereby we adapt the keyword selection and the thematic direction of the text to the target audience on the client’s key markets. Hereby, we are especially mindful of the German market, where most of Inotherm’s entrance doors are fitted.
A very important part for content marketing is the support of the community department that regularly promotes new blog posts on the client’s social media and thus ensures greater brand recognition and its positioning as one of the authorities in the field of construction and renovation. We further strengthen the brand reputation with the help of PR articles we publish on other domains that have a strong domain authority and thus we ensure the strategic acquisition of incredibly valuable backlinks.
And the results?
Currently, we are noting a stable organic growth for all languages. Specifically, we noted a 10% growth in organic traffic. On the client’s strategic market, the growth is even more impressive, totaling at 12%. We are also proud of the fact that in the past year 10% more visitors decided to configure their entrance doors than in the year before.
The by far most important results were noted when reviewing keyword positions for strategically most valuable search terms. Inotherm’s Slovenian website thus managed to achieve the highest positions (between positions one and five) among search results for the Slovenian version of the following keywords:
Slovenia:
- entrance doors,
- aluminium entrance doors,
- outer doors,
- burglar-proof doors and
- security doors.
On the German market, the most successful German keywords are:
- aluminium entrance doors (and its many variations),
- entrance doors aluminium,
- aluminium entrance doors producers and
- entrance door glass.
The subpages under the domain inotherm.si also appear on the first page of search results for the Slovenian version of the keywords aluminium doors, door installation and entrance door lock.
Additionally, we have widened the website’s thematic spectrum so the site also ranks among the search results for new Slovenian keywords, for example acoustic insulation, thermal insulation and passive house.
Main challenges we faced during the project
A tight deadline for the project execution
The time between putting the finishing touches on the digital strategy and the day the Slovenian version of the new website was published was extremely short, only five months. This is a very short period for such a broad and complex project, which is why achieving this goal required the team to be particularly agile. Our solution was to execute individual project phases simultaneously, which we managed through great organisation and good communication between members of several different teams.
Five additional languages
The design of six versions of the website for different languages might not sound like a great challenge, but it required large amounts of content that needed to be translated, localised and then imported to the website. By flexibly coordinating the content production, its translation and with the simultaneous publication of finished texts, we managed to publish all additional languages only two months after launching the Slovene version of the website.
Design of the B2B partner portal (Inoportal)
Even before the website redesign, Inotherm managed its B2B partner portal Inoportal, but when redesigning the strategy for increasing their online presence, the client set the strategic goal to further upgrade the Inoportal’s functionalities. The main challenge while implementing the upgrades were the data connections between existing systems, which required a transfer to the WordPress platform. We overcame the obstacle by working tightly with the client’s IT department and thus we ensured the client could use the existing technology and databases without disturbance.
The client’s statement
In 2019, we decided to redesign the online presence of the company INOTHERM. For this project, we chose Optiweb, which impressed us the most with its presentation and references.
The goal of increasing our online presence was to develop an effective and modern website, which will support users in their buying decisions with quality content and present the high quality level of Inotherm’s products. We designed the website in five languages that are key for getting established on existing and potential foreign markets. When developing the website concept, we focused on the B2C customer segment as well as on effectively addressing new B2B customers.
The sale on foreign markets is executed via the network of more than 1,000 B2B partners. Vital for them is our partner portal (Inoportal), which is why our redesign goal revolved around an effective and clear navigation with complete sales, marketing and customer support on the technical and content level. After their launch in June 2020, the website and the partner portal were very well received, which is evident in the increase in traffic and in sales.
But, our partnership with Optiweb did not end with the launch of the website and the partner portal. The work was taken up by the marketing team who in accordance with the predefined digital strategy successfully started presenting Inotherm on different digital channels in Slovenia, Germany and Austria. In 2021, the scope of Optiweb’s marketing activities was widened to include Italy and France.
Since its launch, we are performing regular SEO activities on the entire website and we set up different digital advertising campaigns leading to particular landing pages. We regularly analyse results and are very happy with them.
We see the entire Optiweb team that works on our projects as a long-term, comprehensive partner that fulfils our need for further digital growth in Slovenia and on important foreign markets with their extensive expertise, professionalism and responsiveness.
Bojan Lavrič, Marketing Manager, Inotherm d.o.o.
Are you looking for a long-term digital partner?
Are you on the lookout for a strategic partner in the field of digital marketing who will build up your online presence and at the same time spread word about your offer? If you bet on long-term cooperation, tailored to your business needs and goals, you will surely recognise our team as your loyal partner and professional advisor. We gladly invite you for coffee to chat about your wishes and direct your digital marketing curve upward!
