Case Study: Digital Marketing Strategies for the Success of Cutters Edge

Contents:

1- Business Description.

2- Client Challenges.

3- Strategies applied by Design106.

4- Results.

1-Business Description:

Cutters Edge Pro is a South Florida-based landscape company, servicing all cities in the Dade, Broward and Palm Beach tri-county area.

Cutters Edge Pro offers not only the best quality service in the industry, but it also counts with some of the highest technology equipment, and full licenses and permits to provide honest, effective and efficient service. All of Cutters Edge team members are professionals with years of experience in the field, who provide the clients with specialized advice from the planning process to the execution to meet their objectives and expectations regarding the property’s landscape.

The corporate values ​​that define Cutters Edge are knowledge, quality, reliability, punctuality, and professionalism. Thanks to the application of these values ​​in their day-to-day operations, they have built a reputation with which they have managed to win the trust, preference, and loyalty of their customers.

Cutters Edge Pro provides a long list of landscape-related services, such as:

• Exterior design with species of trees and floral plants according to the climatic conditions of Florida, with a beautiful concept that captivates the eyes of residents and visitors. Cutters Edge also has expert technicians in irrigation and landscape lighting systems.
• Specialized tree pruning teams that provide effective solutions from the simplest to the most complex cases. For this, Cutters Edge has a large fleet of bucket trucks, chip trucks, and woodchippers. All equipment is handled by specialized personnel and directed by a certified arborist.
• Integrated pest management through biological and chemical treatments that improve health and enhance the beauty of trees, palms, and lawns. Cutters Edge has drone technology to inspect the tallest palm trees for insects or diseases, in order to apply corrections in time and minimize the impact on people, animals, and the environment.
• Emergency management team available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to solve irrigation problems or clean trees caused by hurricane and storm damage.
• A Division of Cutters Edge, Cutters’ University authorized by the State of Florida, which offers continuing education and training in the landscape field to property managers and horticultural management teams.

2- Client Challenges

When Cutters Edge came to us in 2018, we were overly excited at the idea of helping them increase their business through digital marketing. At that time, Cutters Edge had various drawbacks associated with its internal processes, including an unattractive website in terms of design, with duplicated content lacking value for the user, not very user-friendly to navigate, and with a lack of functionalities that could facilitate both the capture of leads as the operations inherent to the business.

In this scenario, achieving a good ranking and positioning of the website was an unattainable goal.

Certainly, the design of a website was the most pressing need that Cutters Edge management wanted to solve as soon as possible and what prompted them to establish the first contact with Design106.

However, another of the weak points was the status of their social networks. Although they had created their accounts on Instagram and Facebook respectively, their followers were few and far from the target of the business.

Additionally, the brand image and the business profile that they wanted to project were not adequately conceived and the follow-up made to the development of the content on social networks was non-existent.

In this scenario, the only way that Cutters Edge had to generate leads was in a traditional way: through offers of services to potential clients “face to face”, presenting Request for Proposals (RFP) in commercial and residential associations, and through recommendations from current or past clients.

Cutters Edge management was convinced that their business should grow to another level and the most effective way to do so was to take advantage of all the competitive advantages offered by a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

And who can be better than the creative team at Design106 to advise and guide you through the process?

Do you want to know Cutters Edge’s path step by step?

In the next section, we present the details…

3- Strategies applied by Design106

To give effective solutions to Cutters Edge’s challenges, the Design106 Creative Team developed a set of strategies that were implemented in three stages.

Details of each stage are presented below:

Stage I. Positioning Cutters Edge in the public interest: Branding redefinition and consistency.

Even if Cutters Edge’s first contact with Design106 was to develop a new website, some weak points that needed to be optimized and strengthened were detected in the process.

• One of the weaknesses was: inconsistencies in the design and message of the logo.

For this, the Design106 team created three logo proposals, of which one option was chosen.

Then, work began with the review of all the contents and materials published, in order to ensure uniformity in the visual aspect of the logo.

It is important to highlight that consistency in branding transmits a serious and reliable brand image. Not only the excellence in the performance of a company’s services affects its reputation, but an adequate conception of branding also makes it possible to manage the brand to make it known, position it in the interest of potential customers and create emotional connections with the public that motivate them to make a purchase.

• Once the branding was redefined, the Design106 team focused on creating a website that was aesthetically attractive, easy to navigate and with functionalities that would simplify business operations.

To do this, Design106 evaluated the company’s old website, detected its weaknesses and the missing aspects that were required to accomplish the needs and optimize the operations that Cutters Edge had as a business.

All these inputs were considered when the new website was created, and the following improvement items were incorporated:

1. A section (Careers) with access from the website menu that allows managing the staff recruitment process. Cutters Edge is a medium-sized company, with a large volume of operations affected by climatic or seasonal factors. Because of the nature of the work and services provided, Cutters Edge needs to recruit personnel trained in different areas to perform its functions with excellence. And what better way than receiving applications from candidates for the different positions virtually through the website? This clearly represents an improvement in the efficiency of internal processes that optimizes the selection and hiring of the most suitable candidates.
2. Inclusion of a work order automation system. Clients can now automatically log in to service requests through the website and the work order goes directly to the appropriate person, while Cutters Edge workers can directly enter information about pending work orders on the website, in order to establish the route, schedules, assign vehicles, machinery and work equipment. By promoting process automation, Design106 was able to make the orders work better for both Cutters Edge customers and their employees by integrating this functionality.
3. To raise awareness and promote the “Cutters Edge Cares” charitable program, designed to provide financial support and nutritious meals to homeless people in the South Florida community. In addition, a link was added to the website where interested people can make donations to continue this laudable work.
4. A chat service was implemented on the website to allow users to ask questions to Cutters Edge staff and get an immediate response. Design106 synchronized the chat content to be received by the company’s secretary, manager and owner.

Consequently, besides creating a website with an aesthetically attractive design, easy to navigate, optimized for SEO, with a message and content of value focused on the audience that Cutters Edge needed to engage, Design106 also incorporated in the Website operational tools, designed to achieve a better performance of the business.

At this stage, the objective was not focused on getting clients, but in defining the branding, building a reliable brand image, and facilitating business operations through an optimized website.

Once this phase was over, we began to lay the groundwork that allowed us to reap the rewards months later, in terms of increased engagement and lead generation.

Stage II. Brand Awareness: Cutters Edge’s promotion and acknowledgement

Brand awareness gives greater acknowledgment and notoriety to the brand by highlighting attributes that make it stand out from the competition. This stage was oriented to expand the range of marketing efforts, so the services provided by Cutters Edge would be known by users that are different than the existing clients at the moment.

Design106 implemented brand awareness through two strategies:

1. Creation of content focused on promoting the company and its services through newsletters.

The newsletters are articles that develop content on topics of interest associated with the landscape that residential or commercial users need to know. Additionally, the services provided by Cutters Edge are promoted in a natural and spontaneous way. In this sense, newsletters promote brand loyalty and notoriety.

This strategy was implemented through a tool on the website, where clients or Cutters employees enter the e-mail addresses of interested users, thus subscribing them to the newsletter service that Design106 sends monthly to a growing list of prospects.

It is usual that potential clients approach Cutters Edge crews when they are performing services in residential or commercial places.  Before the newsletter service was implemented, workers had to take note of the prospect’s contact information and forward the information to the secretary for further contact.

However, when this procedure was carried out manually, the data of the interested person was often lost, generating a lost contact that would not generate any further engagement.

However, thanks to Design106 this process was automatized and simplified. Through the tool integrated into the website, all e-mails and contact information are forwarded to a database. In this way, when potential clients request information about the company, services, and prices from workers in the performance of their functions, the manager or a member of the team simply requests the email address, enters the data from the cell phone and the user is immediately subscribed to the newsletter service.

Currently, Cutters Edge continues with the newsletter service, and Design106 has managed to increase its database from 0 to 2000 subscribers belonging to the right target, such as older or current clients, property managers of condominiums, and shopping centers.

2. Profile’s design of their social media

When Cutters Edge hired the services of Design106, they had a few followers in their social networks and the profile of the followers did not represent potential clients or companies associated with the sector.

In this scenario, one of the objectives of this strategy was to redefine the profile and image of the business that it wanted to project to the audience, to set up solid, robust social networks capable of effectively promoting the services provided by Cutters.

The actions focused on the creation of valuable content, follow-up of the scope of the content, as well as the interactions and interest shown by users, establishment of interconnections with businesses associated with the industry, and, of course, follow-up and monitoring of the results obtained in the different phases of the process.

It should be noted that Cutters Edge’s services, by their nature, are focused on the “three-county area” located in South Florida.

For this reason, Design106 built Cutters Edge’s brand reputation by considering the geographic market segment where its potential clients are located.

The content posted on social media included engaging snippets of articles about landscaping, in order to create expectations and interest in users that would lead them to click on the link to the Cutters Edge website.

Also, there were posts about service offers, as well as the promotion of charitable acts carried out by William, the owner of Cutters Edge.

The image we wanted to transmit with these actions was that of a responsible, efficient, and punctual company, but also the image of a family business interested in the wellness of the community.

The two strategies mentioned previously were implemented for approximately 8 months. And all of Design106’s efforts were focused on building a solid brand image for this client.

A bonus

The strategies implemented by Design106 in Cutters Edge paved the way that was beginning to pay off!

With a redefined branding, a website optimized by SEO, and an adequate and dynamic social media profile, Cutters Edge had the platform that would allow them to give a greater projection to their business: “a radio program”.

The idea was to start transmitting a 1-hour Sunday radio program where William, the owner of Cutters Edge, performed a show with prominent guests and information of interest about landscape.

At Design106 we established the trust and brand awareness that Cutters Edge needed to receive the attention it got through the radio program. In addition, the audience and attention that William got through the radio program were channeled to social networks and the website, where users verified a consistency between the content found in those media and the message he gave on the radio.

Stage III. Leads Generation and SEO Optimized Content Creation to Drive Traffic

At this point, Cutters Edge was becoming a recognized brand among users. Additionally, the business had great exposure and projection thanks to the radio program heard throughout Florida on Sundays.

For this reason, Design106 reconfigured the strategy for this client, focusing its efforts on Leads Generation and synchronization of the content covered in the radio program with the content published on the website and social networks.

For this, the same topics were expanded, the content was written and optimized for SEO, in order to incorporate keywords able to reach bigger audiences and effectively position the content in Google.

In this way, the audience of the radio program could get more information about the company and its services by going to the Cutters Edge website or social networks.

Another strategy implemented in this phase was the design of paid social media ads.

For this, Cutters Edge assigns a budget and the Design106 Creative Team creates the campaign, the graphics, the videos, chooses the audience, and performs constant monitoring to determine the results obtained in an opportune way.

The purpose of the paid social media campaigns is to generate leads, what means, to get residential and commercial users to contact Cutters Edge and hire the services promoted in the campaigns.

Some examples:

*Promoting Cutters Edge services during hurricane seasons. This generates that condominiums and shopping malls hire the services to prune their trees and thus take preventive measures to minimize the impact of climatic events.

In this way, Design106 created a guide for condominiums and families on hurricane preparedness. This allowed to hook users with the service quality-price ratio and the content value offer.

*Promoting landscape design services. To this end, Design106 created a guide entitled Florida Friendly Landscape in which they present recommendations on the best plants to plant, according to Florida’s climatic conditions.

In this way, when readers realize how hard the process is, they will want to hire Cutters Edge because of the knowledge in the field shown in the guide.

Thus, through the content generation, value is provided and interest is generated in users, who will consider Cutters Edge’s professional services as their first choice, a company with experience, authorizations, and licenses in the landscape.

In terms of social media, the training and consulting services provided by the Design106 team to the owner of Cutters Edge on content generation and management of their social networks should be highlighted.

As a result, William has become a fan of Instagram and Facebook, posting up to 5 posts a day. Most of the content posted is related to the topics covered in the radio show, as well as topics of interest in the landscape area.

All the strategies described above are aimed at reducing the Website’s ranking in Google and positioning Cutters Edge over its competitors.

To achieve this, Design106’s SEO experts are constantly searching, analyzing, and optimizing keywords, which makes it possible to publish content with a high audience.

Currently, the results of SEO strategies and paid Social Media campaigns are amplified with the positive impacts generated by the radio program.

The three stages described above were completed in almost 3 years. It has been synergic work between the client and our digital marketing agency.

Consequently, the growth of Cutters Edge is explained by the strategies outlined and the results achieved in each stage by Design106.

4- Results

Cutters Edge’s experience offers an insight into how digital marketing works in all its facets.

During the last three years of trajectory, Cutters Edge has contracted the different services offered by Design106, since the creation of a reliable brand image, the design of an aesthetic and functional website, generation of valuable content aimed at the desired audiences, social media strategies, SEO, to the development of advertising campaigns at the client’s request, evidencing in all services excellent results and accelerated growth of leads.

Historical data and trend lines showing the results of the SEO strategy are presented below.

Organic traffic is the visits that access the web through search engines. During the month of June 2021, 87.86% of organic traffic came from Google users.

Between December 2020 and June 2021, there was a 453% growth of this metric. It is estimated that between 20% and 25% of the people who visit a website organically will contract the services of this company.

One of the most viewed pages by users is a post about the 6 most venomous snakes in Florida. The key phrases selected and the optimization of the content for SEO made this result possible. For this reason, a large number of users find Cutters Edge’s value proposition through this avenue.

The second most viewed page is “Home”, followed by “Work Orders” in the third position, which in only 6 months has experienced an 805% growth.

What do these results mean?

They mean that a greater number of users are requesting services through the Cutters Edge website, which translates into an increase in sales.

The SEO strategy implemented by Design106 is based on the search for keywords that allow positioning the content and services promoted on the website in the United States and, specifically, in the State of Florida, the area where the potential clients of the services provided by Cutters Edge are located.

For the month of June 2021, 92.58% of the Website traffic came from the United States. These results are due to the design of content strategies and analysis of keywords with higher search potentialities by the niche market.

The following graph shows the reduction in Google ranking. This is a favorable metric since the websites organically positioned within the first places of Google will be the ones that will have a higher percentage of clicks.

However, placing a business website organically at the top of the search results is not an automatic or instantaneous process; it requires constant optimization of content and technical aspects of SEO.

Website loading speed is one of the metrics that determine the quality of the user experience. Statistics estimate that 40% of users abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. Additionally, for every second of additional loading time, a site loses 7% of its conversion.

This is the reason why SEO technical optimization processes are so important.

The Design106 team has specialized personnel that constantly monitors the evolution of the metrics of all its clients, this allows to detect weaknesses and take corrective measures to optimize results, as shown in the following image:

The Design106 SEO team, through technical optimization processes, managed to improve the performance metrics of Cutters Edge, which positively impacts the speed of the website and the quality of the user experience. This translates into positioning, more visits, and consequently more leads.

Do you want to experience growth like Cutters Edge in your business?

Contact Design106 now and we will design a Digital Marketing strategy for you!

The post Case Study: Digital Marketing Strategies for the Success of Cutters Edge appeared first on Design106.