Content Marketing Case Study: Web Referrals Up 50%

I began working with California Document Preparers more than a year and a half ago to develop and execute a content marketing program. At the time, they were doing a weekly blog–working an anonymous blogger in the Midwest; they knew these blogs were neither relevant nor topical.

He wasn’t making any particular effort to stay on top of industry news or local headlines that translated to timely blog topics for our community.

Our program is based on consistency and a weekly blog

We are doing a weekly blog, a monthly newsletter and we’re posting to 4 social media sites 2x/week: Google+, Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook. We post our blog to our website and Linkedin and we just began posting it to Blogger–it’s a Google product, and they own the search space, and it’s ridiculously easy to use.

We follow best practices

I do the small things that enhance SEO value–I always include our name in every social media post, I label every image with our company name and I include alt tags with our images. I identify keywords and metadescriptions. These are small things, but they’re cumulative and they make a difference.

In less than a year, our reporting showed that our web referrals were up 60% over that time last year, which translated to $95K in revenue. This is a significant increase for a small company, and we continue to increase our visibility. In mid-February 2016, our web referrals were up 50% over that time last year. 

Quality, well-written content that’s topical and relevant

It’s the steady posting of quality, well-written content that’s enhanced my clients’ web presence. We’ve noticed other things. We’re not killing ourselves on social media. We post religiously, rotating through our services, always including an image. We used to get 15-20 views on our FB posts. Now we’re consistently getting 90-150. It’s all part of our steadily increasing presence.

We’ve made other changes. We’re a company that provides a high level of customer service—we’re about our people. So we did a photoshoot, and we featured a team member each month in a profile. We want people to get to know us, and these have proved very popular.

A new website and a new approach

After a heroic effort to rehab our old website to make it more accessible, we had a come-to-Jesus and realized that rather than try to beat this old site into submission it was time to bury it and start fresh. We wanted a new, modern site that was straightforward and attractive, with significantly streamlined navigation.

Content that reaches people on an emotional level

We’d gone through a complete catharsis and knew that we needed to dump our old content. We’d been laboriously trying to educate people about the legal services we provided, yet metrics showed that people weren’t reading these pages. Our new approach is based on simpler content and good images; we want to reach our clients on an emotional level. Our message is that we’re there for them to help them through their uncontested divorces, living trusts, probates and other legal matters. We’re helpful, compassionate and affordable. 

Need help with your content marketing program?

Content marketing works! Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.