A big focus of Gorilla 76 is developing useful resources and tools for the target audiences of our clients.
This helps prospects find our clients in the search engines, qualifies our clients as solutions for said prospects and encourages them to take action.
In the business-to-business world, this content typically takes the shape of product or service pages on the website, educational blog posts, thoroughly researched white papers and even video tutorials. But not always.
We recently had the opportunity to step back and take a look at the content we were developing for one of our clients and to evaluate really how hard (read “well”) it was working for them. We made the decision to shift our focus and attack online lead generation from a new direction. Our solution served the same overarching purpose (providing useful content for a specific audience) – just through a very different approach.
Lead-generating content for American Piping Products
American Piping Products is an industrial pipe supplier that serves businesses like contractors, engineers and fabricators. Put simply, they sell huge pieces of pipe.
Through thorough search engine research and website analytics data, we found that a majority of their customers arrive on their site via Google searches for specific products (things like “a106 grade b”). Most of the page views and time spent on their site revolves around these very specific product pages as well. We also learned that a downloadable PDF pipe chart on their website was a big hit because it documents everything they stock. Makes sense, right?
What didn’t make sense, however, was the actual chart itself. The chart was very detail heavy, so viewing the PDF online involved a lot of zooming in and out and scrolling around to find what you’re looking for. Even if you chose to print it, the text would be small and the information tightly packed. And if you were hoping to view it on a mobile device, you might as well not even try.
So we came up with another solution. We took all the data from this 18-column, 82-row spreadsheet and built a tool that accomplishes three key objectives.
1. Easy to find what you’re looking for
The dropdown menus in our custom-built tool load dynamically. You first choose from one menu, then you’re offered a second menu based on your choice.
2. Seamless translation on mobile devices
We built this tool using responsive design — the idea of displaying information differently depending on the device you’re using to view it (desktop computer vs. tablet vs. mobile phone). In this case, the pipe calculator page responds with a layout that’s optimized for viewing on your device, making it feel as if it’s an actual app.
3. Natural call-to-action
While the PDF pipe chart might include a big phone number and email address, that call-to-action is way too passive. We took a more aggressive approach for American Piping Products by including a “Request Info” button that pops up after the specs have been selected. The button leads to a short form that fires a request for that specific product right into our client’s email inbox.
Get creative with your content
As long as your website content serves a purpose, it can exist in many different forms. Think about what you can give your audience to make their job easier while positioning your company as the right company to call.
