Background
Manhole Covers Direct (MCD) supplies American-made manhole covers and frames made from the highest grade steel, stainless steel, composite, or aluminum, to government agencies, contractors, and developers. Their team of engineers custom fabricate any manhole cover, frame, or drain grate to make sure the job gets done right, no matter the application.
Key Metrics
350%
Increase in Sales
267%
Increase in Email Open Rate
190%
Increase in Email Click Rate
“We’ve had nothing but good experiences with LP. At this pace we’re looking at a tremendous increase in sales over the next five years. We’re excited about what the future holds for our partnership!”
— Alex Conklin, Founder/Owner, Manhole Covers Direct
Why Logical Position?
When it comes to custom metal fabrication, MCD was well covered, but online advertising was uncharted territory. MCD had minimal experience running Google Ads in-house, but struggled to harness the full potential of the platform and leverage their business niche. With no analytics or tracking data setup on the backend, they were unable to optimize performance and hone the various segments of their business. They needed a full funnel approach to digital marketing and sought out a trusted Google premier partner in LP to handle the heavy lifting.
Goals
eComm site migration to WooCommerce
Develop attribution model and conversion tracking
Contact list aggregation
Improve account efficiency and raise quality score
Our Strategy
PPC Account Structure and Analytics
Before targeting new acquisitions for MCD, we set up Google Analytics and proper conversion tracking to understand the impact each marketing channel made on their site. This helped us understand where to focus their budgets in order to leverage that data for future success.
Next, we restructured their Google ads account into highly segmented pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns by keywords and product type to give a granular snapshot of the entire account. This enabled our team to identify which levers to push and which to pull, when it came to allocating budget across their various product offerings.
With a proof of concept established, we duplicated those efforts on Microsoft Advertising to expand MCD’s online visibility and growth. This allowed us to target additional users beyond Google and for a much lower CPC. Since Bing is the default browser for many large enterprises, it accounts for roughly ⅓ of desktop searches.
Making a Website that Works
With the PPC campaigns bringing in a steady flow of business, it was time to build a better website for the future. LP launched the website for MCD on April 1, 2020, incorporating a modern, mobile-friendly, and responsive design. After decommissioning the previous system, LP set up the site with WooCommerce, permitting swifter and more secure payments and shipping through MCD’s providers. Better encryption with an SSL certificate provided the extra level of security they were looking for too. LP also moved to improve search engine optimization (SEO) for the site, to enhance conversion rates and boost MCD’s rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Addressing MCD’s Emails
To grow MCD’s email distribution list, we deployed an online form to acquire email addresses from new visitors seeking to sign up for the newsletter, with a website prompt to incentivize new sign-ups. Next, we launched an ecommerce basic package on the Klaviyo platform, which is our preferred vendor and partner in the email space. From there, we segmented the contact lists by open and click rate, to drive engagement with pertinent offers. This funneled contacts into a series of automated email flows based on products relevant to their user activity. From introducing new subscribers to MCD, to abandoned cart users, our strategy ensured we kept MCD top of mind with all potential purchasers. Last but not least, we continually employed A/B testing to improve email processes and learn what methods work best for the email subscriber list.
Results
After LP took over their ad management in 2018, MCD’s business completely transformed. The new website integrated both quote and commerce features; implemented dynamic pricing, allowing them to auto-populate prices; and connected their QuickBooks accounting software with their quotes through a Zapier API plug-in. They’ve since hired additional staff and expanded to new markets.
Clicking Toward Market Dominance
In the first six months of management, we increased their total sales by more than 350%, compared to the previous period, with sales continuously growing and reaching record-breaking numbers every year. Additionally, MCD has become a leader in the manhole market. They’ve made such a huge impact within their industry, competitors began bidding against their brand name.
More Eyes on MCD’s Emails!
Firstly, the client was very pleased with LP’s new design and formatting for the email template. After acquiring numerous addresses from subscribers to the MCD newsletter, LP implemented segmentation to filter unengaged individuals from the list. This gave an immediate boost to engagement.
Before onboarding with LP, MCD saw an email open rate of just 18.4%, with a click rate of 1% in Klaviyo. After partnering with LP, email open rates, on average, jumped to 49.2%, and click rates rose by 1.9%—that’s a 267% increase and 190% increase, respectively! Periodic AB testing on send times revealed a significant increase in open rates in later sends in comparison with earlier sending (morning vs. afternoon, morning vs. evening, and afternoon vs. evening), This showed LP and MCD the best time to get the word out!
If you’re looking for an agency to plug the holes in your digital marketing strategy, remember that LP has you covered!
