A Case Study of Doubling Online Sales
Spirit Dental had an aggressive growth goal for 2016: To increase online purchases by 25%
Two Octobers and our digital marketing agency partner SPC had been working with Spirit Dental for several years. When Spirit’s president set an ambitious growth goal for 2016, we knew we had to ramp up our efforts considerably. Our paid media campaigns were strong drivers of purchases and well optimized, and while increasing budgets in that channel would bring in more purchasers, it would also bring the cost per acquisition up proportionally, to unacceptable levels.
Instead of putting all our eggs in one basket with paid search, we agreed to invest in content marketing. This channel can provide a more dramatic and lasting value for the business. The content marketing effort began with the creation of several buyer personas, developed from the company’s own analytics and industry data, followed by a content strategy and content creation developed for the audience.
The content we created ranged from blogs to emails to website copy. Blogs became an important component of Spirit Dental’s content strategy. Emails were part of drip campaigns to move browsers through the purchase funnel, as well as to cross-sell previous buyers. Combining the persona analysis with user behavior studies led to rewrites of entire web pages as well as calls to action throughout the site.
our client
Spirit Dental and its parent company Direct Benefits provide full-service, one-stop benefits brokerage for dental, disability, life and vision insurance plans.
our results
By the end of the year, we hit the goal: 25% more people purchased dental insurance than the year before. How?
First, content marketing generated direct results. Great content in social media posts increased followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and some of those followers visited the website and purchased insurance. The email marketing program also generated sales.
The content marketing efforts are where we struck gold; we saw a lift in conversions from every channel of traffic. The new content captured consumers attention and answered their questions throughout the purchase process when on the site. Organic search traffic increased 152% and conversions 57%; direct traffic conversions increased 18%, and the cost of conversion from paid search decreased by 66%.
Spirit Dental is thrilled with the results. Reaching their goal of doubling purchases from the online channel opens a new door for their company. And like any ambitious client, their 2017 goals have hit new heights.
