Vermillion Systems
A security systems integrator gets a new website, updated brand messaging, and a bunch of high value clients.
WEBSITE STATISTICS
NUMBER OF USERS: +62%
NUMBER OF SESSIONS: +131%
NUMBER OF PAGE VIEWS: +71%
SESSION DURATION: +187%
Website: Vermillion-systems.com
I remember the day I found my client’s website on the first page of Google’s search engine results page. It had been several months since we launched the site, but I had done my homework on search engine optimization (SEO) and was confident that if we created a plan that worked and stuck to it, we’d be o.k. Well, we were better than okay. We were first. I smiled and pumped my fist, celebrating a successful journey from nothing to #1.
But ranking first on Google at the time wasn’t too difficult if you knew what you were doing. The trick was getting sales. Being first on Google is nice, but if you aren’t making sales, it doesn’t matter. Sales is the lifeblood of any organization. It was my job to convince people that the services my client offered were valuable and I had to motivate them to act. This is where design came in to play. I had designed a very clean, corporate looking site that had the right amount of credibility sprinkled with unassuming, down-home, “roll-up-our sleeves and do things the right way” Midwestern work ethic.
We had great writing that informed people of the solid history of my client’s work, outlined all of their competencies and areas of specialization. It answered all of your questions before you even picked up the phone to call them. The site just made you feel like you were in the right place. Like you found exactly what you were looking for. And most importantly, it gained your trust immediately. It was almost imperceptible, but it was there. Trust. Credibility. Expertise. It wasn’t a fluke. I built it that way.
So although ranking #1 was a goal, it wasn’t my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal was to make sales. The site should help my client make money. And until that happened, I would consider the site to be a minor failure. Not out loud of course, but deep in the fog at the back of my brain I’d think of it that way until it proved itself otherwise.
My client wanted the site to function as a sales tool, and I took that into account and designed it that way, with the hope that it would attract clients who would find them online, without knowing anything about them beforehand. My client hoped that people who weren’t even aware of their existence would find them online for certain search terms and call them for an estimate. That’s a steep order, but we were diligent.
And it happened. Within the first year of launching they had two new clients with projects worth a total of $50,000. These new clients had found them online and had no idea they existed before searching. They found them, evaluated them against their competitors, and chose them before anyone even had talked to them on the phone. Now that’s the power of good web design, good marketing, and good sales. The marketing and sales efforts worked together to form a “secret sauce” that tasted a lot like success.
The deeper story
Vermillion Systems is an electronics and security system installer in Northern Indiana. They are based in a small town of 1,200 people. In the winter of 2008, they had no real web presence to speak of, just a landing page with a couple of interior pages of basic information. They saw my work and contacted me to create a new website. I had been experimenting with the new world of open-source Content Management Systems (CMS for short), and was involved in designing Joomla! themes. WordPress was in its infancy, and was still stuck in the world of blogging. Joomla! on the other hand, had a backend structure that supported their needs, out of the box. As a side note, I switched to WordPress almost exclusively from 2010 to 2016. Now, Squarespace or Shopify are my main tools, since they handle my clientele’s needs most of the time.
Anyway, I had looked at their site, talked with them, determined their needs, and created a proposal.
I followed the process I laid out earlier.
• I interviewed Vermillion, determined their needs, found their unique value, shaped their message, and came up with a sitemap and a clean, organized design to incorporate all of their needs and required functions.
• I hired a copywriter to write the content. I cannot overstate the importance of this step. Content is key to any successful web site. Building a website is like building a house. You have to start with a plan and then create the foundation and frame in the rooms. Content is your website’s foundation and framing. It dictates the structure the site takes, it informs the function, look and feel of the site. Good writing incorporates the personality and unique value proposition of the company and tells a compelling story, while showing how the company solves whatever problems the company solves. And great content will definitely benefit any company.
• Once the writing and design drafts were approved, I installed and configured the CMS, designed the site, added content, and put the finishing touches on it.
• Then I used on-site and off-site Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to ensure that their online presence would be visible to their target market. Nothing fancy here, I relied more on creating quality content. Why? That's what Google is looking for. Instead of trying to buy a ton of backlinks, I added new content on a consistent basis, and made sure it was relevant.
• We set up social media profiles, added case studies and other timely content.
• We set up a Google Analytics account to track data.
That’s about it. Within 9 months, their site was second or third on the Google search engine results page for the selected terms we chose to optimize for. Within a year, they were the first on those search engine results, beating out large corporate competitors like ADT. What’s more interesting is that within that first year, Vermilion had secured two projects from prospective clients who had found them online. Those projects were worth more than $50,000. One of them was a regional airport that found them through an online search for a specific access control system they wanted to use and found that Vermillion was an authorized dealer. First page ranking, near the top. They immediately called them and asked if they were interested in bidding on the project. Boom. Cost of website and marketing recovered with that first project.
This is a story I tell prospective clients who want to know why it’s so “expensive” to have a website created. A website is a lot more than just a price tag. It should be the future of your business. By that I mean it should cast the vision you have for your company, and it should function to bring in clients. It should elevate you amongst your competition and project your unique value proposition. It should not only tell your story, it should tell people how your business provides value to the marketplace. It should be the face of who you are when you’re not in front of your client. And most of all, it should communicate credibility and trust.
What’s the value of that? What sort of value would you put on it? Does $5,000 sound like a lot now? $15,000? $50,000 even?
I have referred to this case study many times, and how an investment of $5,000 can return $50,000 in a year. But you know what’s funny? I was visiting the sales director from Vermillion not too long ago and mentioned the website and how successful it’s been for them. I told him about the $5,000 investment for $50,000 number. You know what he said? “Jeff, if you want to be conservative, you can tell people it returns $200,000. Easily.” And that’s every year.
So there you have it, straight from the client. They invested just less than $10,000 and the site returned $200,000 in FY 2013. I ended up redesigning the site in 2015 to accommodate their terrific growth. According to their sales director, the sites have brought them internet leads that have resulted in over a million dollars of business over their lifespan.
But that’s not the end of it. The marketing systems I put in place, along with the great alignment of the sales director (and vision from the executive team) has propelled this company from doing $600k/year in revenue to $4.8M/year. And this happened in less than ten years. They went from doing small convenience stores to large municipal projects, educational institutions, and large auto dealers. They now serve higher quality clients and larger projects. They have more of the clients they want, and less of the ones they don’t.