Data-Driven Marketing Decisions Enabled Fast-Moving Strategy

A centralized organization that allows for data-driven marketing decisions

Background for the case: Alfa Laval

New regulations introduced in the shipping industry require vessels to purify ballast water to avoid the spread of biological materials from one environment to another. This meant that a large market had opened up for the industrial giant Alfa Laval, and it was important for them to effectively communicate their message to customers that were doing their best to orient themselves with different and new systems and suppliers – in a highly competitive market.

PROBLEM

Unused potential in the market

Alfa Laval works in an industry with traditionally long purchasing processes and therefore faced the challenge of getting their message across ahead of the competition before the market could explode. The company had an innovative marketing department that realized that customers would need to be educated about ballast water purification and therefore invested in providing relevant and easily accessible information. They were convinced that if they could be the first to leverage the digital marketing opportunities in an otherwise relatively conservative industry, it would give them a competitive advantage.

SOLUTION

Changing customer behavior demands new digital insights

“As this opportunity came our way and we learned that customer behavior has changed, we felt the urge to increase our digital insights and efforts to stay ahead of our competitors. GO MO Group has helped us with our market insights in this relatively new application area and it has been of great value to us to know how customers seek information. It has changed the way we look at customers and our communication with them,” says Anja Simonsson, VP Communications, Marine Division at Alfa Laval.

Our collaboration with Alfa Laval consisted briefly of:

1. Analyzing which areas they were interested in owning and which they should focus on; to then
2. Suggest how these topics could be linked to important keywords through internal and external communication. Which helped us
3. Identify a need to translate their local websites into local languages to better capture the already existing demand

We also saw a need to improve our own website, which meant on-page work where the website was optimized to comply with Google’s and user’s current requirements. At the same time, we created a landing page for one of their most important application areas and optimized their product pages, with the intention of increasing conversions. With data in hand, there was thus a great deal for the company to address when it came to strengthening its digital presence.

RESULTS

A centralized organization that makes data-driven marketing decisions

Based on the opportunities that the new application area opened up, we helped the marketing department develop the information needed to convince management. With the help of data, we were able to show how customers were searching, what they were looking for and where they were looking for it. Here, customers’ search behavior was black and white, and we discovered that there was actually a huge existing online demand that the company was losing.

However, one of the most important changes within the company was not about a specific effort, but rather a fundamental change in behavior. Our collaboration with Alfa Laval has helped the company now make marketing decisions based on data and analysis instead of using only traditional advertising methods. For example, when they are launching a new website, they now turn to us at GO MO Group to find out how the site can be built from the start to capture as many customers as possible. We then use our overall experience, combined with an analysis of the best B2B websites in the industrial sector to provide suggestions on everything from UX to SEO optimization. We help them identify global business opportunities that the company does not currently capitalize on. Last but not the least, our collaboration has helped to create an understanding of the importance of centralized decisions for a coherent marketing strategy. In order to create digital growth, all marketing managers/product managers must aim for the same goal instead of making individual decisions.

Conclusion

Our association with Alfa Laval started with a desire to establish itself in a new market and ended with not only the optimization of their digital communication and increase conversions, but also with something that is becoming increasingly important for every company’s continued relevance, the need for data based digital insights. The collaboration has provided Alfa Laval with valuable digital insights and a future-oriented behavior that characterizes their desire to be at the forefront.