Burkholder Brothers Inc. Case Study

Since 1945, Burkholder Brothers, Inc. has been a family-owned and managed landscaping business. They have a highly skilled team of talented carpenters, masons, electricians, horticulturists, and contractors. This team of certified experts meets the dreams of their customers who want the perfect living space. At Burkholder, they are passionate about designing, building, and maintaining the finest landscapes in the Delaware Valley of Pennsylvania.

Website: https://www.burkholderlandscape.com
Date of Project Launch: May 2017

Goals and Challenges:

• Explain the client’s struggles and challenges prior to WSI.
  • Organic traffic to the site was not up to the client’s satisfaction.
  • The client had few SEO rankings in their targeted geo locations.
  • The client had a website with minimal content and activity.
  • Traditional marketing, such as industry magazine ads and post card mailers, were no longer working and they needed a new approach to their marketing strategy.

• What were the objectives of this project?
  • Design and develop an optimized, responsive and mobile-friendly website with a focus on the services offered.
  • Improve Google organic rankings and Google Places Local rankings.
  • Improve search engine traffic (Google, Yahoo and Bing).
  • Increase conversions in terms of prospective phone calls, form completion, and emails.
  • Establish better online communications with prospects and customers.
  • Attract more prospective customers.
  • Increase online brand awareness especially as related to their new showroom and outdoor furniture.

The Solution:

• Describe the details of the completed project.
  • Designed and created a responsive and high-performing website.
  • Developed a well-rounded digital marketing strategy and campaign composed of:
    • Developed buying personas.
    • Executed SEO campaign – ongoing SEO activities:
      • Review and audit of selected keywords.
      • On-page optimization revisions for top level pages.
      • Strategic link building (Industry directories and local citations).
      • Content writing strategy (articles/ PR pieces/blog posts).
      • Infographic optimization and syndication.
      • PR submissions.
      • Video optimization and submission to top level video directories.
      • Geo-targeted pages for each location.
    • Implemented Google Adwords campaigns using multiple ad groups.
    • Optimized and managed all social media profiles:
      • Posting in social media profiles.
      • Consistency of brand across social platforms.
      • Implement paid advertising to market niches.
    • Implemented forms and email campaigns in Sharpspring.
    • Implemented Call Rail for call tracking and conversion.
    • Produced monthly reports to track campaign performance especially conversions.
    • Implemented consistency and claiming of directory listings.

• What digital marketing services did you provide?
  • Digital marketing strategy
  • Competitive analysis
  • Persona development
  • Web design/ responsive design
  • Landing page optimization
  • Content writing and marketing
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services
  • Social media management
  • Special media advertising
  • Marketing automation
  • Google Adwords and Pay Per Click (PPC)
  • Video production and optimization
  • Email marketing
  • Mobile marketing
  • Domain strategy
  • Online brand consistency
  • Targeted geo fencing
  • Call tracking
  • Reputation management

Results:

• How did your WSI solution meet the needs of the client?
  • For the period May 1, 2017 – April 30, 2018 compared to the prior year:
    • The website received 9,028 overall visits which increased by 460% compared to the prior period.
    • % New Sessions also increased by 465% from 1,605 to 9,071.
    • 46.73% of the overall traffic came from organic sources (4,349 visits).
  • Organic traffic increased by 459.7% (from 791 to 4,349 visits).
  • Social traffic increased by 1,491.55% (from 71 to 1,130 visits).
  • Starting on May 1, 2017, only three keywords were in the top 50.  On May 1, 2018, the keyword positioning is: 11 in the first position, 25 in position 2-5, 13 in position 6-10, 84 in position 11-15.  
  • Total search result impressions were 100,977 for Feb, Mar, and April of 2018.
  • An email campaign was run every 6 weeks reaching about 1,600 users each time. The email marketing average open rate is 40% and click through rate is 4%.

• What was the result of your efforts for the client?
  • They now have a working marketing strategy, which is driving leads into their business.
  • They are no longer spending marketing budget on tactics that had minimal results.
  • As of May 1, 2018, the business is fully booked out through August 2018.
  • The campaign completed 1,171 conversion goals of which 260 forms were submitted requesting consultation or quotes. This translates to about 21 prospects per month.
  • The other goals were requests for event information and store specials. The average number of phone calls per month is 109.

• How did you measure the results?
  • Google Analytics
  • Monthly Google search engine rankings report
  • SEMrush
  • SharpSpring
  • Call Rail
  • Google Adwords
  • Raven
  • Brightlocal

Client Testimonial:

I am very pleased with the work done by the team at WSI Philadelphia and continually refer them to people that need their services. They helped us determine the features we needed for our website, learned about our preferences, and then created a finished product that professionally represents our company. The team has worked with us to create effective pages, write engaging content, as well as develop and implement effective email marketing campaigns, such as the one that promoted our expansive holiday market events. Our goal was to become better known in our Main Line neighborhood and through the efforts of WSI, we have increased visits to our website by over 1,000% in the course of less than a year. WSI’s team members stay on top of what is new in digital marketing and continue to look for ways we can increase our business success. I look forward to seeing what kind of growth and opportunities occur in this next year through our collaboration with WSI.

Barry Burkholder, Co-Owner Burkholder Brothers, Inc., Malvern, PA – USA