Developing a digital strategy to drive growth.

The story.

Forbo Flooring Systems is a leader in high-quality total flooring solutions. As an international business, marketing campaigns and product launches are typically driven through its Netherlands-based HQ. Although this is typical of larger businesses, the team in the UK recognised the need for localised content that spoke directly to the UK’s commercial sector.

Whilst Forbo had established good visibility across UK markets, the challenge was to turn visibility into revenue. To do this, Wyatt created customer journey maps and a robust search and digital strategy to increase brand awareness, improve key conversion counts and establish trust in a new market.

The thinking.

The commercial sector has transformed. The impact of the pandemic and other associated pressures caused rapid and permanent change. The positive news is that commercial flooring is now experiencing a period of growth as the sector reimagines its future in a world where the demand for realism, honest communication and trust is paramount.

Forbo had obtained strong domain authority. This needed to be harnessed and converted into organic visibility that was specific to UK markets. This presented an opportunity to delve deeper. We conducted customer research and created a comprehensive customer journey map to identify key differentials and personas across commercial markets – healthcare, offices, mixed-use residential buildings and education. This formed a four-dimensional search and digital strategy to support new product launches and communicate key corporate initiatives.

The execution.

To unlock the digital potential of Forbo, we knew we had to put the human at the heart of our campaign. Over several months, Wyatt ran workshops and interviewed many individuals operating within Forbo’s target sectors. We spoke to facilities managers and flooring contractors in the education sector, interior designers undertaking office refurbishments, and project managers in the private rental sector. The results fuelled the creation of complex customer personas, granting Forbo with a clear vision of who they’re talking to, and how they should do so.

When it came to search and digital activity, we knew we had to take things back to basics. We began with a review of Forbo’s digital footprint to make vital changes to website meta data along with restructuring the PPC account. Each of which was updated in line with core keywords identified during customer research.

This fundamental work cleared the pathway to conversion by improving awareness across each key customer base. With the basics established, we set about creating accessible, shareable and fully optimised content to support a series of key product launches, as well as the current range.

Our work now centred around hyper-targeted messaging that added real value to customers. Through an organic and paid-for social media strategy, we reached current and new customers in a new way, kick-starting value-added conversations for Forbo.

Results.

For SEO, organic sessions are up 13.2% and organic users are up 12% (both YTD to May 2023). For PPC, we’ve seen a 96.3% reduction in costs and a 19.15% CTR, which is a 71.2% improvement on the previous year.

We built a search and digital strategy from the ground up. In doing so, we have grown Forbo’s following, increased awareness, and established the brand as an authority in the UK commercial sector. Clarity and consistency lead to conversions. And there is still more to come…