‘Client Success Stories’

Marie Grey & Associates is South Africa’s top Professional Speakers Bureau. With more than twenty years’ experience in the industry they have a proven track record of successful bookings and organisation of speaker engagements ranging from conference to inspirational, comedian, sport, and futuristic speaking events.

The company is a formidable player in the public speaking industry. With a professional image and a reputation for excellence, Marie Grey & Associates select their marketing vehicles and partners with care. Since the company has teamed up with iLead Online to manage their online marketing campaigns they have moved from offline media advertising to web marketing only.

Their online success can be contributed to a number of factors including, but not limited to:

• Well designed and professional website.
• Ongoing search engine optimization.
• Flexibility in marketing approach.
• Usage of web statistics and reports for the purpose of identifying keywords, customer preferences, search behaviour, as well as strong and weak points in the marketing strategy.
• Informative and sticky content.
• Client feedback options.
• Several means to contact them.
• News and events section for freshness.
• Careful selection of content.
• Comprehensive information about services.
• Sitemap for additional navigation and for search bots.
• Facebook presence.
• YouTube presence.
• Pay Per Click advertising.
• Affiliate marketing.
• Effective online marketing mix.

iLead Online regularly provides Marie Grey & Associates with progress reports. As such the client stays updated and any changes that need to be made to ensure even better rankings can be discussed. With the iLead Online pro-active approach to search engine marketing, Pay Per Click advertising, and usage of the social media to promote client sites, we can thus identify potential opportunities and pitfalls rather than having to react to changes in search engine algorithms and Internet usage behaviour.

Company Experience With iLead Online

Marie Grey & Associates originally decided to use iLead Online when they conducted an organic search for web marketing companies. Upon reviewing the iLead Online website they found the site to be professional and decided, based on the information provided by iLead Online, to make use of our services. We have since then built a strong working relationship with the company and regard them as one of our top clients.

Marie Grey, founder of the company, has commented that they have experienced a solid increase in speaker bookings since making use of iLead Online as their SEO and web marketing company, and that the ROI rate for web marketing investment is excellent. She furthermore feels that Pay Per Click also provides a good return on investment regarding web marketing spending and will certainly recommend such as an additional channel for online promotion. On the question of whether she will recommend iLead Online as SEO company Marie answered “Absolutely, and I have done so already”.

Marie Grey & Associates has two websites for which monitoring is in place:

www.mariegreyspeakers.com

www.motivational-speakers-sa.co.za

Solid Return On Investment

Both websites perform excellent with an average of 2.85 pages visited per visitor, indicating that the average visitor lands at the website, and clicks on two more pages before making a booking, using the contact details or leaving. With the new Google Panda Algorithm in place, the time spent and pages visited before exiting a website becomes all important. As such the Marie Grey & Associates websites perform well. The average time spent at the .com website is almost three minutes which is superb ensuring no quick exists. With Google’s Panda it becomes essential to have sticky content ensuring that the visitor doesn’t leave within the first minute as such will lead to a drop in rankings at the end of the day if not addressed.

The website marketing techniques work as proven by the average total of new visitors to the site being almost 75%. As such the site traffic is growing month-by-month and brand awareness and new customers are on the increase. More than 82% of all traffic generated to the site comes from organic searches where users type in a keyword phrase and conducts a search relevant to the content of the particular website.

The low bounce rate of the site, the increase in bookings experienced by Marie Grey & Associates, and the time that users spend at the site indicate that the keywords selected and the content generated have been well aligned, and are effective as well as relevant to the user requirements. Just fewer than 8% traffic comes from referring sites which include links, directories and affiliate sites while direct hits account for 11.78% indicating the users already familiar with the web address and returning.

Traffic is sent via search engines through an average of 405 keywords which indicates that the Marie Grey & Associates website is well optimized and rank well for several keywords. Another important consideration when analysing the performance of a website with search engines is the target audience response. Most of the users of the website come from South Africa, which is rather important since the company’s target market is mainly South Africans.  The South African users visit more than three pages on average per visit to the website and with a low bounce rate; it becomes apparent that they find what they are looking for.

Complete Online Marketing Mix

iLead Online follows a complete online marketing mix to ensure maximum exposure, relevant and targeted traffic and an increase in business generation for Marie Grey & Associates. Some of the techniques used include that of:

• Monthly addition of new informative articles to the website written by professional copywriters;
• Strategic link building and additional Google exposure by way of the iLead network of sites;
• Regular sitemap updating and submission to Google; and more.

Marie Grey & Associates is a top performing company and iLead Online takes pride in the development of their online presence. From the information provided it is clear that the SEO and online marketing techniques used by iLead Online provide the desired ROI for client companies. Contact us today to help your company gain a competitive edge in the online world.

Jungle Gym World was established in 2007 by André Ferreira and has since then grown from being a small player in the playground equipment industry to a formidable competitor receiving orders from Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana and even from Hong Kong and nationally. The company is now employer to more than 47 workers. Online marketing is credited for the growth of the company to have become one of the largest steel gym manufacturers and suppliers in the country the past five years.

Jungle Gym World has grown into a formidable competitor in jungle gym equipment over the years using three marketing channels:

• Online marketing which includes a complete marketing mix of Search Engine Optimization (noted by the owner André, as one of the most important reasons for their online success), Pay Per Click advertising, banner ads, article writing and content generation, as well as traffic monitoring.
• Online affiliate marketing where leads are gained from iLead affiliate pages.
• Passive advertising in the printed Yellow Pages.

From the above it becomes clear that Jungle Gym World has increased its exposure and brand awareness by means of the Internet rather than using offline media which is more expensive and can only reach a limited number of people. One of the most important reasons noted for the company’s tremendous success is their ongoing Internet based advertising.

Their website receives on average between 6000 and 7000 visits a month, and all are highly relevant. Getting so many people, who are interested specifically in playground equipment to your website, means that your online marketing methods must work. iLead Online has proven that SEO is essential in increasing search engine visibility and should be the first step in online marketing.

According to André, around 99% of their clients come from the Internet. With thousands of suppliers on the Internet in specifically outdoor play equipment, the company had to ensure that its site would be noticed and more important would result in online sales. Because of this marketing strategy, the company could be more focussed on production of top quality products because iLead has taken the responsibility to ensure a regular stream of visitors, leads, and content for increasing sales conversions.

Important Factors For Online Success

Jungle Gym World has not focussed one only one aspect of online marketing, but several. With only the minimum effort required from Jungle Gym World, iLead Online has ensured ongoing success by using:

• Search engine optimization.
• Article writing by experienced copywriters to ensure credible content that is useful to readers and search engine friendly.
• Incoming link building.
• Blog creation for marketing in the social media environment and reaching more Internet users.
• Pay Per Click advertising management for direct sales leads.
• Creation of landing pages.
• Constant website visitor traffic monitoring.
• Banner ad creation and placing thereof at iLead Online affiliate pages.

Five new pages are added to the article base monthly ensuring that content increases and more visibility are gained regarding organic search engines. Proof is in the stats.

Link Popularity

Link popularity shows the number of websites and search engines linking to a website. The more relevant incoming links from a major search engine and directories, the more doors to a website, and also better ranking.

The Jungle Gym World website has 346 incoming links from Yahoo! which is a major search engine for their co.za domain and 872 for their .com domain. Other search engines sending links to Jungle Gym World are that of Google, Ananzi and Bing. The focus on major search engines has proven to be effective. Google has sent 3617 visits in February 2011 as part of organic searches and 150 referral visits. The website shows only 36% bounce rate, which is excellent. This means that 74% of the visitors explore other web pages on the site before exiting by placing an order.

Visitor Stats

Demographics of the users play an important role in the return on investment when it comes to marketing. Marketing to users which fall outside the scope of your business is indeed money lost. It is never possible to not also receive international visitors if your market is only one country, but you want the majority of visitors to come from within the preferred geographical boundaries. Jungle Gym World has an excellent return on investment because the majority of visits to their website originate from within South Africa and more specifically Gauteng with visits from Pretoria, Sandton and Johannesburg being the most. The site also receives visits from Cape Town and then neighbouring countries, accounting for the successful expansion of its market into neighbouring countries.

Origin Of Traffic

The site receives 64.67% from its traffic from search engines and 3.35% from referring sites while direct hits account for only 31.98%. The site ranks top for several of the main keywords, ensuring that whenever an Internet user searches for playground equipment related terms that Jungle Gym World comes up in the top five results and in many instances is at position 1 to 3. The ROI is all important, and according to André, without the online marketing efforts of iLead and thus the Internet based activity, Jungle Gym World would not exist.

So successful is the company that it is now one of the largest and best known play equipment manufacturers in Southern Africa with regular requests from the USA and important manufacturing countries in Asia. Becoming a major player in the educational and outdoor equipment industry by making use of the Internet as main marketing vehicle and thus also the most cost-effective, is possible if you follow the route that Jungle Gym World did. It is perhaps one of the most inspiring stories on the web and with a longstanding relationship with iLead Online; Jungle Gym World is growing day by day.

So successful is Jungle Gym World that André has been asked on occasion to address a Google and related conferences on the topic of their online success. According to owner, André, a website can be compared to a bottle of water in the desert. The resource is there, but it must be found and for that a map is needed. Online marketing including SEO, PPC, affiliate marketing, link building, and content generation creates the paths to the resource. If done right, Internet marketing, as done through iLead Online, guarantees an excellent return on your marketing investment. Contact us at iLead Online to help you gain the same success through online marketing.

Integrated Technical Services known, as ITS Africa, is a well-known industrial and commercial cleaning equipment supplier in South Africa with a large customer base. The company is also a distributor of the famous Kärcher products.

The ITS client base includes the likes of large mining companies and projects such as the Gautrain cleaning contract. The company operates in an extremely competitive environment also when it comes to carwash and carpet cleaning equipment. Competition on high level also means that competitors invest a lot in marketing, especially online marketing. This in turn leads to extreme keyword and ranking competition. Getting to the first five search result ranks for one of the main keywords is a rather impressive feat and more so to stay at the position or to improve the position.

ITS Africa, as an award-winning cleaning equipment supplier and service provider to large enterprises in South Africa, recognises the importance of a flexible, yet, well planned online marketing strategy. With that in mind the company under leadership has partnered with iLead Online to ensure that it can gain and keep a competitive edge in the online environment. The company recently received the South Africa Distributor of the Year Award from two major suppliers. It is an impressive accomplishment indeed. Part of their distributor success has to do with their marketing and customer relationship building strategies. Both strategies include a solid online presence and user-friendly websites packed with information on the various products and brands.

Online Marketing Strategy And Performance

ITS makes use of Pay Per Click Advertising in addition to affiliate marketing, link building, search engine optimisation and content generation services offered by iLead. Their service package thus consists of a complete marketing mix ensuring that they gain maximum online exposure and visitor traffic to their website. In addition to the above the following areas are also exploited in terms of online marketing:

• Interactive blog allowing for short posts about specific services offered by the company.
• Website banner ads at strategic places.
• Newsfeed on the main page allowing for constant news updates on the latest developments.
• Facebook advertising and business profile development.
• YouTube Channel for video marketing and building of links.
• Opt-in Mailing List for news & specials.
• Newsletter to build credibility and keep clients informed

Links Increase

The ITS Africa website had 135 incoming links in June 2010. Within only a few months iLead succeeded in building an additional 126 links bringing the total incoming links to 261 for February 2011. Ranking is directly influenced by the number of value added and relevant links and as such the incoming links have helped to improve search engine ranking.

Organic Search Results

The website is performing well on the organic search results for most of their main keywords, considering how competitive the market is in terms of their specific keywords. Co-owner of ITS Africa, Wayne Mulder, commented that although the website is not within the first three search results for some of the important keywords that it is on its way there and since search engine marketing is a long term and gradual process, it is worth the investment. Being on the first page is absolutely essential if one hopes to get a major chunk of the visitor traffic, and lying within the first five definitely helps. The goal is to get to position two or three in the near future.

Pay Per Click Advertising

While the website is still climbing the ranks in terms of some main keywords, it is doing exceptionally well on the PPC front with tremendous click through conversions. The combination of organic search with a PPC campaign strategy managed by iLead is delivering the desired visitor and conversion results. Out of 10411 clicks in February 2011 there were 1061 visits. When interviewed about his website success, Wayne answered that PPC is a more controllable tool which is definitely a must have for immediate results. Pay per click offers the benefit of a user already being in the market for the specific product or service and not only browsing for information. With this then, PPC is used to compliment the traffic drive to their website.

Leads

According to Wayne iLead has helped to ensure a constant flow of incoming leads. Not all result in sales, but are still important for brand building and customer mailing list development. Every relevant lead is important and with a definite increase in leads experienced, the company is 100% satisfied with the iLead strategies and professional lead building techniques.

Report Back & Future Trends

With the marketing mix strategy that iLead follows, the client can expect a solid return on investment into online marketing. Additional channels which are still to be exploited fully include that of viral marketing, YouTube, and social media brand development, all planned for the future.

Client Perspective Of iLead

The company provides excellent service and staff is available 24/7 to assist with any queries. One can trust in the professionalism of iLead. Even though iLead has other clients in the same industry, the company gives 100% to each client and upholds the integrity of the relationship. ITS Africa experiences the search engine marketing relationship as one based on trust. iLead is committed to client service and the building of long term relationships. It is this commitment that ensures complete dedication by the search engine specialists and staff. It is a reliable company that delivers on its promises to clients.

In Summary

ITS Africa is one of the leading commercial and industrial cleaning companies in South Africa. The company makes extensive use of online marketing to expand its markets and to ensure brand awareness. iLead works in close relationship with ITS to extend the reach of the company by ensuring well planned search engine optimisation, a flexible approach to Internet marketing, and transparency in its marketing approach. With this approach followed and a professional relationship with the client, iLead continues to develop strategies for optimal visibility, online branding, and the ultimate return on investment for ITS Africa. Contact us to develop an online marketing strategy that will suit your particular advertising needs.