Axiom

Scuka

DYSYS

Vega

Project Electric

ProHome

Goodman Steel

Altec

CaraGreen

Fulvic Xcell

Swan Heating

Okanagan Specialty Fruits

Arctic Apples

Vitalis

Skills Centre

Clearsolv

We talk a big game. Now you&#8217;re wondering: can they back it up?
We think the answer is a resounding &#8216;yes&#8217;. Check out some of the great work we&#8217;ve done for a wide range of industries, from biotech to HVAC.

Our Case Studies

Studies

industrial marketing case studies

Marketing Case Studies

Marketing

Cost effective, and profitable ad campaign

Construction Materials Supplier - Search Advertising Campaign

Green building materials supplier CaraGreen came to us with an advertising problem. Their search advertising campaigns delivered clicks in spades — thousands each month. What they didn’t do was deliver value.
Lacking in strategy, conversion tracking, and product focus, their ad campaigns failed to deliver on metrics that really matter for businesses: leads, sales, and revenue.
We worked with CaraGreen to scope out and implement a new campaign, develop landing pages, and improve lead attribution. The result? More leads — way more leads — for less money.

Background

We began our advertising engagement with CaraGreen by conducting a campaign audit. The first step to fixing a problem is to understand it. Through our audit, we identified the following key issues:
<ul>
<li>Conversions were improperly tracked. According to Google Ads, nearly 100% of users converted. In reality, less than 1% of paid search users took action.</li>
<li>Ads sent users to low-value web pages. Rather than sending users to a lead generating landing page, many users arrived on blog pages without a clear path to converting.</li>
<li>Target keywords were vague and low-intent. The campaigns were structured to focus on click volume, not performance metrics like lead generation rate.</li>
</ul>
The audit revealed a fundamental lack of campaign direction and intent. Our job was clear: structure a campaign that focused on delivering leads, not clicks and impressions.

Challenge

Through keyword and competitor research and user behaviour analysis, we identified two product categories that were ideal candidates for paid advertising: recycled countertop materials and acoustic wall panels. We developed two landing pages for each product category. One page for each included a quote request form. The other was a click-through page, intended to funnel users toward valuable pages on the main CaraGreen site. The new pages include accurate conversion tracking. We also installed a live chat application on the website and landing pages to offer another path for users to connect with CaraGreen.
We developed a new ad campaign with an ad group for each targeted product. Based on our keyword research, we selected a tight group of exact match keywords for each ad group. Paired with an extensive negative keyword list, we knew the updated campaign would generate fewer clicks of far greater quality.

Solution

Engagement metrics from advertising traffic immediately improved when the new campaign and landing pages launched. Everything from average time on page to average pages per session improved dramatically. But page views aren’t revenue. What about business metrics?
Lead generation conversion rate improved from less than 0.5% to over 7%. The campaign consistently delivers leads at a cost per acquisition of less than $25. Based on the client’s estimated closing rate and average customer value, the campaign offers up to 7.5X return on marketing investment.
By focusing on advertising fundamentals and business outcomes, we implemented an efficient, cost effective, and profitable ad campaign, transforming paid search from one of CaraGreen’s least efficient marketing channels to its most efficient.

Results

Improving Key Areas

Manufacturing Trade Board - Marketing & Website Development

They say a rising tide lifts all ships. When EMC Canada engaged with us, their dated website left campaigns marooned, hurting conversion rates and dampening user engagement. Working with EMC, we identified several challenges that undermined the impact of their website for marketing important events and programs. By addressing these challenges, we were able to improve overall website visibility and campaign conversion rates, all through our easy-to-use proprietary content management system, Bene CMS.

We worked with EMC to identify several key areas for improving the website:
<ul>
<li>The previous website was difficult to manage for content editors, often requiring developer involvement to make simple changes.</li>
<li>The look and feel of the website was dated. Staff were concerned that prospective members may be turned off by the old-fashioned design.</li>
<li>Content was poorly organized and hard to find. Users struggled to find important events and programs.</li>
<li>Given Quebec’s large manufacturing sector, improving the user experience for French-speaking Canadians was paramount.</li>
</ul>
As EMC’s website serves as a portal for their programming and events, improving user experience would improve the efficiency of all active and future campaigns. The website itself would be our “rising tide”, improving marketing performance across the board.

We broke the problem down into several distinct project phases: a design consultation, where we collected feedback from users across the organization; an in-depth wireframing and website architecture project, aimed at reducing website complexity and improving usability; a website development project, where we enacted our recommended changes; and a brand refresh, where we upgraded the organization’s branding to suit its new website.
We improved French language support on the website with an embedded translation feature. Our wireframing and website architecture project significantly reduced the number of clicks required to navigate to critical content. EMC staff communicated a desire to make the website feel bright and clean. The new website and accompanying brand refresh do away with dark, muddy colours in favour of a clean, modern aesthetic.

We were able to realize results for each identified core challenge. Our streamlined Bene CMS content management platform made content editing easy for staff. French Canadian user growth improved by 273% since launching the new website. The new brand delivers better marketing performance. Site-wide conversion rate improved by 26%. Conversion rates for their most important service offering, the WILWorks program, increased by 177%. Streamlined website architecture improves SEO performance, as well. Since June 2022, EMC Canada’s organic web traffic has increased by 19%.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Ships

Website

UI/UX-First Website Design

Career Readiness Service - Website Development

Skills Centre is an employment and career services agency operating out of British Columbia&#8217;s rugged West Kootenay region. As the largest provider of employment services in the region, thousands of people rely on Skills Centre services to upgrade job skills, find work, and access community resources. Skills Centre engaged with BlackBean in 2021 to rebuild their website in order to better serve their organizational objectives.

 Background

The previous Skills Centre website presented a unique UI/UX challenge. The website received tons of organic search traffic and high engagement from its many visitors, but not the right kind of engagement. Users arrived on the popular regional job board, leaving before exploring Skills Centre&#8217;s training and employment services. These services are Skills Centre&#8217;s core mandate, but remained underutilized by its prospective clients.

Our solution was to &#8216;go with the flow&#8217;. Skills Centre successfully attracts dozens of viewers per day to its website, largely through its presence in Google for search terms like &#8216;kootenay job board&#8217; and &#8216;jobs near Trail BC&#8217;. Instead of trying to deflect users from the path of least resistance, we leaned into the job board. We developed a tagging system to highlight relevant Skills Centre services for each job. Is the user looking at a job that requires first aid certification? They&#8217;ll see a call-to-action to register for first aid training through Skills Centre.
The Skills Centre job board was rebuilt to distribute traffic to relevant services. This technique supports Skills Centre&#8217;s strengths in terms of user acquisition. The goal was to align with the wants and needs of their audience, adding value instead of imposing a different experience.

Before rebuilding the website, over 85% of website traffic visited the job board and went no further. On the new website, 43% of users engage with content other than the job board on their visit. Content engagement improved substantially. Users spend an average of over three minutes on-page on the new website, compared to just 1:29 on the previous version. Average search position and overall search volume also increased due to improved website quality and SEO. As percentage of traffic share, search traffic has increased from 45% to 60% since launching the new website.

Insightful design drives real results

Informing their audience

Biotech Company - Website Development

Not every marketing challenge is about lead generation or increasing volume. Okanagan Specialty Fruits is the parent company of Arctic Apples, a non-browning apple developed for retail and food-service applications. Their website failed to broadcast their values and service offering, instead generating consumer searches for information on GMO foods.
Rather than increasing traffic, OSF wanted to improve the composition and quality of traffic to the website, targeting prospective employees and businesses looking for services and partnership rather than consumers seeking information on GMOs.

The primary challenge for this project was to reframe the website&#8217;s content to serve OSF&#8217;s business objectives, while displaying the information in an appealing and professional manner. The goal was to reduce or eliminate traffic from consumers looking to learn about (or debate the merits of) GMO products.

To this end, we identified a set of content that primarily delivered consumer traffic. We redirected this traffic to the homepage or to relevant pages with B2B intent.
Our website design struck a balance between friendly, personal, and casual, and professional, technical, and capable. We worked to update their branding while retaining its original look. The new website features more strategic content including an upgraded job board and a streamlined, B2B focused sitemap.

OSF&#8217;s results are best expressed by its organic search keywords. Once dominated by GMO keywords, OSF&#8217;s search profile now largely consists of branded terms, informational fruit growing terms, and biotech related queries. Despite a significant reduction in overall search traffic due to elimination of low value keywords and content, search visitors spend 87% longer on the website now than ever before, finding relevant B2B information for their high-value queries.

Informational Website Development

Navigating a Marketing Minefield

Biotech Company - Marketing Strategy & Implementation

Arctic Apples is a B2B producer of non-browning apples. Their focus is on serving the retail and food-service markets with individually-portioned, pre-sliced apples. As a GMO product, Arctic Apples face increased skepticism and scrutiny from their prospective customers. They struggle to educate end consumers on the safety and nutrition of their products while emphasizing selling propositions for their B2B market. Finally, Arctic Apples had minimal consumer awareness and brand recognition. They sought an execution partner to aide their internal marketing department with campaign execution.

Arctic Apples&#8217; biggest challenges pertained to messaging and communication. A key goal for this engagement was to increase positive brand recognition among consumers across the US and Canada, particularly among the USA&#8217;s growing Spanish-speaking community. They struggled to balance educational information for a vocally negative anti-GMO consumer audience with a need to sell to organizations and retailers at scale across the USA and Canada.

Fundamentally, our engagement with Arctic Apples is about execution. We offer design and web development execution services to allow their internal marketing team to implement campaigns and strategies. We provided a range of marketing and web development services to Arctic Apples, including:
<ul>
<li>Design and development of a sales and informational website featuring consumer content (blogs, educational articles, recipes) and targeted marketing content for retailers and food service organizations</li>
<li>A full Spanish version of the website to improve accessibility for the growing Hispanic market segment in the USA</li>
<li>Packaging design for their individually portioned apple segments</li>
<li>Production of a wide range of sales and marketing resources (flyers, one sheets, technical documentation, etc).</li>
<li>Execution of a North American giveaway campaign featuring an Arctic Apples branded YETI cooler</li>
</ul>

Our engagement has allowed Arctic Apple&#8217;s internal marketing staff to execute more swiftly on a variety of campaigns including Amazon Shopping campaigns, giveaways, and B2B sales initiatives. With our support, Arctic Apples generated over 21,000 form submissions for their YETI cooler giveaway.
Our enhancements to the website resulted in an 8% improvement in overall pageviews and a 27% decline in user bounce rate. Users visit 12% more pages per session. Key markets including cities across the American Southwest saw increased traffic, particularly in areas with high Spanish-speaking populations.

Evergreen Marketing for a Non-Browning Apple

Support

Fertilizer and Supplement Marketing

Fertilizer Manufacturer - Website & Marketing Support

When we began working with Diablo Nutrients, they had little understanding of their own marketing funnel. While they had a general understanding of their target market, they wanted to take their marketing to the next level, especially online. In order to do that, they needed to understand their own brand&#8217;s strengths and weaknesses and find a niche for themselves in a crowded cannabis growing market.

We identified a number of challenges for Diablo Nutrients during our research and consultation phase:
<ul>
<li>Diablo has a positive reputation among experienced growers familiar with their product, but very limited brand exposure to the casual growing market at large.</li>
<li>Due to the nature of their products, there were a variety of legal requirements and restrictions to be met for every marketing campaign.</li>
<li>Diablo&#8217;s unique branding cuts both ways. It resonates very well with the right audience, but the wrong audience may struggle to connect. &#8220;Finding their tribe&#8221; was an important strategic consideration.</li>
</ul>

Before we could make recommendations or put a plan into place, we needed to understand their industry and competition. We began by compiling a market research document, using customer information from their website and social media channels as well as data collected from a marketing survey we administered. This research helped us understand Diablo&#8217;s target markets more deeply, identifying primary and secondary customer personas and the most effective channels to use to speak to each. We analyzed competitors large and small to identify opportunities for growth and establish a clear picture of Diablo&#8217;s market position. This helped us develop marketing collateral that resonates with their audience and supports their team&#8217;s marketing objectives. Our deliverables included:
<ul>
<li>A new website featuring tools that resonate with Diablo&#8217;s customers: feed calculators, location finders, grower&#8217;s tips, and technical documentation.</li>
<li>A wide variety of brand collateral including sales and technical documents, social media content, and trade show materials.</li>
<li>Ongoing support and advisement on marketing investment and strategies.</li>
</ul>

Our market research helped Diablo&#8217;s marketing team get on the same page and coordinate their efforts. It continues to inform Diablo&#8217;s social media and newsletter content strategies and offers insight into their customer&#8217;s needs as they continue to grow their market share.

Grab Marketing by the Horns

Search

Cool Prices in a Hot Market

HVAC Company - Paid Search Campaign

When we began working with Swan Heating, they had a lot going for them: plenty of website traffic, hundreds of 5 star Google reviews, and a good reputation in their service area surrounding Denver, Colorado. What they weren&#8217;t getting was results. Their advertising performance was falling behind as leads grew more expensive and harder to find. Our task was to optimize their digital marketing performance, ensuring that all that traffic didn&#8217;t go to waste.

<ul>
<li>Swan Heating, an established HVAC business in Denver, needed to improve the quality, quantity, and cost of their online leads</li>
<li>Though their website received plenty of traffic, Swan felt their business had begun to fall behind their competitors, especially regarding their search advertising performance</li>
<li>When we began working with Swan, their year-over-year leads from Google search advertising had fallen by over 40%, while cost per lead had increased by nearly 25%</li>
<li>While their website received plenty of organic search traffic, it was out-of-date, lacked proper tracking conversion tracking, and was not optimized for lead generation</li>
</ul>

Swan Heating had plenty of potential customers filling their online marketing funnel, but that traffic wasn&#8217;t transitioning into enough leads or sales to justify its acquisition cost. In order to fix this, we first needed to understand why this was happening. We knew the website needed an update, so we started there, designing a lead-generation focused WordPress site to replace their out-of-date website. We also configured proper conversion tracking to measure website performance more accurately. Finally, we sought to understand why the Google Ads account performance had decreased. We performed an audit on the account, then implemented recommended solutions, serving as Swan&#8217;s advertising management team.
<ul>
<li>A performance-first website was designed and built using WordPress. This website featured improve page load times and visuals, as well as improved calls to action intended to provide customers with more opportunities to connect with Swan</li>
<li>An advertising audit was completed, revealing a number of inefficiencies and performance issues. These issues were corrected and an advertising administration strategy was put in place</li>
<li>Website and landing page conversion tracking was implemented to improve attribution accuracy.</li>
</ul>

Positive results were seen both immediately and through the next year. Website users and pageviews both increased by over 20%. Recorded revenue attributed to the website increased by over 100%, while website lead volume improved by 85%. Advertising performance improved similarly, recording record year-over-year conversion volumes as well as up to 50% cost per lead reductions.
<ul>
<li>In the year since our team began administering the advertising account, conversion costs dropped by over 15% year-over-year. Lead volume increased by 48%</li>
<li>Since May 2020, lead costs have dropped to their lowest recorded value since advertising began in 2015 — a decrease in cost of over 50% compared to the all-time account average</li>
<li>Since the new website launched, website traffic increased by approximately 50%. Unique pageviews increased by 36%, and bounce rates dropped by 5%</li>
</ul>

Finding Efficiency in a Competitive Market

Advertising

Solving for Success

Chemical Supplier - Web Development & Search Ads

When we first engaged with ClearSolv in 2019, they were a startup solvent distributor with an unfinished SquareSpace website and no means to collect online leads. ClearSolv had their sights set on attracting clients in the cosmetics, cannabis, and botanical extraction industries. They needed a marketing partner who understood their needs and could communicate their message to customers effectively.

Our engagement with ClearSolv led us to understand several key challenges impacting their marketing success:
<ul>
<li>ClearSolv&#8217;s client base was limited and they had no online marketing funnel to generate leads</li>
<li>Their brand was incomplete. They required a new logo and a variety of branded materials including business cards and trade show materials</li>
<li>Their sales team needed a lead generation website with targeted content that spoke to purchasing departments at extraction, cosmetics, and manufacturing businesses</li>
<li>ClearSolv needed a strategy to generate website leads at a reasonable cost per acquisition</li>
</ul>

Our first steps were to research the solvent and chemical supply industry, identifying competitors and learning industry terminology. We then applied our research to the branding process, producing a brand identity that spoke to their audience. Once the brand was completed and approved, we developed a responsive WordPress website, writing content for each page intended to drive conversions. After the website was complete, a Google search advertising campaign was strategized and launched to drive traffic to the website.

While many businesses struggled through the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, ClearSolv thrived. Taking advantage of increased demand for solvents such as isopropyl and denatured ethyl alcohol, we proactively scaled up our advertising, focusing our campaigns on medical manufacturers and hand sanitizer production. Since March 15 2020, the advertising campaign has generated an average of 6.5 leads per day from businesses across Canada and the US. Leads from ads comprise over 80% of all recorded leads in 2020.
<ul>
<li>Scaling the advertising campaign aggressively and early allowed ClearSolv to dominate paid search results through the height of the COVID-19 crisis, resulting in explosive growth</li>
<li>The updated website generated nearly 700 combined phone calls and form submissions from January to May 31 2020, at an average cost per lead below $20 CAD</li>
</ul>

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