IMEC Leverages Third Party Resource to Help Carbondale Manufacturer Grow Online Sales

CARBONDALE, Ill., May 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- With over 5000 sku's for replacement parts for Chinese built powersports products, VMC Chinese parts needed to beef up their SEO program to get more prospects to their online catalog. Bryan Black serves as the Managing Partner at VMC, and he was tasked with executing the company's marketing strategy, including basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO). He needed to free up his time to focus on other initiatives to ensure that VMC emerged from the 2020 disruption in a stronger position than they were before.  

Solution

IMEC regularly hosts events that offer guidance, best practices, and resources to help Illinois manufacturers address current challenges. Aware of the need to improve their marketing strategy, it was a no brainer to take up IMEC on the invitation to attend the timely and appropriately titled "Sustained Sales Growth - Do More with Less in an Online World" event. Strat Marketing Group (StratMG), the IMEC Third Party Resource who presented the information, left a strong impression on Black. They spoke the language Black needed to hear and he saw an opportunity to strengthen VMC's SEO program and delegate that task to a reputable team. "We all understood what we were doing when it came to SEO, but we needed someone who can do it better," said Black.  He consulted with the IMEC business growth expert, who facilitated the relationship with VMC and StratMG, which marked the start of what would become an ongoing partnership.

The experts at StratMG were able to formulate a plan that leveraged SEO techniques to drive qualified leads to VMC's website, coupled with Conversion Rate Optimization best practices to monetize the qualified traffic on the company website. The results have been phenomenal, including a 44% increase in sales without using external retail platforms like Amazon and Ebay. Black and his team wanted a long-term SEO strategy that would bring residual results – continuous qualified web traffic over time – so they can have consistent growth in online sales. After seeing successful results during one year of a streamlined SEO strategy, VMC decided to ditch the external retail platforms they were previously using and retain StratMG and IMEC. Going forward, VMC will continue leveraging IMEC and StratMG to increase online sales.

Results

• 44% increase in sales without retail platforms like Amazon and Ebay
• 1300% increase in cart conversion rate
• 172% increase in year-over-year increase to the VMC "Contact Us" page
• 175% increase in year over year revenue growth
• 211% increase in top 10 keywords
• 139% increase in year-over-year organic traffic growth
• 122% year-over-year increase in page views

About IMEC
IMEC is a team of improvement specialists who are dedicated to changing lives and creating a positive impact on Illinois' workforce and economy. With a mission to drive growth through enterprise excellence, they help organizations become more effective and efficient by identifying issues, developing and implementing solutions, and providing the necessary support that will allow them to excel in areas of leadership, strategy, customer engagement, operations, workforce, and measurement and results. In 2020, they assisted over 1,144 companies and help create or retain over 6100 jobs, resulting in over $645M aggregate impact on the Illinois economy.  IMEC has seven offices statewide and 48 full-time industry improvement specialists. For more information, visit www.imec.org.

SOURCE IMEC