But are you sure local is the best option for your business? Choosing an agency to help your brand succeed simply based on the location really limits you working with the best talent to make results happen. We leverage research and software to help companies dominate in local markets or national campaigns. Instead, pick an agency that knows your industry and has a proven track record.
If you were looking for the most dedicated, passionate, and personalized ‘digital marketing agency near me’, Idea delivers!
Our website marketing and web development specialists hold multiple certifications and are constantly learning about new trends in marketing, ensuring that your brand has every competitive advantage in the marketplace. We not only help your website excel at lead generation, but we also strive to teach you about website best practices to set you up for long-term success and business growth.
Imagine having an in-house marketing team with a personalized touch and without all the overhead costs. That’s exactly what you’ll get with our boutique digital marketing agency!
Our website marketing services return on investment
Growth in overall traffic and brand recognition
Greater lead generation through content optimization, lead magnets, and ads
A better conversion rate of leads to customers
A more positive visitor experience and interaction with your brand
Website performance is on par with SEO best practices
Focused targeting of the top leads with retargeting services and IP address tracking
Established trust and authority
Standing out from the competition
Greater revenue outcomes
Whether you’re looking for brand awareness or qualified website traffic, our process delivers every time
We start every marketing project with an extensive planning process:
Discovery
We take the time to understand your goals before making a tailored recommendation that combines short-term wins with long-term success.
Research
We know how to target your ideal customers, find the perfect keywords and create a plan that maximizes your budget across all channels.
Set-up & Optimization
Digital marketing programs have to evolve with your business, your customers, and the channels you choose.
Analysis & Improvement
Human analysis, testing, and ongoing improvements are the only way to be sure your marketing campaigns are successful over time.
Low Cost Google Ads Audit
Let our team do a deep dive to show you what is working, what is not, and what can be done to get you better results.
NAI Group is an international manufacturer of custom wiring harnesses and assemblies for the medical technology, industrial technology, and telecom industries. NAI produces more than 2.5 million assemblies annually and employs over 3,200 personnel with locations around the globe.
Decreasing Lead Form Submissions and Low Search Results Ranking
As with many manufacturing companies, inbound leads are incredibly important. Low lead form submissions can severely hurt business performance. Unfortunately, the team at NAI Group was experiencing fewer and fewer lead submissions each quarter. They also noticed stagnating website traffic and low search results ranking for a number of their keywords or phrases. NAI Group knew they needed the manufacturer marketing services of an industry expert.
The NAI team was looking for a top manufacturing web design and digital marketing agency to invigorate its marketing strategy and website presence. When Idea began reviewing the NAI website it was driving virtually no online leads. NAI needed new forms and website content that would leverage their product quality, experience, and capabilities to generate higher lead conversion.
The Importance of SEO and Content Marketing in a Marketing Plan for Manufacturing
We also discussed the importance of SEO and content marketing strategies for manufacturing brands. SEO content can help your brand start ranking higher on the search engine results for your most valuable keywords. The lack of SEO optimization and monthly SEO content meant that NAI Group was missing out on a valuable opportunity to drive traffic to its website.
Our team of digital marketing strategy experts would need to develop a comprehensive marketing plan for the manufacturing leader, NAI Group.
Solution
Creating Better Website Pages and Improving Form Layouts to Increase Leads
First, our team needed to make sure that each of the website’s pages was relevant and provided valuable content to NAI’s target audience. We evaluated each page’s performance to better understand the user behavior and what drove action.
Our team edited and updated the forms to reduce friction, which would increase the number of form submissions. After major form updates, the website saw 507 new form submissions over a two-year period (between 2018 and 2019).
We would use an integrated web strategy to increase form submissions and improve SEO rankings.
SEO
Providing SEO Strategy As Part of the Marketing Plan for Manufacturing Leader
We began with analyzing their current manufacturing marketing strategy and evaluating individual page SEO performance. Our top marketing professionals researched the keywords to maximize SEO in their industry and improve search engine results ranking. Using these terms we inserted them across the website content and other key focus areas that search engines evaluate, like Headings and metatags.
Our next step for their manufacturing marketing strategy was to create original, engaging SEO content. Targeting specific industry trends and product highlights our team created original monthly SEO content that drew thousands of users to the NAI website. After implementing our SEO strategy the website earned first-page Google ranking authority for 26 keywords where none previously achieved that level.
Aside from attracting additional traffic, blog content allowed our client to educate their audience and showcase their unique products, capabilities, and quality. This new content can also be pushed or featured on additional platforms to engage with even more users and increase website referrals.
By covering these key areas of SEO we were able to build a better marketing plan for the manufacturing leader, NAI Group.
Driving Engagement with a Manufacturing SEO Strategy
Implementing the manufacturing SEO strategy NAI began to see a marked improvement in engagement and audience reach. In the following year, their top-performing blog drove 53,451 users to the website. The NAI website also saw the following increases (171%); new users (152%); website sessions (95%); and website pages viewed (42%) following our updates.
NAI Group was ecstatic with the results of the manufacturing SEO strategy we’d implemented and requested that we also include the additional website development project to generate maximum impact.
Website Support
Ongoing Website Improvements with Manufacturing Website Support
Our web development team analyzed the site and cleaned up the website process and functions to improve page speed and operations. The removal of outdated or simplification of overly complicated processes improves the website speeds, which improves ranking and user experience. We ensured the NAI Group website would rank high in the areas of search engine evaluation to improve overall ranking and give them an edge over competitors.
While working on our client’s website our team worked to simplify the process of making changes or edits to the website which put our client more firmly in control of their site.
When NAI Group needs additional website maintenance support or troubleshooting they always have direct access to our top customer support manager Haley Langer. If you don’t believe us just read her Google Reviews. Haley is happy to answer any questions or concerns that arise with website support. When she’s not addressing our client’s needs she works diligently to review the site, offer suggestions and create training resources to help our clients.
Burrow’s Custom Web Design + SEO Marketing
A Regional Leader in Pole Barn Materials and Supplies
Burrow’s had its beginnings as an entrepreneurial post-frame builder in 1984. The Burrow’s team has firsthand knowledge and fully understands the need for accurate and reliable building material supply.
A Lack of Custom Web Design and Integrated Web Strategy
As a leader in pole barn supplies and materials, Burrow’s needed a website reflecting that. A quality building supplier that needed a quality website. However, when they approached our Chicago web design team that was far from the case!
The previous Burrow’s website was outdated and was not built to drive engagement as well as it could. Slow load speeds and poor user navigation were leading to high bounce rates and diminishing conversion. The UI/UX did not help build trust within their target audience since it lacked best practices. Their SEO strategy was also severely lacking and would need major improvements if the brand wanted to rank for their important keywords.
Overall the website needed a complete redesign that would give the brand a modern look and feel, improve user flows, drive lead submissions, and improve the page load speeds.
In addition, the website would need a completed SEO strategy as part of the integrated web strategy. Building the SEO would be an intensive process since the previous website did not have any focus on SEO.
Solution
An Improved Building Materials Website from the Leading Chicago Web Design Team
Our team began by proposing a custom WordPress website featuring a custom web design that would speak directly to their target audience and solve any user experience issues. The new website would also make management of their website easier. With the new website, Burrow’s management team could easily make additions or changes as needed, without fear of breaking the website or hurting page load speeds.
With the simplification of the website backend, our team also updated plugins and removed any broken or outdated functionality. This helped improve website page load speeds and functionality, meaning users wouldn’t have any issues using the website. Both of these are significant factors in website bounce rates.
Our team also created a more modern, simplified UI/UX design that improved the user experience. Now users would be able to easily find information on the new website. Site content was organized in the menu headers and clear CTAs encouraged users to convert to leads.
The new user journey would help drive more conversion and reduce the number of users who left the website in frustration.
SEO
Building an Integrated Web Strategy With SEO
After our team of custom web design experts had finished building the custom WordPress website we focused on the client’s SEO. First, our team of SEO experts researched the keywords and phrases that would be most relevant to their industry. We then identified keyword opportunities using our advanced SEO software. These keywords were valuable SEO opportunities.
With these keywords, we began using them across the website content. The inclusion of keywords in the content would be recognized by search engines and signal that it was valuable content. The ranking of these phrases would improve over time. Across the website’s core pages, we focused on specific keywords and phrases to make sure that the website was able to rank for numerous keywords.
From a technical perspective, our SEO experts made sure that the keywords were being used correctly in the website backend. The technical parts of SEO include meta titles and descriptions, alt tags, and permalinks. With the technical SEO done correctly, the website would see improvement in its ranking.
Monthly SEO Content Marketing to Further Improve Website Ranking
To build on the SEO improvements we made across the website we also suggested a monthly SEO and content marketing strategy. Our content marketing strategy includes SEO-focused content written by our digital marketing experts to build specific keyword rankings.
Our SEO and content marketing plan included specific location pages to reach target areas and SEO blog content. These would help drive more local and target traffic to the new website.
Our use of the new location pages would generate more local user traffic for Burrows. The local search engine users would be more likely to find the targeted location pages and click. Once the user arrives on the website our content helps build trust and CTAs encourage further action. Often, SEO content is the entry point for users to your website.
SEO blog content was also a critical part of Burrow’s SEO strategy. SEO-focused blogs are used to build content around a limited number of specific keywords and phrases. Numerous content pieces on the subject help build the authority of the website on the subject, and the use of an internal linking strategy can drive more traffic across the site. As we repeat the use of these phrases in related content the content pieces would start to rank higher in search results.
Our SEO blog content targeted phrases like “Post-frame kits”, or “Plyco Doors” to capture related search traffic that would be valuable to Burrows. Aside from generating more traffic and higher search engine ranking, they can also build trust among Burrow’s target audience. With the website SEO strategy and content marketing, we created an integrated web strategy that would build the website’s authority and capture more search traffic.
Email Marketing
Growing a Larger Audience With Monthly Email Campaigns
In addition to our monthly SEO and content marketing plan, our team also provided our client with a monthly email marketing retainer.
As part of this retainer, our team cultivated and grew a monthly subscriber list from the form submissions on the website. With this list of interested subscribers, our team would then send out a monthly email that focused on a unique service or product from Burrow’s to help drive engagement and leverage conversion. By keeping in constant contact with their target audience we created a nurture campaign that would squeeze out more conversions from previously interested users.
We continue to grow the audience and test email variations to discover the most engaging content for our email marketing campaigns.
Analytics Analysis
Providing Website Analytics Analysis for Our Client
Each month our team of digital marketing experts shares an in-depth report on the Asbestos Project Management’s website performance. In this report, we share valuable insights that help APM better understand their business pulse.
These insights can help APM identify new business opportunities or potential threats that could affect performance. Our marketing team breaks this information down into easily understandable takeaways that our client can use to determine action.
PPC Ads Management and Custom Web Design for Jeron
An Industry Leader in Nursecall Systems
Jeron Electronic Systems has been designing and manufacturing communication systems for both healthcare and commercial building applications for over 50 years. Jeron is a family-run business that now provides nursecall communication systems worldwide.
A Manufacturing Marketing Strategy needing improved Ad Management
Jeron has worked with Idea for multiple projects, ranging from PPC ad management across various platforms to a recent manufacturing web design project.
Prior to working with our leading PPC ads agency, Jeron was not seeing the results they wanted for their ad campaigns. The nurse call manufacturer relied on these ads to generate inbound leads and keep the top of their sales funnel full of new prospects. Without effective PPC ad management, their campaigns were not delivering enough leads. The company needed a drastic change in its manufacturing marketing strategy. They needed campaigns that would reach their target audience, and drive awareness and conversions.
Outdated Manufacturing Web Design Wasn’t Supporting the Sales Funnel
In addition to a few leads making it to the website from their advertising campaigns, the website was also not optimized to capture those leads! Manufacturing web design is a critical factor in the number of leads (or conversions) that your business receives.
Outdated or broken website functionality would cause Jeron’s users to bounce before taking the desired action. Poor load speeds were also playing a role in their bounce rates. As a result, their lead forms were not seeing much traffic.
Other factors affecting the website included poor navigation, UI/UX design, and needed to meet SEO for manufacturers’ best practices. To address the array of issues facing the client, a brand new industrial web design would be needed that included an integrated web strategy.
Solution
Integrated Web Strategy to Drive More Leads
To address the issue of diminishing leads and reduced website traffic our team proposed a custom web design solution. The new website would improve the ease of website management, fix website navigation issues, increase lead submissions, and improve their overall SEO.
We would also handle the PPC ad management for LinkedIn and Google Ads. The campaigns would be created and managed by our PPC ad experts with ongoing optimization to improve results through our combined integrated web strategy.
Custom Web Design
A New Manufacturing Web Design For a Nurse Call Manufacturer
First, we provided a new manufacturing web design proposal that would address the numerous issues affecting the Jeron website. Our team worked to remove outdated code and functionality that was affecting the website’s performance. These edits improved the page load speeds for the website. It also allowed Jeron to have better management of their website, which means future edits and additions would be a simple task.
We also worked to update the UI/UX of the website, making the user journey more simple and direct. We organized the website in a manner that was cohesive and logical, allowing users to easily find the information they needed. Updated images and colors throughout the style built a better sense of branding.
The use of CTAs in strategic locations would capture user attention and drive more conversions than the previous website. Our team also worked to simplify the lead forms to provide as little friction as possible. With an updated website backend, the Jeron team would be able to quickly locate and download the new leads that came in. Simplifying the form submission process is a key factor in manufacturing marketing strategy.
During the web design process, our team of manufacturing marketing experts also worked to improve the SEO of the Jeron website.
We worked to improve the technical SEO and non-technical SEO across the website pages. These changes would help improve the keyword focus of each website page, which would improve ranking over time.
Improved SEO implementation would help the Jeron website reach a larger target audience and capture more of this valuable search traffic.
Our team of Chicago manufacturing web design experts delivered a brand new Jeron website that addressed the old issues and would serve as a sales asset for many years.
Google Ads
Leveraging Expert Google PPC Ad Management for Lead Generation and Brand Awareness
Along with the new manufacturing web design project, our PPC ad management team would also launch campaigns on two platforms to drive traffic to the new website. Based on the company’s target audience and budget we recommend our client use Google Ads and LinkedIn ads as part of their new manufacturing marketing strategy.
First, our PPC ad management team worked on setting up a Google Ads search campaign that would capture valuable search traffic. Jeron had run Google Ads in the past but wasn’t seeing the right results, Clicks, and CTR rates were too low.
Our team took a deep dive into the account and addressed the factors that were preventing the campaign from reaching its maximum performance. We refined keywords, and created brand-new ads and ad copy, along with a custom build landing page to capture leads.
This optimization improved the ad quality score and ensured that the ads were reaching the right audience. Within months under our PPC ad management, the campaign CTR was reaching the range of 3-5% and driving more clicks than previous campaigns.
LinkedIn Ads
Leveraging Linkedin PPC Ads as Part of the Manufacturing Marketing Strategy
While our PPC ad management experts worked on optimizing the Google Ads campaign, we also worked to set up a Linkedin campaign. Our team worked to create various ad creatives and determine ad copy that would drive action by analyzing past campaign data.
Our team took advantage of the improved targeting attributes on Linkedin to target the ideal audience for Jeron. This meant each penny of the campaign was better spent since it was reaching the ideal target audience.
During the first few months of the Linkeidn ads campaign our PPC ad management team performed A/B testing to find the highest-performing ads in the campaign. We removed low-performing variation so the budget would be allocated to the ads that were driving the most engagement. Ongoing refinement is a key factor in the success of PPC ad campaigns.
With our PPC ads strategy, we were able to run a Linkedin campaign that delivered results, and our client choose to renew the contract and maintain the campaign for the future.
Certified for SEO + Advertising
We’re The Website Marketing Experts Your Business Needs
Our expert marketing team holds multiple certifications, and is constantly learning to make sure your brand has every competitive edge. That dedication leads to greater brand awareness, additional lead generation, and ultimately, more revenue for your business.
SEO and Content Marketing
Our marketing plans are focused on SEO and content marketing and include email campaigns, website speed improvements, blog content analysis and planning, and ongoing search engine optimization.
Google Ads Services
Get your buyers’ attention when they’re searching for your products or services with Google Ads. With Google capturing over 90% of search engine traffic, be where most of your audience is looking and capture your potential customers by appearing on Google’s first page results quickly.
Website Lead Tracking
Reveal website visitors using a reverse IP lookup to see names of companies that are visiting your website, but fail to submit any forms. With website retargeting software and strategy, we can help you understand who is visiting your website and target those leads that seem the most promising.
Email Marketing Service
Email marketing provides the most direct line of communication for conversion to sales. Plus, it is the most effective and cost-efficient method to target prospects in terms of long-term relationship-building. Email campaigns are designed to build trust and authority, and figuring out how to deliver content that speaks to your audience is equally art and science.
Website Support + Improvement
Websites, browsers, and user behavior is always changing. We provide plans to support website needs with routine maintenance as well as continuously improving websites to beat and stay ahead of the competition.
Digital marketing agency
If you’ve been searching for a ‘digital marketing agency near me’ to find the best local marketing agency in Illinois, we are confident we can meet your needs.
We appreciated the easy access we had to the owner as well as their knowledgeable and professional team.
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Weldstar - Chicago Welding Supplier
I was skeptical after our other digital agency failed us over and over, but Idea has proven to be an exceptional partner for us.
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K. Gourlie, Carmex - Top Lip Balm Brand
Our Chicago restaurant group needed a complete website overhaul to match the new direction of our company.
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Phil Stefani Signature Restaurants - Chicago Restaurant Group
They took complicated content and created an attractive solution that looks professional and functions very well for our audiences.
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American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology - Chicago Healthcare Organization
Free Marketing ROI Assessment
If you’re struggling to generate digital marketing ROI, our quick survey will show where you can make impactful changes. Understanding why your marketing isn’t working is the first step to fixing it.
We work hard to be the digital marketing agency you actually enjoy working with. You can speak directly with any team member and can tell immediately they have your best interest in mind. No bullsh*t or technical jargon. Our agency was founded in 2009. Since then, we have grown to include talented team members in various parts of the United States. Our clients are located all over the nation and worldwide.
Kevin Thompson
Kevin Thompson
Senior Director of Client Services
David Griffin
David Griffin
SEO Specialist
Syed Naqvi
Syed Naqvi
Project Manager
Carl Widdowson
Carl Widdowson
CCO
Matt Stewart
Matt Stewart
Creative Director
Haley Langer
Haley Langer
Project Manager
Michael White
Michael White
CEO
Jessie Pyne
Jessie Pyne
UI/UX Designer
Marian Ladenburg
Marian Ladenburg
Inbound Marketing Strategist
David Vadala
David Vadala
Creative Director
Chase Gibson
Chase Gibson
Sales Operations Manager
Charlie Newman
Charlie Newman
Quality Assurance Engineer
Chevis Patterson
Chevis Patterson
Enterprise Architect
Travis Cooper
Travis Cooper
Senior Digital Media Strategist
Lia Carlin
Lia Carlin
Senior Director of Client Services
Erin Karper
Erin Karper
Senior UI/UX Designer
Hannah Linkenauger
Hannah Linkenauger
Social Media Specialist
Michael Clark
Michael Clark
CTO
Shreyans Jain
Shreyans Jain
Founder
Anderson Clark
Anderson Clark
Jr. Web Developer
Daisy Dee
Daisy Dee
Client Services Manager
Lauren Dillmann
Lauren Dillmann
Creative Designer
Natalie Dunlap
Natalie Dunlap
COO
FAQ About Website Marketing
How long does it take to be up and running with marketing services?
We plan 1 to 2 months for strategy development in order for us to take a deeper dive into your business as well as set up the campaign. This is where we dive into your brand, get to know your personality, see how you are positioned in the market, and identify KPI’s. We will perform keyword and competitor analysis to structure your marketing campaign for success.
Once the strategy is solidified and the plan of attack is mapped out, the deliverables are up and running by month 2 or 3 depending on the speed of feedback and approvals.
SEO for manufacturers is a long-term tactic and will take several months to build authority and relevance before results can be seen. SEO has a compounding effect and when creating evergreen content, the impact SEO has on a manufacturing business will carry on for many years.
How much to spend on marketing services?
Setting an annual marketing budget can be a challenge and there are many factors to take into consideration. A quick way to generate a rough figure is to base it on the annual revenue of the company. An average percentage for B2B ranges from 6% to 12% of gross revenue as recommended by eMarketer’s Marketing Spending, assuming the sales margins are in the range of 10% to 12%. If we use these rates, below are quick examples of recommended marketing budgets:
Gross Revenue $2,500,000 x 0.12 = $300,000/year or $25,000/month
Gross Revenue $5,000,000 x 0.10 = $500,000/year or $41,650/month
Gross Revenue $10,000,000 x 0.08 = $800,000/year or $66,665/month
Gross Revenue $25,000,000 x 0.06 = $1,500,000/year or $125,000/month
These are considered conservative numbers, as companies who are in aggressive growth stages will often spend up to 20% of their revenue on marketing as well as B2C, which is typically higher than B2B. Companies that are just starting out will need to set a higher percentage than those that are more established. Measuring the success of any marketing campaign is critical. Budgets should be spent wisely and spread out to cover various types of advertising.
How soon will we see results?
Typically, we recommend giving the campaign a runway of 3 months before expecting to notice tangible results. Paid campaigns will see results quickly within months 2 or 3, whereas content marketing and search engine marketing is a more long-term strategy taking several months or longer to build desirable results.
However, the content comes with a long lifespan as well, driving leads to your website for years to come. We highly recommend utilizing both organic SEO and paid advertising in your marketing strategy.
What is recommended for marketing budget allocation?
Gartner CMO Spend Survey released an in-depth look at marketing budget allocation for 2021, below are the findings. It is important to be aware that marketing spending is impacted by the general nature of the business, competition, and consumer behavior.
Owned Media
20%
Website, Email, Mobile
Paid Digital
21%
Search Ads, Display Ads
Earned Digital
22%
SEO, Social Media
Offline Ads
10%
Publications, Direct Mail
Affiliates
9%
Partners, Distributors
Events
8%
Trade Shows
Another quick rule of thumb for marketing budget allocation is the 70-20-10 rule.
70% of your budget is allocated toward marketing strategies you know work well
20% of your budget is allocated toward new strategies aimed at helping you grow
10% of your budget is allocated toward experimental strategies
