Case Study

Charlotte Pipe Testimonial
November 2006

Services provided by Steve Chickillo, NETworks Marketing Group Inc.

Who is Charlotte Pipe:

Charlotte Pipe and Foundry Company has produced cast iron pipe and fittings since 1901 and plastic pipe and fittings since 1967 for residential, commercial, and industrial plumbing applications. Located in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Company maintains manufacturing facilities in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida, Alabama, and Utah. Charlotte Pipe markets to wholesale plumbing, industrial, retail, and international markets.

When Steve Chickillo approached us:

In 2004, Charlotte Pipe partnered with Steve Chickillo, President of SC Associates, now NETworks Marketing Group. Steve was previously the Territory Manager of ThomasNet in North Carolina. We asked him to enhance our CharlottePipe.com website as a tool for customers to do business and as a place where potential customers could learn about our products.

Steve made recommendations for improving the information architecture of CharlottePipe.com and driving greater traffic to the site. He also advised on adding more advanced functionality.

The Recommendations:

"In consulting with Steve Chickillo, we agreed to focus on three primary areas of CharlottePipe.com. Supported by the Drive, Convert, and Measure strategy, we set out to drive quality traffic to our site by our listings with ThomasNet's online industrial directory and by the search engine optimization (SEO) of CharlottePipe.com. Steve identified the keywords and phrases customers use to find Charlotte Pipe products. He also pinpointed key buying influences within each of the major markets served by Charlotte Pipe," said Charlotte Pipe Communications Manager Robin Ives.

Charlotte Pipe's program with ThomasNet.com has been successful. It increased page rank and visibility on ThomasNet's directory, which provides backward links to CharlottePipe.com. The ThomasNet program allows Charlotte Pipe products to be found and encourages positive actions leading to purchases.

Changes to the information architecture of CharlottePipe.com, primarily in the navigation, have positively affected conversion actions, specifically with increased information downloads and website visitors. The site offers dimensional catalogs and AutoCAD drawings, thereby making important information such as specifications, sizes, and price sheets readily available to customers.

Goals and expectations from recommendations:

Steve helped Charlotte Pipe establish objectives and measure results pertaining to the performance of CharlottePipe.com. In particular, three goals were set:

1) Increase quality traffic by 100% to 250%

2) Increase conversion rates by 50% to 100%

3) Work on reducing up to 20% of its simple information needs and requests

These objectives were achieved by improving navigation, providing more information online, and making it easier to learn about products online.

In addition to driving quality traffic to a website, it's important to guide users to the information they need to make buying decisions. With proper tracking tools in place, Charlotte Pipe is able to track visitor traffic, number of downloads, etc. These measurement tools allow the Company to determine how visitors are navigating the site. This, in turn, allows their customers to make informed decisions about the products they need.

CharlottePipe.com has become a one-stop shop for meeting many needs and answering many questions. With the click of a mouse, viewers have access to complete product specifications, MSDS sheets, and an on-the-fly parametric configurator of CAD output. Using a password, distributors and reps can check orders, track shipments, calculate truck weight, and access invoices. CharlottePipe.com visitors can access product installation instructions. They can also see product warranties, have their questions answered via a Contact Us e-mail form, and place orders online.

Goal reviewing:

"I meet with Steve on a regular basis to evaluate the progress of our Internet marketing strategies. Charlotte Pipe gives high priority to reviewing and integrating new technologies that will enable us to remain an industry leader, serving our customers, distributors, reps, and employees," said Robin Ives.

Results of execution:

What were the results? Here are the numbers:

One metric to measure website success is Total Visits to Site:

Oct 2004:      6,000+ visitors 

Oct 2005:      18,000+ visitors                 400% increase over two years!

Oct 2006:      24,000+ visitors 

Another metric of success is Total Pages Viewed:

Oct 2004:      24,000+ pages viewed 

Oct 2005:      209,000+ pages viewed        1,058.3% increase over two years!

Oct 2006:      254,000+ pages viewed  

Charlotte Pipe and Foundry has seen a 46 percent increase of CAD-drawing downloads. Since May 2004, 42,000-plus CAD files have been downloaded from CharlottePipe.com's CAD program, which is powered by ThomasNet (Charlotte Pipe is currently updating their CAD links and the CAD interface to provide a more intuitive flow). Clearly, the implementation of the Drive, Convert, and Measure strategy has been highly successful.

Future plans for consideration:

Even with the achievement of measurable success, Charlotte Pipe continues to work on improvements. The Company plans to maximize the effectiveness of CharlottePipe.com in the future through the continued use of ThomasNet's directory, search engines, and by considering new marketing avenues such as pay-per-click advertising and e-mail campaigns. The Company also hopes to steadily increase highly qualified traffic to CharlottePipe.com, potentially through the use of vanity URLs to get a better assessment of ROI per marketing effort. Charlotte Pipe will continue to refine CharlottePipe.com so it serves the Company's diverse user base with maximum performance.