About Schmitz Cargobull
Schmitz Cargobull AG (SCB) is the European market leader for semi-trailers, trailers and truck bodies for heavy commercial vehicles. It also offers TrailerConnect® telematics services, which ensure a continuous stream of information about the vehicle and load for the transport company and the customer. SCB applies high quality standards for every step in the process: from research and development to production and service provision. Its turnover in 2019 was 2.29 billion euros and it employs around 6,500 people. SCB is known in the market as a digital pioneer, but its corporate website no longer lived up to that image.
Challenge: from corporate website to a B2B lead generation portal
SCB was ready internally for the next step in digital marketing and commerce, with the aim of optimizing lead generation and the online order process. To this end, the company was keen to overhaul its corporate website. The wish list included more insight into relevant visitor and customer data and a new marketing automation tool. SCB’s image as a digital pioneer in the market also suggested the need for a new design and updated content with a high frequency/shortened time to market.
SCB was therefore looking for a centralized CMS solution to support its marketing and communication department in managing global and localized content. It had to ensure that internal employees could produce and adapt global and national content in a structured, rapid and easy way. This would ensure a consistent brand identity across all 40 countries, a faster time-to-market for content and a lower operational spend. In addition, the new digital platform needed to feature marketing automation tools. In combination with relevant customer and behavioral data, this would make it possible to set up effective lead generation campaigns.
For this assignment SCB was looking for an agency that combined strategy, data, marketing and technology. It eventually opted for Macaw because of its excellent price/quality ratio and its experience with internationally operating companies and thus with multi-country/multilingual websites.
Approach: new website for consistent brand identity and lead generation in 40 countries
Together with Macaw, SCB first developed a new strategic direction in order to reclaim the position it wanted as a pioneer in the digital domain. The company wanted to become a thought leader, and by producing relevant content it planned to show customers and competitors who it is: a true pioneer in digitization!
SCB’s desired new brand claim and direction required a new website. During an extensive exploration phase, it worked with Macaw’s creative team to identify a design direction that reflected its brand, ambition and capabilities. A digital strategy and customer experience concept was developed to meet the set business objectives:
- to increase conversion;
- to increase brand awareness;
- to build up a new market position.
Macaw developed an attractive and customer-oriented UX design for the corporate website that clearly reflected the innovative character of the SCB brand. The design was based on multiple customer journeys and profiles to ensure that all user needs were taken into account in the new website.
The Sitecore Experience Platform was implemented as the basis for content management, marketing automation and all future digital activities. This centralized solution supports SCB in managing global and national content in a structured, fast and easy way. The user experience was optimized by providing target-group-specific information, overhauling all content, and fine-tuning text for SEO purposes. A new image bank was set up and navigation on the site was simplified.
Result: a strategic marketing tool for lead follow-up
The new website based on the Sitecore Experience Platform ensures a consistent SCB brand image across all 40 countries, a faster time-to-market and reduced operational expenses. The SCB website also offers new business opportunities: news is published directly in all countries and the website serves as a strategic marketing tool. For example, SCB can use the built-in marketing automation tool to send automated and personalized emails to different target groups, increasing flexibility and reducing overheads. The introduction of profiles and associated tracking means that the site is more responsive to visitors’ needs and can help customers more effectively. Macaw organized a number of workshops to ensure that all employees could also provide this service. The new platform and new website have saved SCB over €100,000 per year, and the number of visitors has also more than doubled.
Implementing Sitecore has given SCB the ability to target website visitors, so that it can send them forward-looking mailings and newsletters. Sitecore also means that SCB can build its long-planned ‘My Cargobull World’, in which customers will have a single point of access to all available SCB services. The new platform will thus connect customers and prospects with the right contacts within the SCB organization. With the new platform, Schmitz Cargobull has a strategic marketing tool for lead follow-up at its disposal.
What was Schmitz Cargobull’s experience of the project?
Michael Schoeller, Head of IT Infrastructure & Services at Schmitz: ‘The excellent cooperation between Macaw and the design team was very important. Macaw led us through the process of creating an internationally attractive design. The result is convincing and has gone down well with our customers everywhere. The experience platform also ensures country-specific translation of content, version management of local country pages and the implementation of the associated role and rights concept in over 40 countries. We can also follow up on leads better using marketing automation. The intention is to link Sitecore to CRM and business intelligence (BI) in the future in order to perform the best possible analysis of our customers.’
Would you like to know more about how Macaw can help your business grow?
Would you like to know how, like Schmitz Cargobull, you can create a consistent brand image and significantly reduce the operating costs for content management with the help of digital solutions? If so, get in touch with one of our experts.
