Komatsu Forklift Website Audit and Strategic Recommendations

1. Komatsu Forklift Website Audit and Strategic Recommendations

2. Current State of Play

4. State of Play Currently, the Komatsu Forklift website is a resource for: • Specifications and details about the product range • Services profiles • Company profile It also publishes some changing lists of: • Job Opportunities • Used Forklifts

5. State of Play The home page provides • Global navigation • A promotional image for a product, • but not linked to more detail. • A promotional image for their sponsorship efforts, • with link • A news story, • with a link to box.net "lightbox" of images, without titles or explanations.

6. State of Play Voice • Currently the website is 'broadcasting' information, but not engaging the customer with the brand. Graphic User Interface • The user interface is static, in that unless the user follows a link, the site remains the same.

7. State of Play • Adrenalin need to look deeper into web statistics to make recommendations based upon current content. • Adrenalin needs to set benchmarks for traffic for comparisons.

8. Recommendations

9. Recommendations 1 Using the Content management system • We see several opportunities to make basic changes to the existing website to improve Return on Investment by generating more enquiry and building brand values. • The Website should be better leveraged to support sales promotion efforts. • There are opportunities to restructure the siteplan of the website, within the standard functionality of the Content Management System, to provide better usability, higher search profile and more flexibility.

10. Recommendations 2 More graphic collateral • We can help make the website more graphically interesting by providing additional graphic assets to integrate into the templates and pages in the form of graphic tiles and illustrations. • These could include more complicated Flash applets to tell stories or illustrate key features. • These could be easily integrated into the website as content, without redevelopment.

11. Recommendations 3 Orientation • Other than capturing the standard web server stats, the website is not "listening" to the users in its current incarnation, missing the valuable opportunity for feedback and usage metrics that provide valuable insight into customer, and potential customer needs. We propose to address this. • We suggest the website orient itself more towards solving problems the customer may encounter as they attempt to research and purchase a forklift, and to more vigoursly encourage them to buy a Komatsu Forklift.

12. Detailed Recommendations

13. Forklift Finder We recommend adding a "Forklift Finder.” A walk-through tool that gives potential customers an opportunity to make some choices based upon their circumstances: industry, lift requirements, power preference, special requirements, etc, which would then offer a shortlist of qualified products. Additionally, the tool captures customer use profiles for marketing, and product planning insight.

14. MORE PROMOTION! The marketing and sales promotion activity could be improved with little effort. • Currently one quarter of the home page real estate is dedicated to the promotion of the BX50, however the image does not link through to the product or any supporting information, as does the Team Vodafone banner.

15. MORE PROMOTION! Home Page Promotional Banner Rebuild • New Main Banner, a rotating number of images, each promoting a product or service, and each linked through to a landing page highlighting the product or service. • Some of these "features" could also include a sales promotion angle, such as a "Free Service Inspection for 3 or more forklifts" as you promote your service and maintenance. • By creating the rotating 'marketing' banners, you free up the second marketing banner below the product categories, allowing for more space to promote your 'services' and raise their profile.

16. MORE PROMOTION! User Interface Adjustment: • Art direction for the re-balancing of those graphic secondary navigations to the products (and now services) for better usability, and with more explanation. • This could include a complete revamp of the template as well as the content, as required. • Our team understands how to provide new graphic assets to the web developer that fit in with the current templates requirements without modifying the code if that is the best choice.

17. The News • Currently the news tile on the home page is not providing any marketing push, only supporting corporate and brand values. • News is always problematic in that once you add the feature, you have to guarantee the regular flow of new and interesting information. • The primary "News" link in the footer is misplaced with the privacy, terms and contact links in the footer. • We recommend renaming it an 'Announcements' and reorient it as a corporate catalogue of information, and separating other more engaging news items into the new promotion workflow. • A tile replacing the home page ‘News’ section could feature the 'Forklift Finder' functionality, or another hardworking item.

18. Secondary Page template • With the growth of monitor sizes in the past years, the two column format leads to excessively long line lengths, which has a negative impact on usability. • We would like to provide new art direction to to improve text presentation and include more contextual cross links to product and promotion where possible, in keeping with the home page redesign.

19. Product Catalogue & Copy • The 'three click' product catalogue functions well, drilling down to product records with illustration. We propose to add “Call-to-Action” that encourages the user to contact a salesman, or lodge an enquiry. • The page gives a lot of good information about the product, but doesn't have the promotional or marketing language that succinctly tells the user how this product can help them. • The interim 'sort' page that lists the products in the category could also include more positioning statements to inform the user about the different products, and again, draw them further into the engagement. We can solve these problems with web optimised copywriting, as opposed to significant redesign or restructuring.

20. Komatsu Services 1 • In our opinion, the services section is undersold. Each service should have its own illustrated page, as well as profile, benefits statement and call to action. • This will not only reinforce the marketing of these elements, but provide metrics to see which services are more trafficked, and the interest ratio amongst visitors in products versus services.

21. Komatsu Services 2 • Search profile examples (Google 25 Apr 10): • Under 'forklift, Australia', Komatsu comes up first page. • Under 'electric forklift repair Australia', Komatsu camesecond page. • Under 'forklift hire Australia', Komatsu was last entry on page 4 • Under 'used forklift sale Australia', Komatsu was page 10. • Better page distribution, copywriting and some additional optimisation should significantly improve those results. • Better pagination and presentation would also highlight benefits and importance of services to customers. It currently looks unimportant to Komatsu by virtue of comparison to product.

22. Database Building • The website can work harder developing leads and integrating them into CRM workflow. • The database can be contacted by Electronic Direct Marketing (eDM) and develop a second channel to converse with your market.

23. Deliverables

24. 1. Home Page Art Direction • New rotating promotional banners • New product and services direct navigation • Modified primary and footer navigation • Style Guide

25. 2. Secondary Page Art Direction • 3 column format • More promotional cross linking • Contextual secondary navigation • Improved typography • Style Guide

26. 3. New Site Plan • discrete pages for Services, • landing pages for promotional items • more opportunities to place enquiries.

27. 4. Forklift Finder • Functional specification for Forklift Finder application

28. 5. Rotating Promotional Banners • Functional specification for rotating promotional banners, and associated landing pages (technical approach to be determined upon further technical briefing on website functionality) • Graphic Assets • Copy and graphics for landing pages

29. 6. Copywriting • Web optimised copywriting for Services pages. • Product Profile extensions towards more persuasive brand orientation, benefit highlights and calls to action. • Promotional pages content.

30. 7. Analytics • Review server statistics and set benchmarks for traffic. • Additionally et-up Google analytics to track progress through the website, and usage patterns. • Provide guidelines for monitoring web server statistics to gain insight into user patterns of interest.

31. 8. Lead Capture • Develop opportunities to gather queries on the website, with additional metrics as possible. • Manage and develop database with prospects via eDM, Website, direct marketing and sales promotion.

32. The Pay Off

33. New Opportunity • Once the website is restructured to reinforce and support the efforts, Adrenalin can do what we do best, and leverage the website to support ongoing marketing and sales promotional efforts. • With the renovated design, we will be able to provide a 'set' of content items that can be inserted into the content management system to populate the promotional 'slots' available on the website: Concepts, copy and images. • Email Direct Marketing efforts can start as we develop our prospects database.

34. Different Levels of Activity • We can simply highlight and promote web features to reinforce benefits. • We can create content to generate registrations of interest to develop a database of leads. • We can run web oriented or integrated on and offline sales promotions. • We can drive traffic to the website, or topical landing pages through promotional efforts. • We can send out eDMs that drive users back to the website for information