case study: solarwinds
TRANSCRIPT
1 WELCOME TO THE TEAM
CASE STUDY: SOLARWINDSTransformative Inbound Marketing for a Category-Leading IT Provider
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Background
Program Performance
Product Marketing Pages
Blogs & Thought Leadership
Graphic Design
BACKGROUND
SolarWinds is a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT infrastructure management software. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, and generating over $1 billion in annual revenue, the company is widely considered to be the #1 provider of network management software worldwide. Put simply, SolarWinds gives companies in all industries and of all sizes the power to monitor and manage the performance of their IT environments.
Though SolarWinds has firmly established its market share in IT, the field remains fiercely competitive. To ensure that their name stays top-of-mind and ahead of the pack, SolarWinds has built out a comprehensive SEO program to rank first for key search terms in the industry. Although the company’s legacy vendor was able to generate the volume SolarWinds needed, they weren’t able to maintain the quality of the work. SolarWinds reached out to Thunderfoot to see if we could unify quality and quantity under one program.
Our relationship with SolarWinds is a testament to our ability to produce quality content at scale. We began our relationship with one division of the company, and have since published for a dozen SolarWinds domains on behalf of business units spread all around the world. Our typical monthly cadence ranges from 80-120 pieces of original content per month.
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Generate high-quality, SEO-driven content at scale.
Support content with thoughtful graphic concepts and exceptional execution.
Communicate highly technical concepts through clear, concise writing and audience-appropriate language.
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Thunderfoot’s engagement with SolarWinds has achieved three primary goals:
“Our internal writing team did a lot of work on content, but we weren’t getting the results we needed. I knew what impact great content grounded in SEO fundamentals could have, and I knew
from past experience what it was like to work with Thunderfoot’s talented content team, so of course I gave them a call. The difference in the volume of organic traffic to what we’re writing now
versus what we used to write is remarkable.”
Kyle SuttonSenior Marketing Director
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From day one of the relationship, SolarWinds has consistently ranked for more search terms and achieved more first-page rankings than ever before. Specifically, our work on landing pages, blogs, thought leadership articles, and more has contributed to rankings growth and improved domain authority across all eight brand publications.
PROGRAM PERFORMANCE
SolarWinds.com
Number of Keywords Ranked for, January 2019 - June 2020
SolarWinds MSP
Thwack
DNSStuff
AppOptics
Passportal MSP
Loggly
Papertrail*
DOMAIN NAME
5,578 18.61% 630 34.04% 69 64.29%
196,072 31.45% 19,511 20.15% 1,950 33.84%
45,164 26.17% 2,911 32.80% 145 8.21%
72,884 675.44% 11,752 700.54% 1,259 728.29%
4,077 40.01% 164 168.85% 6 500.00%
2,131
23,772
2,134
148.37%
36.56%
142.50%
122
2,848
225
148.98%
65.00%
192.20%
17
179
16
112.50%
79.00%
191.67%
ALL % CHANGE PAGE 1 % CHANGE #1 POSITION % CHANGE
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PRODUCT MARKETING PAGES
One large component of our engagement with SolarWinds is the development of search-driven landing pages, which capitalize on the company’s desired search terms and rely on large amounts of copy to target equally large keyword portfolios. We’ve worked together to establish an effective creative brief for each landing page, which the Thunderfoot team can then expand on to deliver highly specific and accurate copy. Each page is fully optimized for optimal SEO performance, and succinctly describes the value propositions of SolarWinds’ products for a technical audience.
Due to the success of this landing page project and a daily blogging program we manage for their Managed Service Provider suite of products, we have since expanded our relationship to multiple other divisions of the company. In turn, the Thunderfoot team’s value to the SolarWinds brand is increasingly embedded in the cumulative knowledge we’ve built across business areas, as well as our flexibility to accommodate changing priorities.
“Thunderfoot works across a number of SolarWinds’ business divisions, and success in one area has impacted the rest. Based on the results we saw for SEO-oriented product pages in
different divisions, I’ve started working with Thunderfoot for my product page projects as well. The team has also been really flexible to add or swap in services based on our needs.”
Kyle SuttonSenior Marketing Director
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Product Marketing Landing Pages
Product Marketing Pages
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BLOGS & THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
In addition to product-specific landing pages, Thunderfoot produces SEO-oriented blog and thought leadership content at scale across as many as three SolarWinds divisions at any given time. Our content team works with their internal stakeholders to identify topics, conduct research and interviews, and ultimately draft articles.
SolarWinds’ content is highly technical, but must speak to a broader audience of non-technical stakeholders across a number of domains. Content length has also varied widely from 800-word thought leadership pieces to product comparison articles ranging between 3,000 and 5,000 words. In all cases, Thunderfoot has been able to produce content quickly and to SolarWinds’ desired specifications for SEO. When changes need to be made, we’re also able to revise pieces quickly and with minimal additional feedback.
“I evaluate the quality of a relationship not by when it goes well, but by what happens when there are speed bumps. When a piece needs to be tweaked or the tone doesn’t quite match, Thunderfoot can quickly run the tape back, assess what needs to change, and move forward.
I’m always impressed by their response.”
Kyle SuttonSenior Marketing Director
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Thought Leadership Article
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GRAPHIC DESIGN
Because much of SolarWinds’ content requires the explanation of highly technical concepts to be effective, we’ve created custom, bite-sized graphics to accompany all of our blog content. In our explainer visuals, we use a simplified set of shapes to convey concepts effectively, emphasizing legibility above all else.
Our social media graphics fit into SolarWinds’ existing branding and add a more colorful facet to the company’s visual assets. The technology concepts we represent are even more simplified, and the imagery often combines photography and illustrated elements.
Social Media Graphics
Social Media Graphics
Deck
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Thunderfoot is a digital marketing and creative agency built by an integrated and international team of content creators, strategists, designers, and developers. We help organizations reimagine and deliver their most ambitious digital projects and initiatives.
Acting as an extension of your team, we craft exceptional online experiences, content, and marketing strategies for brands around the world. We take our clients’ challenges personally and do the hard, human work required to produce creative solutions that get results.
ABOUT
www.teamthunderfoot.com | [email protected]