Putting bizLocator back on the map

VLAIO is the Flemish Agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship whose mission is to support and stimulate business growth and initiatives around innovation in Flanders. In this context, they asked us to increase the visibility and searches of their website bizLocator, a search engine for entrepreneurs looking for commercial real estate. As a response to VLAIO’s brief, we set up a marketing media plan across online channels to promote bizLocator and call people to action.

Locating the locator

Developing a platform to help people find the perfect location and estate to make their business thrive is nothing short of honorable. Only hiccup? When the platform itself is not easily findable… So, we set out to put bizLocator back on the map by establishing a full funnel approach. Based on an existing explainer video and visual assets we created for the campaign, we implemented an always-on advertising strategy.

To avoid barking up the wrong tree, it is crucial to adjust the media mix and the allocated budget per channel along the way based on constant and close monitoring.

First objective of the funnel: creating awareness and driving traffic to the website. For that, we primarily ran Facebook Ads and Google Adwords and progressively added Youtube to the mix. In first instance, we focussed on three given Flemish provinces (West Flanders, East Flanders and Antwerp) between March and June while mostly targeting entrepreneurs and the retail sector. Then, we reached the provinces of Limburg and Flemish Brabant while adding the manufacturing industry to our target group.

Going out of our way

How could we gain more insights into user journeys on bizLocator? As an extra effort, we decided to implement Hotjar polls and heat maps on the website. The former allowing to directly ask visitors about possible bottlenecks, the latter measuring areas of interest, flow and drop-off points. But we didn’t leave it there. Next to those efforts on a marketing level, we also went the extra mile by performing small ad-hoc UX and SEO audits as we went. Ensuring to maximize the success of the campaign.

On the fast track for success

Overall, the results of the campaign were overwhelmingly positive. Both website visits and searches drastically increased compared to the year before. We also observed that the highest peaks in organic traffic occurred when we added YouTube ads to the equation. When it comes to searches, Google AdWords proved to be the most valuable and cost-effective source of visits (38% of the total searches were generated by Google AdWords alone). "For a website to be on the radar for good, it takes meticulous strategic work and constant questioning of the methods used during the process. That’s the only way it can pay off."

"For a website to be on the radar for good, it takes meticulous strategic work and constant questioning of the methods used during the process. That’s the only way it can pay off."