Strategic content management across several brands

Buying a new car? In that case, you have in all likelihood given some thought to how to finance your purchase. At Volkswagen Financial Services, they ponder on a daily basis over how car ownership can be made easier through various solutions that make the car more accessible to their customers.

The challenge

With the vision We are the key to mobility, Volkswagen Financial Services are faced with the considerable challenge of getting their message across on six different brand websites – each with their own unique aim, prioritised target group and different design and structure. Dealerships for the brands are Volkswagen Financial Services’ primary sales channel. Today, 45% of car buyers choose brand financing. Thus, there are two target groups; dealers, and their customers.

How can financial, legal information be made easier to understand for the reader? How can financial information be seamlessly integrated with the brand website? How can statistics and analysis be utilised to better understand site visitors and their needs? How can this knowledge be used to further improve the user experience?

The solution

The pilot study included statistical analysis, documentation of customer journeys and a proposal for a digital strategy that visualised the company’s vision and goals, giving the web editor and marketing department an effective and common overview of what is being done and how. This digital strategy was complete with the most important key indicators for follow up and analysis. These were later implemented in customised dashboards in Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics.

The goal of the first stage of work was to produce a universal template that would be possible to implement on several of the brand websites. The different brands have very different priorities with regard to target groups. A great deal of thought was given to finding the best solution for each brand.

A sitemap of the existing content was drawn up and redrawn as we studied the customers’ journeys. All content was freshened up and pieced together in a template for strategic content management for task-based design. Task-based design is built on the idea that every visitor to a website has an aim in mind and that the design of the website should make it easy for the visitor to achieve this aim, for example to access information prior to making a purchasing decision, or to find contact information. The template documents the purpose of each page, both from the company’s and visitor’s perspective.

With this new structure in place, Volkswagen Financial Services could begin to work more actively with marketing. Among other things, they have placed a number of adverts on Facebook that generated high-quality leads. “The task of producing adapted content for the channel was a vital part of the development. Advertising in its simplest form via the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Facebook page has generated very good leads for our dealers,” says Pontus Lamberg, Digital Marketing Manager at Volkswagen Financial Services (Sweden).

The result

The development of simple processes creates great added value in the form of streamlined work on the websites:
Key indicators, monitored on customised dashboards and used to optimise content, are well grounded in the company’s overall goals and vision.
The processes clearly visualise how everything fits together and which of the visitor’s needs are being met.
Everything is documented and can be reused, irrespective of whether there are one or 200 web editors involved.
The processes support coherent branding
Everybody is included and nobody forgotten – from the goal and purpose of the site, to unique selling points, all the way down to calls-to-action
Visitors also benefit from this:
Recognition increases, it becomes easier for users to find content and navigate when the structure is coherent and entry points clear.
The flow of the website is improved and the needs of visitors are met intuitively in all phases of the purchase process.
Pages have been provided with informative titles and file names, contributing to accurate indexing on search engines and ultimately making it easier to find the right information.