When Geotab ITS asked us to launch a new brand into a tricky market

IoT hardware specialists Geotab launched a spin-off division, ‘Geotab ITS’ (intelligent transportation systems),  that needed a whole new brand, story, website and launch.

Geotab ITS provides a platform called ‘Altitude’ designed to help transport departments everywhere improve traffic management and planning. But first, we had to position the offering (and the new brand) in a tricky market, build a magnetic and memorable new brand identity and kickstart their success with a high-performing content engine that drove awareness, engagement and conversions.

Geotab ITS had a working prototype of its platform, but needed a compelling story to take it to market. This wasn’t easy — not least because they serve a very different audience to their parent brand, making association tricky. They also play in a noisy, diverse market, blurring the nuances of transport data.

Fortunately for us, Altitude is right in our sweet spot: credible, differentiated and fascinating tech. Using Geotab’s telematic devices, it uses privacy-safe data capture from 2.4M commercial vehicles, fueling a more granular view of traffic for governmental transport departments (GTDs). This was our way in. We centered Altitude’s story around the “Return on Traffic Data.”

Championing ITS as privacy-centric pioneers of a new wave of traffic analytics set the stage for a wider brand story. Altitude became the platform for GTDs, both in terms of the volume of vehicular data points it includes, and the context behind them to revolutionize transport operations.

We created Altitude’s visual identity based on two core themes: how vehicles behave and all the micro movement analytics the platform captures. Together, these themes give us the flexibility to represent the world Geotab ITS works in while also exploring the granular data story underpinning the platform.

Geotab ITS’s new website began with a series of web workshops. We worked closely with their stakeholders to identify the site’s objectives and audience needs, capture themes and styles that resonated, and map out the key user journeys the site needed to support.

The workshops helped us create a plan to ensure the site provided value to every stakeholder: prospects, sales and marketing. It needed to:

• Drive to a stand-alone longpage laying out Geotab ITS’s positioning, and explain how transportation data has evolved into what Altitude now offers.

• Push users toward a new product and solutions page.

• Earn traffic and engagement with a high-value resource hub aimed at Geotab ITS’s ideal prospects.

• Use optimized CTAs across the site to bring in leads and gather data to help marketing and sales build out a high-intent funnel.

Geotab ITS needed two things: a big-bang awareness campaign to establish the new brand, and short-term sales activation to get the engine running. We see these dual needs competing for attention and resources a lot, and we said the same thing to Geotab ITS that we say to everyone: “brand vs. performance” is a false dichotomy. New brands need both, usually together.

We developed a campaign blueprint designed to balance long-term brand building with quick-win lead acquisition and qualification, using a mix of search-optimized launch content, meticulous site analytics and clear, conversion-focused customer journeys.

After launching the site and campaigns we immediately established active measurement and management of the site’s performance and the campaigns designed to promote it. That meant we could analyze why campaigns and web pages were converting and double down on the stuff that worked.

Geotab ITS saw early successes for both search rankings and organic traffic, thanks to a performant and conversion-focused site and search-optimized blog program.
In addition, an “always on” LinkedIn and PPC campaign strategy ensured budgets, bids and tactics were optimized for maximum impressions and ad clicks.

We also built a custom GA dashboard to help us:

• Outline and monitor overall traffic

• Analyze site engagement

• Determine what customer journeys were being taken

• Identify where customers came from according to channel