How Fieldwire Scaled Marketing Without Losing Their Focus on Product

In this SEO case study, CanIRank looks at Fieldwire, a web and mobile collaboration platform for the commercial construction industry.

Founded by two engineers from Stanford and MIT, Fieldwire’s strong focus on product and engineering quickly earned them a devoted customer base. However, with the global construction industry worth some $8.5 trillion and 9 out of 10 construction projects late or over budget, they knew they had the potential to get much bigger.

Working with an (at the time) small team of all engineers and no dedicated marketers, how could Fieldwire get the word out to a huge global industry without disrupting their focus on product and keeping customers happy?

CANIRANK’S SOLUTION

Fieldwire started with CanIRank’s DIY solution, using the Improve my Rankings tool to identify high potential pages – pages with keywords that were ranking, but too low to get much traffic. Even without prior SEO experience, Fieldwire’s founders were able to follow CanIRank’s on-page optimization recommendations and almost immediately began to see improvements in their rankings.

With the viability of SEO as a growth channel validated, Fieldwire upgraded to a CanIRank Full Service plan to put some additional firepower behind their SEO efforts. CanIRank Technical SEO Specialist Jonathan used CanIRank’s Grow my Content tool to identify additional content topics that offered a good balance between traffic value and ranking difficulty, and recommended changes to the site’s information architecture to ensure that Fieldwire’s most powerful pages were being deployed to target the most competitive keywords. Jonathan also worked with Fieldwire’s team to develop a series of new pages highlighting specific product features, leading to both higher conversion rates and additional search engine rankings.

“Everybody knows the long-term benefit of investing in SEO, but I was surprised to see we were able to see measurable progress within a couple weeks.”

– Yves Frinault, Fieldwire CEO

Meanwhile, CanIRank Outreach Specialist Melissa began using CanIRank’s Promote my Content tool to assemble a list of construction industry media contacts and began pitching reviews, company profiles, and founder interviews. Her strategy hinged on the insight that certain sub-segments of the construction industry were especially receptive to exploring new ways technology can be applied to improve construction efficiency, and that these thought leaders (who included bloggers, journalists, social media influencers, active forum members, and professional schools) thrive on being seen as “cutting edge”.  Leveraging this narrow focus to provide highly tailored pitches, Melissa was able to achieve more “wins” than Fieldwire’s dedicated PR agency (which also charged 25 times as much).

Fieldwire’s growing traffic and revenue helped them land a $6.6 million funding round and add new employees dedicated to sales and marketing. Since CanIRank’s Full Service team works completely transparently within the client’s CanIRank account, it was easy to transition content marketing efforts in-house and move back to a DIY plan.

“CanIRank gives you exactly what you need to achieve laser-focused SEO. It breaks down the process in steps that allows you to see measurable return on your efforts within weeks. It’s an essential part of our marketing stack now.”

– Yves Frinault, Fieldwire CEO

RESULTS

Amongst their fellow AngelPad graduates, the Fieldwire team became known as “the guys who are crushing it in SEO”. Within 6 months of acquiring Fieldwire.com and launching a new website, they were able to achieve top 3 rankings for nearly all of their primary keywords, beating out larger, more established companies.

The additional search engine traffic helped Fieldwire save over $10,000/ year compared to purchasing the same traffic via Google AdWords, while the industry media placements and community outreach significantly boosted their profile within the construction industry. For Fieldwire CEO Yves Frinault, working with CanIRank’s team also had the intangible benefit of “knowing that SEO was well taken care of”, leaving him one less thing to worry about as he focused on scaling the team and further improving the product.

READY TO WRITE YOUR OWN SUCCESS STORY?

CanIRank’s team includes a number of startup veterans with experience growing new ventures from inception to 8 figures in revenue in a variety of industries (Ecommerce, content, local, SaaS, & mobile apps) and geographic locations (from Silicon Valley to Germany, Chile, the UK, Canada, Boston, and the Pacific Northwest). Our clients range in size from side projects up to new divisions at publicly-traded multinational corporations, but our heart truly resides with early growth-phase startups.

“If other agencies have told you it’s impossible to hit your growth targets on such a limited budget, you need to talk to us.”

– Matt Bentley, CanIRank Founder

We understand (and thrive on) the challenge of competing against larger players with limited resources and constantly changing marketing conditions. To learn more about the strategies we used to help Fieldwire and other startups overcome these obstacles and turn SEO into their primary growth channel, check out our post on SEO strategies for startups, or schedule a free strategy session.