Migrating a Multi-National, Multi-Language Website to HubSpot Enterprise Content Hub
Weiler Abrasives uses Content Hub Enterprise to supercharge their marketing efforts on HubSpot
OVERVIEW Modernizing approach to continue serving customers for the next 100 years.
For over 100 years, Weiler Abrasives has been an industry leader in providing surface conditioning solutions. Which started as a small family manufacturing business, Weiler has growth to become one of the largest, global, commercial abrasive manufacturing partners today.
With their commitment to partnership, and serving their clients in countries the world over, they have maintained a genuine, personal approach toward business. Focused on mutual success with their clients, they have grown through improving the lives of their customers, co-workers and communities.
CHALLENGE Disconnected systems complicates content management.
The Weiler marketing team had been struggling with their CMS - Optimizely, and the ability to manage such a dynamic website. The move to a new platform was nerve racking given the complexity and integrated nature of their site. As a manufacturing supplier, Weiler had about 10,000 global SKU's of products. Because of the international nature of their business, they have regional and localized presence with custom tailored product lines for each region. All products were managed through their EnterWorks PIM (product information manager) via flat files that were served to the current site. With a backend heirarchy that was broken out into "microsites" by region, they were able to provide a very contextual, and personalized experience to their global user base.
- 10,000 global SKUs with 5k-6k being shown on the website at any given time
- Multi-region data architecture and product catalogs
- Multi-Language functionality tailored by region
- Custom Product Information Management (PIM) for products
With such a complex task that had massive implications for the company as a whole, it was important for the Weiler team to go through extensive due diligence in their evaluation process. Looking at several platform solutions including HubSpot Content Hub Enterprise, WebFlow and others, Instrumental Group supported an extensive functional requirements mapping. This included various use cases, system requirements, user stories, usability testing, and integration mapping. Security and stability were paramount. Closely followed by the ease of use for the team to manage the website post migration with greater efficiency, increased capabilities, and ultimately, drive more business through the website. In the end HubSpot was the platform of choice and we embarked on a collaborative journey to help build a platform for the future.
"Supporting Weiler Abrasives search for a new CMS was collaborative effort across multiple teams and stakeholders. It was critical to dive deep and explore all use cases to ensure their chosen platform would sustain the complexity of the site, as well as their growth goals and scalability needs”
Mike Del Cuore
SOLUTION A multi-phase HubSpot Migration with intent to grow and scale.
Phase 1: Planning & Discovery
Instrumental Group developed a custom implementation roadmap that detailed out the complex task of migrating over 28,000 URLs, a wide range of products and all applicable content over to HubSpot Content Hub Enterprise.
- Conduct CMS environment review
- Assessment of resources: people, process, technology
- Familiarize with new brand concepts/system
- Conduct content audit and expert review of current site
Phase 2: Content & URL Mapping
With such a large site, it was important to do a thorough audit of all pages, URLs, and site content. We established a single source of truth through a robust workbook to ensure nothing fell through the cracks.
- Master website strategy document
- Blog content audit and XML export
- Sitemap & meta information documentation
- Functional requirements mapping
- Multi language setup and organization
Phase 3: UI / UX Design
It was important to maintain brand integrity and continuity throughout the migration. This included brand guidelines, styling and messaging documentation.
The Weiler team also wanted to use this opportunity to improve the overall aesthetic of the website from a "gritty" manufacturing provider, to a more modern and clean feel. Our creative team rose to the challenge and we brought to life 6 new primary page prototypes to help define the updated look with their new theme.
- Style tile creation to define brand guidelines and site styling
- 6 new high fidelity page designs to establish global design aesthetic
- Functional prototypes to support multiple rounds of iteration
- Multimedia assets including photography, video, and animations
Phase 4: CMS Development
Once we had all the necessary blueprints to build the site, along with the updated page comps built pixel to pixel, it was time to recreate the site in HubSpot. We began by developing a new custom theme that set the overall aesthetic of the site. Then we leveraged a combination of HubSpot default modules, Instrumental proprietary modules, and a slew of new custom modules to provide the building blocks of the entire site. We then created 240 non-dynamic, base level, English site pages. These served as the foundation for the new site. Once all pages were created, we were able to leverage our content mapping to re-implement the page text, imagery, and meta data throughout.
Multi language pages were created from the English counterparts and we leveraged HubSpot's AI Breeze Intelligence to translate the page text into various languages with amazing accuracy.
- Custom developed HubSpot theme
- Import of advanced module library and custom module development
- Non-dynamic site page creation
- Content & meta implementation
- AI translation tools for 5 different languages
Additional Project Inclusions
Search Engine Optimization
As with any platform migration, there is a risk of hurting historical SEO rankings and performance. With a high domain authority and strong SEO, it was critical that we mitigated this risk. Fortunately, HubSpot's hosting platform is far superior to its competitors. By providing a better performing website, improving overall health metrics and core web vitals, and carefully tracking all necessary redirects, we were able to reduce the risk of impact on their SEO.
- Extensive organic search audit
- Migration of meta data, page titles and URL nomenclature
- 301 redirect implementation for all applicable URLs
- Tracking code and GTM implementation
- Google search console submission post launch for reindexing
Database Architecture
One of the most useful features of HubSpot Content Hub is HubDB. This is HubSpot's database functionality that is a powerful tool in creating dynamic content on the website. If you can operate a spreadsheet, you can manage a HubDB.
By structuring a data table to support their product catalog, we were able to gain control over their various SKUs, along with the plethora of various attributes for each product. This was important because products were specific to each region. Some products may be available in EMEA but not in North America for example. Additionally, we were able to integrate HubDB with their PIM through an SFTP configuration that automatically fed products into HubSpot's product library. From there, we integrated the catalog with HubDB to surface the information directly to the website. This meant that they only needed a single point of management in their PIM, and any updates would automatically update HubSpot, and in turn, the website as well.
We also leveraged HubDB's functionality to house their various resources. Articles, brochures, catalogs, events, flyers, guides, videos and webinars were all centrally managed in dedicated data tables to reduce the need for individual on-page editing. By leveraging this approach, we were able to improve resource management and make it much easier to provide new relevant content to their customers throughout the website.
- General database setup and configuration
- Product data tables to manage SKUs and related attributes
- Resources data tables with tagging for various content types
- Data fed to both listing and detail pages for all dynamic content types
SFTP Integration
Considerably the most important functional requirement of the site was product catalog management. Leveraging a custom built PIM system, the Weiler team had an established system to manage their 10,000+ product SKUs. Additionally, all SKUs had many different attributes such as size, weight, dimensions, use case, as well as applicable regions. With some SKUs having upwards of 20+ attributes, organization of the product catalog was no easy task.
In the evaluation period, we learned that the current system was posting flat files of all product information on a regular cadence directly to the website. We aimed to recreate this same process with HubSpot to minimize disruption on the web and product teams.
In order to do this, we confirmed that setting up an SFTP integration to pull the flat files from their PIM, and feed the data directly into HubSpot was the best approach.
- General database setup and configuration
- Product data table to manage SKUs and related attributes
- Resources data table with tagging for various content types
- Data feed to both listing and detail pages for all dynamic content types
RESULTS Increasing operational efficiency and meaningful KPIs
The migration to HubSpot fundamentally transformed Weiler's digital presence and content management processes. By providing them greater usability with their CMS, the team is able to more easily update content and keep the website relevant on an ongoing basis. By having their website directly tied into their CRM and marketing efforts, the connected platform allows for greater attribution and contextual customer communication as well.
Improved System Performance
By leveraging a superior CMS, the site has better performance measured in load times and core web vital metrics. Through the migration, we were also able to clean up the various CSS and JavaScript libraries to establish a lean, mean, performing website.
- HubDB integrated product library for fast load time to the site
- Native lead flow directly into HubSpot forms and segmented for marketing engagement
- Custom HubSpot theme for easy drag and drop page editing
- Improved data accuracy and reporting capabilities
Growth In Key Metrics
Performance of the new site resulted in lower bounce rates and increased engagement. Over the last 6mo, we have seen a 15% decrease in bounce rates, 85% increase in number of page views per session, and almost a 66% increase in the average session length.
The new site leveraged native HubSpot AI to help translate the site into various languages that serves a global audience across 5 continents.
Ensuring the site performed well both on desktop and mobile was critical. Although the mobile usage was significantly less than desktop, knowing mobile experience was a ranking factor, we wanted to ensure optimal performance across all devices
Beyond the metrics, the implementation has transformed daily operations at Weiler Abrasives. Being able to manage their product catalog in their PIM without needing duplicate work to make sure the website was up to date, allows the team to focus on their content marketing efforts.
With native reporting and multi touch attribution on a single platform, the team is able to test and demonstrate the effectiveness of their efforts.
As with any project, it all comes down to the bottom line. Knowing the website has driven more than $340,000 USD in the first year, we are confident this was the right move for the Weiler team.
LOOKING AHEAD Supporting Future Growth
Since the launch of the website, Instrumental Group was also fortunate enough to support Weiler's Marketing Hub onboarding and activation to ensure the team was empowered to harness the full capabilities of HubSpot.
With an ongoing support and administration plan, we are able to provide both brainpower and horsepower to the Weiler team that resulted in a fantastic mutual partnership that reflects the commitment the team has in all aspects of their business operations.