Delivering a digital transformation for a historic brand.
Hickory Farms engaged NP Digital to define a content roadmap, which leveraged search data to increase visibility in online search results. It was through this lens that Hickory Farms was able to prioritize content and quickly propel their visibility for multiple ‘gift basket’ categories, including but not limited to wine, chocolate, Father’s Day.
Increase in organic search traffic year-over-year.
+2,826
New page 1 rankings for highly coveted non-brand keywords.
THE COMPANY
Bringing people together through effortless gifting.
Established in 1951, Hickory Farms is a 69-year-old iconic brand best known for their classic meat and cheese gift baskets. In 2020, they embarked on an initiative to modernize their business model through a digital transformation, ultimately shifting from a predominately offline business (catalogs and kiosks) to focus on their eCommerce marketing channel.
THE CHALLENGE
Modernize and expand visibility for critical non-branded search queries.
The online gift basket category is highly competitive, especially around peak Holiday seasons such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as well as special occasions such as anniversaries and birthdays. To increase awareness for their diverse offering through search results, it was important for Hickory Farms to be present on page one results for this saturated and competitive category.
THE SOLUTION
Double-down on strengths, find and capture new audiences.
Through a series of research exercises, the solution to Hickory Farms’ challenges took a multi-faceted approach:
Enhance the website content.
Ensure that search engines had the path of least resistance to index website content.
Send signals to Google showing the website is worthy of ranking on page one.
Essentially, Hickory Farms needed to refine their site content to better match a person’s intent when searching for gift basket products online. To do this, Hickory Farms focused on the following initiatives:
Create content around the needs-based searches performed by their new target audiences.
Optimize meta titles, tags, and headings.
Optimize information architecture, content structure, and format.
Update current site copy to include additional keyword variations.
Eliminate technical SEO roadblocks while improving website performance and improving page load speed.
Syndicate content via digital PR, social, and paid channels to obtain links and social signals.
THE RESULTS
These tactics helped to better align with user-intent, improving the brand’s right to win for their core audience.
+283% increase in organic search impressions.
+211% increase in organic search traffic year-over-year.
+2,826 new page 1 rankings for highly coveted non-brand keywords.
RECOGNITION
Finalist, 2021 Best Use of Search.
“NP Digital team helped us change our approach to digital marketing. They are a great agency, and the team supporting us is exceptional. They are all experts in their area, diligent, and manage all the projects with a sense of urgency.”
Danny OriDirector of Performance Marketing, Hickory Farms