Thunderhead
UX design, web development and digital optimisation for technology leader in customer journey orchestration
Thunderhead is a pioneering software company that specialises in engagement through customer-led journeys. Thunderhead is the only Leader in both the Forrester Wave for Customer Journey Orchestration, and the Forrester Wave for Real-time Interaction Management. Cyber-Duck was chosen to define a digital strategy to improve their market positioning. We designed, developed and optimised a new platform that could reflect this. It increased leads generated by 57% over the last 12 months.
Key stats
57%
increase in leads generated over the last 12 months
56%
increase in organic leads generated over the last 12 months
49%
increase in overall traffic over the last 12 months
Objectives
Thunderhead is a pioneering software company that offers the ONE Engagement Hub as their flagship product. ONE allows businesses to understand, adapt and personalise their digital platform to meet individual customers’ needs better.
ONE has been recognised as a Leader in two separate Forrester Wave Waves: Customer Journey Orchestration and Real-Time Interaction Management. So, it was easily demonstrable that ONE leads the orchestration market. But Thunderhead’s website didn’t mirror their product’s status enough. Cyber-Duck was brought onboard to change that. Our objectives were to:
- Research, design and develop a user-focused website that reaffirms ONE’s market-leading status
- Define and support ONE’s digital marketing strategy, from SEO and content to analytics
- Provide ongoing technical and hosting support post-launch to ensure a performant website
User-centred design and website development
First, our UX Designers immersed themselves into Thunderhead ONE’s product offering. They conducted a kick-off workshop and engaging interviews with key stakeholders. This was consolidated with user research and usability testing for Thunderhead’s current website.
This revealed how 100% of the users interviewed wanted to know ONE’s value and difference. But the majority just couldn’t find this information; half left without understanding what ONE does, including its features, integration, data collection and storage. For example, most didn’t notice the hamburger menu or further content below the homepage’s showreel.
We crafted and iterated the new website’s prototypes and art direction to suit three personas: the Conversations and Experiences Creator; Infrastructure and Innovation Specialist; and Data Interrogator.
The art direction included commissioning beautiful, immersive illustrations to lead the homepage; they evoked how thousands of digital journeys combine to create a ‘picture’ of the personalisation ONE can deliver for customers.
We developed and tested the website using WordPress. Originally, we made extensive use of the Genesis Custom Blocks plugin. This created predefined content blocks that the client could drag-and-drop onto pages for population. As the client’s needs grew to exceed the block editor’s capabilities, we developed our own bespoke plugin using React. As a B2B lead generation website, the contact forms’ UX and data collection was critical. We created them using Gravity Forms and implemented a custom hook so the data is elegantly sent to the client’s Eloqua solution.
SEO strategy
After the website launched, Cyber-Duck was chosen to start supporting Thunderhead with their SEO. Our aim was to increase organic exposure in target regions such as the UK, USA, Benelux, EMEA and Asia Pacific.
We kicked-off with an audit and strategy phase; this was guided by the user research into behaviour/needs we conducted for the website project. We also conducted competitor analysis so we could identify ways of surpassing the competition for the client’s target keyword list. Together, we started to define the 12-month strategy and the KPIs for our SEO campaign – with a special focus on initial ‘quick wins’.
We started with a smaller project, which concentrated on their ‘Customer Journey Orchestration’ keywords. The result of our optimisation was getting Thunderhead ranking 1st for keywords like ‘journey orchestration’, ‘customer journey orchestration’ and ‘real-time interaction management’.
Then, we implemented on-site improvements, including better optimisation of existing content for Thunderhead’s target keywords, as well as on-site UX and technical improvements such as improved internal linking and page speed improvements prior to Google’s Core Web Vitals algorithm update. We then monitored uptake via Ahrefs, Moz, SEMRush and search console and used Screaming Frog to identify further optimisation improvements such as reducing duplicate content.
Finally, we created a real-time marketing dashboard using Google Data Studio, providing both client and agency with constant access to the latest data and allowing us to continually monitor campaign performance against the KPIs defined at the start of the project.
Results
Now, the power of ONE’s features, integration and data are clear to users. It’s presented in a distinctive, immersive website that engages the user through subtle animation and bold illustration.
Combined, the website and ongoing digital optimisation has brought success for Thunderhead. We have obtained first-page international rankings for Thunderhead’s core keyword targets.
That’s brought a 49% increase in overall users for the website, and 56% increase in organic leads in the first year since launch (June 2020 – May 2021). There’s also been a 57% increase in leads, ready for the sales team to process.
Key stats
57%
increase in leads generated over the last 12 months
56%
increase in organic leads generated over the last 12 months
49%
increase in overall traffic over the last 12 months