Website COnsolidation

---

After expanding  Southland into multiple business lines and acquisitions, keeping up with several websites became disjointed. The sub-brands became unruly; the messages they wanted to incorporate were those of their own and not of the company, confusing clients and its internal people. The brand message had gotten away due to internal feuds. Nine websites (some consolidated over time) reflected these messages and tried to imply thought leadership through a blog site. Not only was it too much for a small marketing group to handle, it was not unified. 

To get back to the crux of the original brand strategy implemented years before, Southland needed to be viewed as “one company.” Both internally and externally, the idea of one company that can service its clients in multiple fashions was more appealing than separate subgroups that operate under one umbrella. 

To reassess the brand, 38 customer interviews were conducted, 43 internal discussions were held, and 49 employees were surveyed to see how the brand message aligned with their business or department over two and a half years. To our surprise, the leading brand was still intact (mostly). However, sub-brands and their resources were not. At the beginning of 2022, a brand consolidation was started, merging all business lines, subsidiaries, and sub-brands into the leading Southland brand. 

A new website was designed and implemented within four months and launched on the same day as a significant company acquisition. The site blended the brands and aligned the brand strategy to tell a unique and synced story about the company and its offerings. Over the next six months, each sub-brand was rolled back into the company, and their site was decommissioned. Only one subsidiary remains; and it needs time to integrate. 

In a six-month look at the analytics, both before and after the new site was launched, there was a +29% increase in users, +27% in new users, +30% in sessions, and +16% in return visitors. Bringing all the sites into one site increased the SEO rankings and linked them across one site without breaking them apart. The thought leadership blog could also be utilized to provide relevant links to areas of the site, keeping clients and readers on the site longer, which further generates a brand imprint with them.