Digital Transformation Case Study:

Leading Health Retail Provider

The Challenge

A leading health retail with 1,500 locations nationwide faced significant limitations with their digital strategy that restricted their growth potential. When we joined this national franchise, the company lacked a cohesive digital approach, missing opportunities to connect with customers throughout their journey.

  • The company operated with a small national website and completely separate local pages for each individual location, creating disconnection across customer touchpoints.

  • Their digital strategy was heavily concentrated on bottom-funnel conversion activities, lacking content and experiences for customers at earlier stages of their journey.

  • Growth primarily relied on paid search for "near me," leaving significant digital marketing opportunities untapped.

  • The franchise model required a delicate balance between maintaining brand consistency and allowing franchisees to highlight their unique location advantages.

  • Without online booking capabilities, all appointments required phone calls, creating inefficiencies and potentially losing customers seeking digital scheduling options.

Solution

We implemented a comprehensive 18-month digital transformation strategy designed to expand their digital marketing capabilities, create a full-funnel customer experience, and establish systems that would allow for consistent brand presentation while empowering franchisees.

Complete Digital Infrastructure Overhaul

Migrated to a new CMS, redesigned the website UX/UI, and developed a franchise portal allowing local customization within brand guardrails while maintaining SEO integrity.

Advanced Customer Journey Optimization

Introduced online booking capabilities, created intermediate conversion points beyond just appointment booking, and established full-funnel content to engage customers at every stage.

Sophisticated Call Analytics and Tracking

Implemented INVOCA to track browser sessions and deployed real-time conversational analysis, integrating call outcome signals directly into media platforms to optimize performance.

Franchisee Support, Engagement and Training

Secured buy-in through the Franchise Advisory Committee, conducted a strategic pilot program, and developed a phased training approach with sufficient adoption time before full launch.

Results

The transformation resulted in substantial improvements across all key performance indicators, demonstrating the powerful impact of a strategic digital overhaul when executed with thorough planning and stakeholder support.

Significant Performance Improvements

Achieved a 19% boost in traffic with the same marketing spend, 53% improvement in time on site, 25% increase in conversion rates, and 40% year-over-year growth within 2 months after full implementation.

Enabled Operational Efficiencies

Enabled direct appointment booking into franchisees' schedules without manual intervention, improved tracking of local marketing efforts, and streamlined content management across 1,500 location pages.

Strategic Resilience During Crisis

Leveraged the new infrastructure to maintain visibility during COVID-19, pairing website analytics with Google's mobility data to make data-driven decisions about marketing investments.

Franchisee Satisfaction

Secured successful adoption of new systems through careful change management, improving local marketing control while maintaining brand consistency and providing better performance visibility.

Key Learnings

The digital transformation project revealed several crucial insights about implementing large-scale digital changes, particularly in franchise organizations with complex stakeholder needs.

  • Success requires securing early stakeholder buy-in, creating targeted pilot programs with diverse franchisees, and implementing a phased training approach with sufficient time for adaptation before full launch.

  • Approach content migration with extreme care for franchisee-specific pages, design intuitive user experiences, and create strong brand guardrails while enabling local customization.

  • Connecting online behavior to offline conversions through integrated call analytics and building infrastructure that supports algorithm optimization across platforms delivers measurable performance gains.

  • Moving beyond conversion-only focus to engage customers throughout their journey with strategic content and intermediate conversion points creates more stable, diversified growth channels.

Let’s Do This Together

Is your business struggling with digital fragmentation or hoping to transform your customer experience across multiple locations? Innovate Forward specializes in creating cohesive digital strategies that drive measurable results while respecting the unique needs of complex business models.