Center for Digital Innovation Q3 Report

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary.......................................................................................................3
Slance ...........................................................................................................................4
Development Update ........................................................................................................ 4
Screenshots .................................................................................................................... 5
Landing Page................................................................................................................. 13
Next Steps .................................................................................................................... 13
Wholesale Contractor Supply ......................................................................................14
ZoHo CRM Deployment ................................................................................................... 14
Contractor‟s Blog ........................................................................................................... 28
Next Steps .................................................................................................................... 32
Sentry Sports Lighting ................................................................................................33
New Brand .................................................................................................................... 33
Organic SEO Campaign ................................................................................................... 34
Content Marketing.......................................................................................................... 38
Next Steps .................................................................................................................... 42
Howard Lighting..........................................................................................................42
Howard Technology Solutions .....................................................................................44
Howard Medical ............................................................................................................. 44
Howard Education .......................................................................................................... 56

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Greetings,
Santa Monica is L.A.‟s tech hub. It‟s teaming with specialized software developers with
experience deploying technology solutions for a variety of different industries, giving Howard
Industries easy access to a highly-skilled, flexible workforce on a freelance basis.
At the Center for Digital Innovation, we‟re nearing the completion of our new student
freelancer online marketplace. We‟re excited to show it to you. But remember, we‟re also here
to support you.
In June 2016, Billy Howard, Sr. asked us to leverage our resources on behalf of existing Howard
Industries businesses, and in the last 3 months we‟ve accomplished a lot.
Here are the highlights:
 CDI is close to launching a private beta of Slance
 CDI got Wholesale Contractor Supply (WCS) up and running on a cloud-based CRM
 Through SEO and content marketing, CDI helped grow WCS revenue by 295%
 CDI doubled web traffic for WCS and secured top search rank at Sentry Sports Lighting
 CDI partnered with internal IT on a new, responsive website design for Howard Medical
 CDI sourced and negotiated favorable pricing and terms on a 3D product configurator
 CDI gathered platform agnostic CRM business requirements from key stakeholders at
Howard Education, Howard Medical and Howard Lighting
 And much, much more.
NOTE: This report shows the value CDI provided to Howard Industries in Q3 2016. We have an
effective, efficient, reliable team in place. Please let us know what we can do to support your
division at Howard Industries.
Yours Truly,

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SLANCE
DEVELOPMENT UPDATE
CDI is almost ready to begin quality assurance testing of the Slance student freelancer
marketplace, a new online platform to help students earn while they learn and acquire valuable
work experience relevant to their field of study. Employers cut through the riff raff and get
access to US-based students and recent grads for project work on a W-9 freelance basis.
Following QA testing, Slance will launch in private beta with Mississippi State University and the
University of Southern Mississippi and begin engaging with students and employers. We are
currently collecting registrations from potential student freelancers and employers via the Slance
website at www.Slance.com, which is pictured.
We‟re excited to introduce you to Slance and look forward to helping your source student
freelancers with a fresh, youth perspective via the Internet to help your team complete their
projects and get more done. Here‟s a preview of our platform, which is almost done!

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LANDING PAGE
NEXT STEPS
 Finalized development of desktop minimum viable product
 Complete test scripting, bug tracking and fixes for quality assurance
 Launch private beta to confirm stability of platform in production environment
 Public launch of Slance, the world’s first student freelancer marketplace
 Commence development of native mobile apps for iOS and Android
 Assess viability of development of version 1.0 with team organizing features

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WHOLESALE CONTRACTOR SUPPLY
ZOHO CRM DEPLOYMENT
In Q3 2016, CDI circumvented what could have been a very expensive, disruptive migration
away from the Volusion ecommerce platform by implementing a turnkey, cloud-based CRM
platform integrated with ecommerce, content management, VoIP telephony, email and social
media.

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Volusion Ecommerce Integration

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Custom Lead Views with Sales Prospecting Data

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Proposal Builder Integration – Sales Rep View

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Proposal Builder Integration – Customer View

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Voice Over IP Telephony Integration

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Automated Workflows – 20 Custom Procedures

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Customer Survey Integration

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Email Campaigns Integration
CONTRACTOR’S BLOG
The new blog site provides WCS with a way to add sales oriented landing pages, useful „how to‟
articles to inform purchasing decisions and increase search rank. CDI integrated the new
WordPress blog into the WCS ecommerce site and has already added six, search engine
optimized articles to improve keyword relevancy, transit users to related products pages and lift
search rankings.
Search Optimized Articles
1. CFL Light Bulbs - Users Guide for Retrofits
2. Vapor Proof Fluorescent Light Fixtures: When, Where and Why
3. Fluorescent vs. LED High Bay Lighting Retrofits
4. Workplace Safety Equipment Trends: Today’s Workers Want More than just Protection
5. LED Lighting Retrofits Significant to Conservation Efforts
6. LED Warehouse Lighting Retrofits: Path to Energy Efficiency and Cost Savings

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Topics were chosen based on search volume, written by a former daily newspaper journalist and
search engine optimized by CDI prior to being published on Wednesdays or Thursdays, the
highest traffic days on the site.
Articles include anchor text links to specific product pages at WCS that have been search
optimized against the same keywords, but with different text. Articles include images and are
written to be easily scanned by readers. Keyword research was conducted based on US search
volume and conversion probability.
Please review the preceding graphics to get a sense of what the articles look like online. We
source an original photo to accompany each story and share on the WCS social media marketing
channels.

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SEO Increases Sales 295%
CDI first started SEOing WCS in April 2016. Since then, sessions are up 70%, users rose
80% and pages views doubled.
Those gains resulted in a 295% lift in sales, a 36% increase in ecommerce conversions and
68% increase in the value of an average order.
The increase in traffic to category pages for competitively priced, top-sellers like Fluorescent and
LED High Bays went from 0 to 2,856 visits.

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Twitter Optimization
CDI has been trying to help WCS improve its use of Twitter by providing feedback. Here‟s
feedback we provided to WCS in Q3 2016.
NEXT STEPS
 Launch a native mobile app to support mobile sales and marketing
 Monitor CRM reports and continue to refine sales process automation workflows
 Create new leads views and workflows based on findings
 Continue to support to WCS for quality assurance
 Implement rules-based email marketing cadence
 Continue to SEO products and categories
 Propose staffing content marketing at CDI for WCS

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SENTRY SPORTS LIGHTING
NEW BRAND
On June 1, 2016, CDI completed the rebranding of what was formerly Sport Sentry Systems as
Sentry Sports Lighting and launched a new website for the company.
By adding the phrase “sports lighting” to their name and URL and search engine optimizing their
website, traffic rose 73%, visits increased 61% and page views rose 60%.

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ORGANIC SEO CAMPAIGN
Using the following keywords as a guide, CDI rewrote all web copy for the new site from
interviews with the staff, created a content marketing strategy and wrote and commissioned
original blog articles around these themes and ideas:
Campaign Keyword Avg. Monthly Searches Competition
AtoZ arena lights 320
AtoZ stadium lighting 260 0.95
AtoZ sports lighting 260 0.84
AtoZ LED stadium lighting 260
AtoZ tennis court lighting 210 1
Google Site Links Indexed
The new website has been indexed by Google against relevant search terms with site links:

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Most Visited Pages
Keyword Visibility
The new site is getting found and beginning to get visits from Google searches for unbranded
terms like “sports lighting”‟ and “LED sports lighting fixtures.”

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Link Building & Local Search
CDI could earn SSL a higher search ranking if we could help them get their distributors to
update their websites to the new company name, which has “sports lighting” in the title. We
provided SSL with the following instructions, but they have had difficulty getting distributors to
list them as follows:
 Sentry Sports Lighting - Stadium Lighting, Arena Lights and Athletic Field Lighting
 ALT tag SSL logo with the text: Sentry Sports Lighting.
 Use any of the logos at: http://sentrysportslighting.com/branding-style-guide/
If we can convince even half of their distributors to make this update to how they list SSL on
their websites, we may be able to increase SSL‟s page one ranking for the searches of the
generic term “Sports Lighting.”
We should also get them listed on Google Local Search at all of their distributor‟s locations as
well.

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CDI added the Sports Lighting Blog to the new Sentry Sports Lighting website and published
the following search engine optimized articles on the following dates:
1. Stadiums and arenas use efficient, high wattage lamps (3/15/16)
2. LED Technology Revolutionizing Outdoor Sports Lighting (4/3/16)
3. LED Lighting Retrofits: Benefits of Financing (4/22/16)
4. Sports Lighting Design Resources (5/2/16)
5. Sports Lighting Design Guides Now Online (5/18/16)
6. SportSentry Systems is now Sentry Sports Lighting (6/6/16)
7. LED Sports Lighting: Active Cooling Doubles Lifespan (7/5/16)
8. Stadium Lighting a Game-Changer in World of Sports (8/23/16)
9. Sports Lighting Retrofit Transforms Army’s Murphy Field 9/5/16)
Sports Lighting Design Guide
CDI added a Sports Lighting Design Guide, which is getting found by prospects searching sports
field lighting lay out recommendations.

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Lead Generation Form
Prior to the new website, Sentry Sports Systems received no leads at all via the web. CDI
implemented this lead generation form on the new website.

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Sample Leads
Here are 2 high quality and high purchase intent leads recently generated by the new website.

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NEXT STEPS
 Continue commissioning, SEOing and publishing content to the SSL blog
 Help them update their listings on their distributorship‟s websites
 Help them execute a local search optimization strategy
HOWARD LIGHTING
Website
The Howard Lighting website could be much more effective at generating sales leads and
management wants ecommerce functionality for existing customers. The site currently has no
HTML product pages, no search engine optimized product descriptions and no content or email
marketing programs in place.

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CDI is considering strategies for providing this division with a new site, SEO and much needed
content marketing support.
Search Visibility
Howard Lighting has earned some degree search visibility, mostly for its PDF fixture cut sheets.
But this could dramatically improve. CDI is actively researching options for re-architecting the
entire site, which currently host more 25k products, to better promote natural search engine
optimization of their catalog.
New Business Development
The California Inland Empire is home to one the largest, densest warehouse vicinities in the
U.S., which means lots of opportunity to conserve energy in existing facilities through ESCO
retrofits.
CDI is considering launching an ESCO-focused eco lighting website to sell to customers to and
through the ESCOs and electrical contractors. This digital marketing effort would be supported
by our Southern California warehouse and sales calls to key accounts.
Indoor horticulture is also a growing business in the Western U.S., which means an imminent
rise in the sale of lighting for this purpose. CDI is also researching the prospect of launching
www.spectracali.com, an online brand catering to this nascent market with private labeled, grow
lamps sourced from China and horticulture line of LED fixtures.
One of the top selling grow light manufacturers, Gravita out of Holland, is selling a version of the
Phillips GPELHPS1000w for $425 MSRP each. The pricing structure in the horticulture segment
allows for 35-45% margins.
Next Steps
 Develop cost-effective, realistic strategy for improving the Howard Lighting website
 Search engine optimize the Howard Lighting site through email and content marketing
 Propose a solution for improving customer relationship management (CRM)
 Continue scoping the possibility of launching ESCO and indoor horticulture-focused online
lighting brands

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HOWARD TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS
This section has been provided as background only, so that Cyndi McCoy and her team
have visibility over the scope of work that CDI has conducted for HTS up to now.
In June 2016, Billy Howard, Sr. directed CDI to launch Zoho CRM for WCS and partner with HTS
internal IT to:
1. Research the prospect of improving customer relationship management (CRM) at HTS
2. Design and develop a new website for Howard Medical in collaboration with internal IT
3. Scope design and development for a new website for Howard Education
4. Improve the user experience at Howard Computers
Moving forward, please ensure that all projects are approved by Cyndi prior to
submittal to CDI.
CDI is at your service, willing and able to execute any of these projects, as long as they have
been approved by HTS executive management.
HOWARD MEDICAL
Business Case
By investing in an updated website
with a high-quality sales video and
3D product configurator, Manuel
Shows estimates revenues at Howard
Medical could increase as much as
30% or $14M annually. CDI can deliver all 3 for less 1% of that projected revenue.
CDI partnered with internal IT on the redesign of a responsive website and researched costs for
producing a professional sales video and securing technology to power a 3D product configurator
for the new site.

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Website
Current Website
The current Howard Medical Website is primed for a revamp. It served fewer than 300 sessions
per month or 897 total in Q3 2016, and 70% of visitors viewed just a single page. Eighty-two
percent (82%) of all visitors stayed on the website for less than 10 seconds.
The current website also has two different navigation menus and another page that refers to
dead links at Howard Computers.

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Most Visited Page
Currently, the most visited page on the Howard Medical website is linking to unfinished test
pages, outdated content, and 404 pages. This is just one example of what is a website in
disarray, undermining the credible of the Howard Medical brand.

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Proposed Sitemap
Prior to designing the new Howard Medical website, CDI created a list of all URLs at
www.Howard-Medical.com, categorizing them as either current, out of date or PDF and
developed this sitemap.

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Proposed Wire Frames
CDI developed wireframes to determine page layout.

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Responsive Website Design
After presenting three different design options to Howard Medical, they decided to go with the
following designs, which were provided to internal IT as HTML/CSS and implemented in the
ASP.NET framework.
Here is the new website designs, which have been deployed beautifully in an online staging area
by Roger May‟s team at http://staging.howard-medical.com/

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A total of eight different responsive webpage template designs have been deployed to
accommodate the new site. At this point, Howard Medical is working directly with Roger May‟s
group to migrate the content over to the new design. CDI is prepared to search optimize the site
copy once it has been migrated.

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Sales Video
Howard Medical‟s competitors are using video to promote their products online. The sales team
wants their new website to have a high-quality sales video that positions them as a healthcare
technology leader.
Based on a script written by Howard Medical featuring doctors, nurses and administrative staff
using 25 different Howard Medical products with patients in 8 different hospital departments,
CDI broke down and bid producing the video with production companies in Laurel, Baton Rouge,
South Florida and Los Angeles.
If the current script is to be
produced without much
modification, the best value we
found was to shoot in Baton
Rouge at the Old Woman‟s
Hospital using a local NOLA
crew.
Estimated cost of production
is $19,500 plus the location
fee, or 0.14% of the
projected $14M in additional
revenue.
The Old Woman's Hospital is no
longer in service and is rented
to film productions by the Baton
Rouge Police Department,
which is still recovering from
the flooding and has been slow
to respond to our rate request.
If someone at Howard
Industries has a relationship
with a Baton Rouge municipal
government contact, that may
help us secure a quicker
response and possibly at a
reduced location fee.

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3D Cart Configurator
The Medical Cart Configurator (MCC) is a digital visualization tool envisioned by Howard Medical
that would give visitors the ability to build, zoom in on, tumble, save, print and share a 3D
model and spec sheet for any configuration of medical cart that the company sells.
CDI created an MCC Functional Specification and investigated several options for implementing
this website feature which were (1) hiring an independent WebGL/Canvas developer and 3D
StudioMax artist, (2) contracting with a niche agency specializing in 3D web development and
(3) licensing the Axonon, a Configure/Price/Quote (CPQ) SaaS platform to power the MCC.
After reviewing all three options and
the risks associated with developing
and supporting a homegrown solution,
Tony Thornton, Roger May and Michael
Baker agreed that in the long run, the
Axonon PowerTrak solution is the most
viable option.
The Minnesota-based company
PowerTrak 3D product configuration
platform used by Visi, Dell, Intel,
Flextronics, Middle Atlantic and many
others, could be supported internally
and ultimately be used for Howard
Education and WCS as well. Axonon
submitted a presentation with images of their product in use, which can be downloaded at the
previous link.
After months of research and negotiation as well as a day trip to Las Vegas to meet with their
executive leadership, CDI secured fully amortized payment terms of $6,833 in advance
and $2,300 per month for 3 years, with the term and initial monthly payment
beginning after the launch of the configurator on Howard Medical’s website.
In addition, Howard Medical would incur a one-time expense to model their medical carts in 3D
Studio Max, which would take an animator 100 to 200 hours at $50 per hour.
This platform would make it possible for prospects to build their own medical cart with a drag
and drop interface and send their specifications to a sales rep to be quoted. It is essentially a
self-serve sales tool.

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SEO Keyword Plan
CDI conducted extensive research on organic search history and created the following keyword
plan to guide search engine optimization of the new site.
Keyword Avg. Monthly Searches (exact match only) Competition
medical cart 1K – 10K 1
medication cart 1K – 10K 1
medical computer cart 100 – 1K 1
workstation on wheels 100 – 1K 1
medical laptop cart 100 – 1K 1
rolling medical cart 10 – 100 1
medical crash cart 100 – 1K 1
medical rolling cart 10 – 100 1
stainless steel medical cart 10 – 100 1
medical utility cart 10 – 100 1
medical laptop cart on wheels 10 – 100 1
medical cart battery 10 – 100 0.41
medical trolley 10 – 100 0.93
computer workstation on wheels 10 – 100 1
mobile medical cart 10 – 100 1
medical chart cart 10 – 100 1
medical cart manufacturers 10 – 100 1
workstation on wheels medical 10 – 100 1
cart medical 10 – 100 1
medical trolley cart 10 – 100 1
workstation on wheels healthcare 10 – 100 1
emergency trolley 10 – 100 0.3
medical rolling cart with drawers 10 – 100 1
computer on wheels cart medical 10 – 100 1
medical treatment cart 10 – 100 1
crash cart medical 10 – 100 0.92
rubbermaid medical computer
cart 10 – 100 1
workstation on wheels hospital 10 – 100 1
medical trolley with drawers 10 – 100 0.82
CDI had been planning to launch a blog as part of the new website and add search engine
optimized articles over time to increase site relevancy, as we did for WCS and Sentry Sports
Lighting. We are available to perform these services, if HTS elects to do so.

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Unapproved Logo Concepts
In the event HTS wishes to consider a logo update with the launch of the new website, Howard
Medical asked CDI to submit new logo concepts. These logos are NOT for use. Adoption of a
new logo requires the approval of HTS executive management.
These logo concepts are for consideration only and cannot be used without HTS executive
management‟s prior approval.
To achieve a cohesive look, please consider that if Howard Medical does adopt a new brand, the
PDFs on the website should be updated to match the look and feel of the new website. There are
currently 60 PDFs or 315 pages that would need to be redesigned.
CRM Requirements Gathering
CDI worked directly with the Howard Medical team to gather and document the business
requirements they have for a CRM system. All their requirements are available for download in a
document at http://bit.ly/Howard-Medical-CRM-Requirements to support CRM customization.
Possible Next Steps
 Provide design support to internal IT to complete responsive website
 Project management for sales video production
 Project management of 3D product configurator implementation
 Search engine optimize new site, create and manage blog content
 Email marketing and establish automated email cadence to nurture leads

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HOWARD EDUCATION
Website
Although Howard Education provides turnkey technology solutions to schools through direct
sales, those solutions are not effectively presented on the division‟s website, which is positioned
more as a PC superstore than a B2B educational technology solutions provider.
Since no dynamic, search optimized solutions oriented content exists, Howard Education cannot
be discovered by academics looking for educational technology solutions providers online and
this should be remedied as soon as possible with the addition of a solutions-oriented microsite,
keyword optimized against high conversion probability search terms and fortified with lead
generation pages. This would allow the division to generate high quality sales leads online.
To improve rankings, the site needs useful, how-to oriented content written for educator‟s
procuring technology solutions and this can be achieved with the addition of a blog to the new
microsite, to which useful, timely, search optimized articles can be added on a regular basis.
Frequent publication of SEOed content increases site quality scores by pinging Google‟s spiders
to reindex the new page and reconsider the rank and authority of the domain.

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This can be achieved by integrating a blog into the website, as we did for WCS and Sentry
Sports Lighting. The WordPress content management system can also be used to launch landing
and conversion pages to convert online content into qualified leads.
Search Visibility
But even with a solutions selling microsite and a blog with useful, search optimized how-to
content, the division‟s name and URL presents huge search engine optimization challenges for
two reasons.
First, most searches containing “Howard Education” return -- almost exclusively -- results from
Ivy League college Howard University. And second, because the domain www.howardedu.com
could be seen as abuse by Google, since the top level domain .edu is reserved for higher
education. Google is likely considering this a bastardization of Howard University‟s URL and an
attempt the artificially boast site ranking.
For these reasons, it would be wise to rebrand the division with a new URL that effectively
differentiates itself from Howard.edu. CDI could recommend options based on keyword research,
as it did with www.SentrySportsLighting.com. By rebranding Sports Sentry Systems as Sentry
Sports Lighting, CDI has already lifted that division‟s search ranking to page one on Google for
queries of the generic, search phrase “sports lighting.” A similar approach at Howard Education
is advised.
Solution Configurator
Since proposals from this division often include layout plans, a digital configurator that clients
could use to draw a room or site, layout various scenarios and source solutions on a self-serve
basis could work to generate high-quality leads online. Currently, the Howard Education website
generates no leads at all.
UI/UX Support
CDI has access to user experience designers who are available to create responsive webpage
templates that can be delivered as HTML/CCS to internal IT -- as Howard Medical‟s new website
was -- to improve user experience.
CRM Requirements Gathering
CDI met with Howard Education to gather business requirements for CRM and researched
options for improving their online sales and marketing presence.

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Possible Next Steps
 Design, write and provide HTML/CSS for a solutions selling microsite.
 Secure images of past installations, develop cases studies and cost out the production of a
sales video.
 Lead a rebranding effort, backed by qualitative and quantitative research to improve site
authority, relevancy and ranking.
 Create an editorial calendar, using the division’s trade show schedule as a guide, and
commission and publish useful ‘how to’ content to help prospective customer make
informed educational technology purchasing decisions.
 Propose technology for enabling a solutions configurator to the new website.
# # #

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