September 8, 2022
Showcase: Kriete Truck Centers AI-Powered Digital Storefront with HubSpot CRM
Case Study · 4 min read · By Jerry Van Galder
How we architected a best-in-class digital storefront — from sitemap to CRM.
Buzznerd is proud to announce one of our showcase builds: the Kriete Truck Centers AI-Powered Digital Storefront with integrated HubSpot CRM. With the support of the Office of Experience in Chicago (OX) and our liaisons at Kriete, we set out to build one of our most premium sites — and we loved it so much we wanted to share how we put it together.
How we architect the content
One of the key aspects of any website is how easy it is for a customer to find things. Creating a sitemap not only helps customers understand how the content is architected, but also helps SEO by helping search engines like Google understand the website and how the content is organized.
We always love working with dealers such as Kriete Truck Centers that understand the importance of user experience. As they say, it takes two to tango — the talented folks at Kriete and OX helped make their new digital storefront best-in-class. — Jerry Van Galder, Chief Buzznerd
Using design standards
The new Kriete Brand Style Guide served as the basis for the design, ensuring brand consistency across all marketing media. The guide covered font styles, sizes and colors; button treatments; delineators and card treatments; and logo standards. A brand style guide makes branding consistent and raises the level of professionalism, helping earn the trust of the dealer's customers.
Designing the homepage
Using elements from the brand style guide, we created a custom-designed homepage with user-friendly, key features showcasing the important aspects of Kriete. After a couple of small revisions, everyone was pleased with the modern, sleek but simple design that gets the message across.
Websites are never really done. We've already identified opportunities for further optimization of our new site but are certainly pleased with the support we received from both OX and Buzznerd in getting us to a place that's leaps and bounds beyond where we were. — John Walsh, EVP of Marketing, Kriete
Creating the other pages
Once the homepage design was signed off, we re-used the same design elements throughout the site. Think of the homepage as a TV remote — we re-use the same controls on every page so customers never have to re-learn a different remote as they move through the site, creating a uniform and frictionless experience.
Custom inventory landing pages
Because Kriete sells different types of inventory, we created additional inventory landing pages from a single inventory source feed, so customers get to the inventory type they're looking for right away. It also helps SEO — keeping each type on its own page makes it more crawlable and helps Google categorize it properly.
On-page SEO & accessibility
As always, we support on-page SEO with best practices like alt tags on images and videos, meta descriptions, and proper header usage — and equipped Kriete with on-page SEO software to enhance their pages further. Our AI-powered websites are also built to the latest accessibility guidelines, with tools that let users increase contrast, font sizes, and more.
HubSpot CRM integration
Kriete wanted to use the tried-and-true HubSpot platform for their CRM needs. So that website leads populate into HubSpot automatically, HubSpot forms were created and incorporated directly into the site — a best-of-both-worlds scenario: a premium-built Buzznerd website with forms integrated straight into HubSpot.