From launching their new brand to supporting their $2.3B acquisition, we’ve been with Lifeworks every step of the way.
The Challenge
Lifeworks’ business was… “complicated.”
LifeWorks, a global leader in what the organization refers to as “total well-being,” helps companies support their employees in all aspects of their life — touching on everything from mental and physical well-being to long-term financial stability.
Their activities were also evolving…
We had already centralized a disparate collection of multiple web properties by honing in on LifeWorks’ audience, establishing a unified information architecture, and bringing the new site under the control of a single governing body.
But during that rebrand and rebuild, another issue emerged. Where MorneauSheppell was a consulting and services organization that also had products, LifeWorks was a product-first company that happened to offer related services.
In effect, the entire purpose of the site had changed. What had been a credibility and validation tool now needed to generate inbound leads and requests for product demos.
And they were entering different markets.
LifeWorks also had plans to expand its international presence and enter new markets in the US, the UK, and Australia. Complicating matters, the company had unique offerings for each geographical area, while a common core of services remained constant worldwide.
The Solution
First, we enabled lead generation.
To help power lead generation — LifeWorks’ first challenge — we set up detailed monitoring and tracking to get precise information about the effect of each edit we made.
Then we began a careful program of A/B testing on various conversion-focused changes, scientifically determining which ones created a more significant lift in lead generation. Half of the site traffic in a given test period would go to the original site, and the other half would go to the version with our proposed changes.
At the end of each test period (typically a month), we would either implement the new version or leave the site as-is, depending on which version performed better.
Then we helped power a global expansion.
Concurrently, we ran SEO campaigns for hundreds of keywords on critical internal pages. We also managed and supported the web roll-out for new LifeWorks products that were being launched at the same time.
Finally, we reduced site overhead.
Finally, once the site had achieved some key performance benchmarks, we used it to create a Distribution Archetype — a full copy of all the Drupal code under the hood. (Foster had previously succeeded with this approach with the University of Toronto’s 45 Faculty of Medicine websites.) This Archetype has been rolled out to the company’s US website, with Australia and the United Kingdom soon to come.
These sites will share the same codebase (and many of the same features) and can be more easily updated, patched, and maintained. Crucially, however, each will stay independent of the others in case of problems. In other words, if one site crashes, the others will remain online.
From launching their new brand to supporting their $2.3B acquisition, we’ve been with Lifeworks every step of the way.
The Foster Difference
We call our approach to websites “platform thinking” — and it’s a methodology that pays dividends.
Our A/B testing process, for example, led to a proven 40% increase in demo bookings — after only the first testing phase — as well as a better-performing site navigation menu.
Our SEO efforts have achieved many first-, second- or third-on-page results.
And the Distribution will allow each separate regional website to take advantage of the same features. This will help them quickly launch sites in new markets — and keep maintenance needs sustainable.
2.3 Billion Reasons to Work With Foster
As it turns out, the results we achieved for LifeWorks couldn’t have come at a better time. On September 1, 2022, TELUS Corporation announced it had acquired the company for C$2.3 billion. LifeWorks will now execute its growth strategy as a part of a C$15.3 billion corporation that touches over 50 million employees’ lives in more than 160 countries.
The acquisition validates the value of the Foster Approach.
After all, when a company thinks about its site as a platform, not simply a project, experiments become everyday occurrences — not intimidating challenges or impractical one-time affairs.
More importantly, platform thinking encourages companies to adopt a culture of continuous improvement, one which leads to a vastly improved online experience.
By adopting these methods at our direction, LifeWorks improved site performance, evolved into new markets and became an appealing target for acquisition — and we couldn’t be prouder to have helped.
Our platform-thinking approach to testing and iteration pays real dividends. For LifeWorks it led to a 40% increase in demo bookings — and eventually a $2.3B acquisition.
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