How an energy industry consultancy merged three research products into a single platform

Demand for market intelligence from WoodMac has led to the acquisition of two related industry-knowledge businesses in the Power & Renewables sector – but this left the business managing customers across three separate content platforms with varied user experiences, structures and functionality across the sites.

‘Having three platforms was a problem…’

“WoodMac has grown by acquisition, since 2016, we have taken on Greentech Media and MAKE to bolster our Power & Renewables offering, but this left us with three separate self-service platforms,” said Matthew DaPrato, Product Suite Director, Power & Renewables, WoodMac.

“Having three platforms to run was a problem. Similar products across the sites had different names, each platform had a unique structure, and functionality was varied across the sites, there was no consistency.”

WoodMac used Content Catalyst’s publishing and monetisation platform to merge the content of WoodMac, Make, and Greentech Media. Its Power & Renewables information is now published under the WoodMac brand through a single, customer-centric web portal.

“The Content Catalyst system is intuitive and it’s simple to use. Content Catalyst has elegant features; particularly its search, which has really helped our engagement, both internally and externally. We have also been able to align our structures and add consistency across our Power & Renewables content,” added Matthew.

‘Lots of customers didn’t know what content we had…’

With content spread across three platforms, WoodMac was spending a significant proportion of time dealing with queries as customers couldn’t easily find the content they needed.

“Many of our customers didn’t really understand the breadth of information we had,” said Matthew. “Now, we can organise around topics, subject categories, and even products to make it easier for customers to find and access every piece of content that might be useful to them.

Making it easier for clients to understand the entire Power & Renewables content portfolio and to find and access content for themselves contributed to growing ‘per user’ engagement levels in the first three months of using Content Catalyst.” Matthew described this change as a “ very encouraging sign.”

‘It allowed us to move to market quickly…’

With 365 pieces of content published in 2018, WoodMac is used to creating and releasing new Power & Renewables materials almost every day. As such, it wanted to avoid a long implementation of publishing technology. It needed a solution that would satisfy its customers’ needs and that could be up and running in the shortest possible time.

“Implementation was critical for us,” added Matthew. “We wanted to do it quickly, we only had a tight window to bring a new platform online… considering all the technology and stakeholders we had to engage, we managed to get it done pretty efficiently.”

The speed of implementation allowed WoodMac to go to market quickly with its new unified brand and, in doing so, enabled its clients to engage with its Power & Renewables content in a new, user-friendly environment at the earliest possible opportunity.