Illumio & Igility blitzscale a cyber security startup with deep collaboration

Intro

Illumio, a Silicon Valley cybersecurity company, looked to Igility to bring their web presence to the next level. Igility implemented Drupal, an enterprise-grade content management system to streamline their content efforts while ensuring the kind of security that such a firm requires. From there, Igility had a seat at the table in planning and executing Illumio’s marketing campaigns to drive the company’s hyper-growth strategy.

Before our engagement, Illumio was stuck on a small business platform which was expensive, difficult to edit and lacked the flexibility, security and performance they needed for their next stage of growth. 

Igility migrated their platform in record time, then took to boosting the performance, user experience and reach of Illumio’s presence driving significant increases in traffic, conversions, leads and operational efficiency. highlights include:

• Traffic: +124%
• Site conversions: +37%
• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) : +52%
• Opportunities: +290%
• Web impact on Marketing Sourced Qualified Pipeline +70%
• Saved approximately 480+ hours annually by implementing Drupal self-serve solutions for content owners

Who is Illumio?

Illumio is a Silicon Valley cybersecurity company pioneering in zero trust segmentation. What does that mean? Well, imagine constructing a dam and expecting it to stop the rain from falling on your head. Now imagine that the dam is your corporate firewall and the rain is malware, ransomware, viruses and other security attacks. Now stop imagining because that’s the world we are in now. Yup…it’s that bad and Illumio is at the forefront of combatting cybersecurity threats in this environment.

The founders at Illumio asked the question “What if we simply assume the attacks are everywhere? How would we protect the systems now?” This was the beginning of Zero Trust Segmentation. It’s an approach to network security that catalogs all of your network assets in corporate networks, in the cloud and in the wild, then allows only the traffic you want between these assets. Add in a simple yet powerful user interface and ransomware, virus and intrusion detection and you get Illumio.

This is a Series F funded Silicon Valley company which means that they are in what we call the hyper-growth phase, so the needs and changes come fast and furious.

The Challenge

As a top tier VC funded silicon valley software company, speed is key. Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, even wrote a book about it called Blitzscaling. Illumio had grown past its small business phase and needed to up its game into an enterprise-grade marketing architecture. This meant moving away from the small business tools they had and toward more flexible, nimble environments allowing them to quickly make website changes, build and execute marketing campaigns and drive a new level of growth.

Having proven its product and secured its Series F funding, it was time to bring Zero Trust Segmentation to the world. The next step was to create an enterprise level marketing team and technology stack. Illumio chose Igility to migrate its site to Drupal then partner with the marketing team to design, develop and . The hitch was that it had to be completed within the next 60 days before the contract on the old system expired.

The Solution

Emergency Migration

First, Igility migrated Illumio’s website to Drupal in time for the transition without extending their old CMS contract. This was accomplished by mapping the components, designing a compatible content architecture within Drupal, scripting the migration of content to the new site so that, when the time came, we were able to migrate even the latest content to the new site so the content team would not lose a beat.

At Igility we combine the ability to scale our team to meet the aggressive needs of our clients with a local, high touch boutique marketing firm experience tailoring our approach to meet the needs of our clients. This is how, as a small firm, we have built customer experiences for Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Insight and Henry Schein. Now, Igility offers flexible staffing plans which enable short and long term right-sized teams at a fraction of the cost of hiring internally.

As a result of our nimble approach to serving our clients our team was able to grow to meet the aggressive timetable and migrate the site in 55 days with time to spare before the expiration of their prior hosting plan.

Site Optimization

The next step was to work with Illumio on further optimizing the site for performance, SEO optimization and streamlining of content.

In 2017, Google commissioned a study to measure the impact of site performance on user satisfaction. They found that bounce rate increases by 32% in the first 3 seconds of page load time and it skyrockets thereafter. 

In 2020, a new set of performance criteria were released called Core Web Vitals and these measures were incorporated into Google’s search rankings in 2021. 

Being a member of the Silicon Valley community, Illumio wanted to be at the forefront of this effort, so we worked with them to optimize their site for competitive performance from day 1 of Google’s initiative.

We have since worked with many of our clients to optimize their sites to meet Google’s ever increasing performance expectations ensuring that SEO opportunities are not left on the table to the competition.

Translation and Localization

Translating your website is your window into the global economy.

We have supported multiple clients in the translation of their websites using various tools and techniques. Some businesses are looking to project their presence on a budget and go with fully automated translation. Others want full control over the process in order to ensure translational integrity and cultural alignment, so they leverage human translators.

Igility worked with Illumio’s preferred translation provider, Translations.com’s GlobalLink service,  to integrate the translation process directly into the website enabling a translation and approval workflow including Illumio’s remote offices as well as their corporate marketing team. This way, Illumio’s marketing team was able to focus on content while the translation process managed itself. This approach puts them in full control ensuring accuracy, proper tone of voice and minimal risk of miscommunication.

Ongoing support of the marketing team

With these key projects under our belt, Igility then turned to supporting Illumio’s growth initiatives including:

• Product launches
• Conference promotion
• Marketing automation (Marketo) setup and development
• Training services
• Design services

With each major initiative, Igility was there to support Illumio’s challenges as we supported them through product launches, event promotions and other key campaigns.

Outcome and Conclusion

For the year following the migration of Illumio’s site to Drupal as we continued partnering with their team, Illumio’s site posted the following results:

• Traffic: +124%
• Site conversions: +37%
• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) : +52%
• Opportunities: +290%
• Web impact on Marketing Sourced Qualified Pipeline +70%
• Saved approximately 480+ hours annually by implementing Drupal self-serve solutions for content owners
• Cut web production time required for GTM initiatives, product launches, and campaigns by 50+% thanks to streamlined workflows, fast and simple authoring ability, and more built-in options for customization and design flexibility