The digital marketing ecosystem changes all the time, so it’s important to include exploration, adaptation, and evolution as strategic components. We had this proven again recently in our work with J. Rotbart & Co. — a family-owned bullion house that buys, sells, and stores precious metals.
In just three months, we tripled inbound leads by aligning the company’s web-content, email marketing, and customer service to better align with their clientele and brand.
From meaningful storytelling to smart AI integration, here are five key lessons we’ve learned from helping J. Rotbart & Co. grow their digital presence.
1. Put Faces to Names
People connect with people — and in digital marketing, visuals are one of the most effective ways to build that connection. In May, we updated J. Rotbart & Co.’s social media strategy by focusing on cleaner, more human-centered content. This included team photos, candid moments, and warm visuals that helped put real faces behind the brand, and drove a deeper connection with the audience by leveraging the Fusiform Face Area.
The results were clear:
- +37.7% increase in profile and post views in May
- +80% increase in views in June
These aren’t just vanity metrics, they translated into an increase in leads from social channels, as well as an increase in the brand’s visibility.
The takeaway: People like doing business with people. Use imagery that builds familiarity and trust by showing your team in action.
2. Tell a Story, Don’t Just Report the News
When we analyzed blog performance across May and June, one pattern stood out: Visitors spend more time on blogs and posts that tell a story. Narrative content, especially when written in a conversational, human voice, outperformed data-heavy or news-style updates by a wide margin.
- In May, the blog “Trump, Tariffs, and Trade” held readers’ attention for 39 seconds, compared to just 9 seconds on a more technical post.
- In June, “Halfway Through 2025: Is it Time to Boost Your Gold and Silver Holdings?” kept readers on the page for 1 minute and 34 seconds, while a standard market update saw just 20 seconds of attention.
The takeaway: Storytelling drives engagement, even in finance! Readers seek context, voice, and personality, not only numbers.
3. Email Isn’t Dead — It’s Your Traffic Engine
When it comes to driving website performance for jrotbart.com, email marketing remains one of the most effective tools in our playbook. In May, J. Rotbart & Co.’s blog got nearly 30 times the traffic it did in April. To be exact, we saw a +2,734% increase in views. The biggest driver behind this increase? Sending out a newsletter update for each new blog posted that month.
The blog and newsletters accounted for 7.1% of total website traffic in May, and by June, that number nearly doubled, to 13.9%. Getting a 93.2% month-over-month increase in email traffic is a clear win, especially since these are highly engaged and motivated people, who are much likelier to buy.
The takeaway: Email and content work best together. Once you have quality on your blog, you have to share and promote it with your newsletter to fully leverage the opportunity for engagement and conversions.
4. AI Is Here — Use It Aptly, or Lose Opportunities
More clients are turning to AI not just for automation, but for accessibility. J. Rotbart & Co. recently implemented a new AI-powered chatbot on their website — a service offered by b2bLEAD.ai, a joint initiative powered by VIMI’s digital marketing insights and VRG’s technology expertise. The AI assistant delivers immediate, accurate answers, in any language, and helps site visitors get expert precious metals advice instantly and anonymously. The results were remarkable — The AI increased inbound leads by 20%.
The takeaway: AI isn’t a fad, it’s the future. By enhancing user experience and providing consistent and accurate replies to inquiries, any time, and in any language, all while allowing people to maintain their anonymity, it delivers clear and measurable ROI.
5. Embrace Change and Grow With Your Audience
More traffic doesn’t always mean better results. In J. Rotbart & Co.’s recent ad campaigns, in May we noticed that some audiences were generating a lot of IMPRESSIONS, but nearly no ENGAGEMENT. In other words, this was a waste of the advertising budget.
To improve performance, we made some changes to how Google Ads was deployed, and in June, we saw a 195% increase in leads, even though overall traffic to the site dropped by 9%. This was clear proof that the targeting of the ads had greatly improved.
We’ve now set a clear goal: drive less than 10% of traffic from low-conversion sources and reallocate the majority of advertising spend on traffic from top markets.
The takeaway: The wealth of performance data available for digital marketing efforts makes it easy to lose focus on the metrics that count. While impressions and clicks are nice to have, unless they’re converting into leads and sales, they’re not worth the cost.
Final Thoughts: Strategy and Process Carry the Day
At VIMI, we believe digital marketing should always be grounded in results, not guesswork. Our work with J. Rotbart & Co. continues to show that consistent growth can only come from having a process. It’s about identifying elements that might perform better, developing hypotheses on how to improve them, and running experiments to test these hypotheses in the real world. It’s a process that requires an ability to accept a certain amount of risk – Not every experiment will end up in success, and it also requires humility – Sometimes data will prove your best ideas to be wrong, and you just have to learn to accept that, and come up with the next idea…
If you’re looking to modernize your marketing funnel, elevate your content, or explore how AI can work for your business, get in touch with us. We’d love to show you what’s possible.
