Type: Case Study

Our Work

GBG Website Redesign: The Essentials

“Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquility. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”

This quote from Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor from the second century CE, sums up the attitude we were all feeling as a company in 2022. We had challenged ourselves to make more impact with our clients faster, spending less time doing foundational branding work and more time driving results. We had also fully integrated EOS around this time, which helped us realize that we needed to simplify. 

After doing a lot of hard work on our processes and approach (and seeing our clients respond positively), we realized that our website no longer reflected the experience and expertise that we delivered to our clients. We also saw an opportunity to strip out the fluff and focus solely on the main things prospective clients care about: how we can ease their pain points and help them succeed and the proof that we’ll be successful. 

Building for Today, Laying Groundwork for the Future

Our goals for the website included the following:

  • Drive marketing and sales-qualified leads for GBG
  • Be a valuable resource for sales and marketing professionals in manufacturing to help them do their jobs better and more easily, whether they work with us or not
  • Accurately reflect the current experience of the GBG sales process and what it’s like to be a client
  • Showcase up-to-date work so that prospects can get a taste of our quality

When building anything—an aircraft engine, a house, a website—it’s important to start with the essentials. Our team couldn’t help but come up with a million ideas of things we should include on the site, but ultimately, we made our sitemap as simple as possible to increase our speed to launch and still achieve our goals.

Instead of organizing our services into à la carte-style pages, we created a Solutions page for prospects that speaks to the common goals and challenges we most often hear from industrial sales and marketing professionals. We built the architecture of this page to allow expansion deeper into individual tactics we deploy in campaigns and programs later.

The Our Work section of the site features filtering functionality, allowing users to view projects by type, services rendered, and the deliverables included.

Essential Knowledge + More Energy

Simplifying our processes and adopting EOS breathed new life into our team, and we punched up our visuals to reflect this renewed energy. We incorporated a simple shapes motif to represent how we break complex problems down to the essentials, solving for root causes and building marketing systems that work. We also brightened our color palette to reflect the positivity, drive, and growth mindset all our go!mates share.

What’s Next: Website 2.0

Now that we’ve built a solid foundation with a website that reflects what prospects can expect when working with us, we are working in the background on the next evolution of our site to bring even more value to our audiences. 

Recently launched, our 5-minute marketing assessment helps users get a sense of the current state of their marketing systems with a customized, actionable, research-backed report. We are also working on producing additional insights articles that answer the questions we are asked most frequently by industrial sales and marketing professionals.

Follow us on LinkedIn to keep up with the latest tools and resources that can help you do more effective marketing and sales. 

Our Work

Every Team Member Counts: Driving Team Member Engagement

About NSSL

INDUSTRY: Yard Management Solutions

National Shunt (NSSL) is a Toronto-based company that provides total yard management services to retailers, industrial companies, utility providers, grocers, and other large-scale distribution businesses across North America.

Results

A new employee portal that strengthens engagement and improves operations.

Every Team Member Counts: Driving Team Member Engagement Through the Pandemic and Beyond

National Shunt (NSSL) is a Toronto-based company that provides total yard management services to retailers, industrial companies, utility providers, grocers, and other large-scale distribution businesses across North America. Known as “shunting,” NSSL performs trailer moves and gatehouse security operations (among other activities) that support logistics operations as a whole.

NSSL is a technology- and people-focused organization that uses its proprietary software, Shuntware, to drive better results in efficiency, safety, and profitability for its customers. Founded by former yard truck drivers, NSSL is also known for its “roll up your sleeves” culture where people are only limited by how much they are willing to learn. Many leaders in the organization also started as shunt drivers, having worked their way up with hard work and determination.

In this case study, we’ll tell the story of how we helped NSSL strengthen engagement and improve operations with technology.

Creating Connections and Improving Operations

Our team interviewed several successful NSSL shunt drivers to get a better understanding of the problems they faced in their jobs every day, what they liked about the organization, and what would make their jobs easier. Several of the team members we talked to mentioned that in the past, NSSL had an online tool where team members could read company news and see what was going on in the organization. They said that they enjoyed seeing what was going on and that it helped them feel more connected to the company as a whole. 

At the same time, NSSL’s HR department was looking to streamline its functions. Having relied mostly on manual processes for things like PTO requests and scheduling, the paperwork was becoming more time consuming and overwhelming as the organization grew. 

They also recognized that they needed a better way to provide information to team members regarding benefits. Getting documentation was a laborious process for everyone involved, with the team member needing to contact HR and then have the documents mailed or emailed to them.

Then…boom. Pandemic.

Introducing the Portal

Covid accelerated the need for a centralized, digital place where NSSL team members could find resources and stay connected to the organization. 

We worked with NSSL to create a team member portal that enhances connectedness and provides better access to resources while leaving room for new features to be added in the future. The first features we built focus on driving team member engagement and streamlining labor-intensive HR functions.

HR Functionality

HR Dashboard

When a new team member is hired at NSSL, the HR team is able to input new team members and tag them with their appropriate department. When a team member is tagged, it allows HR to manage their access to areas of the portal. It also customizes the experience for the team member so they can see their yard assignments and weather for their assigned area. They can also view all of their benefits information in one place, which saves them the time they would have spent emailing HR to request that information.

Manage My Schedule

When a team member is tagged in the portal, they’re also assigned to their manager. Team members are able to request time off and those requests go directly to their manager, so the manager can approve time-off requests and manage their team’s schedule.

Team Member Referral

Hiring great team members can be a challenge, and a great way to get new team members in the door is to encourage team member referrals. NSSL team members are able to fill out a form on the site that shares information with Human Resources about team members who would be a good fit for NSSL.

Flexible Advantage (Canada Team)

NSSL offers a program called Flexible Advantage to their Canadian team members, where they are given a stipend to put toward benefits. Before the portal, every team member had to manually send an email telling HR how they wanted to allocate those funds. Now team members can fill out a form on the portal that goes directly to HR and the information is collected on the back end of the site. This feature alone saves NSSL 1–2 hours per request every time one is submitted.

Team Member Engagement

Feedback

NSSL actively seeks team member feedback, on both what they’re doing well and what needs to be improved. The feedback feature on the portal has streamlined the flow of this information between team members and leadership. This allows leadership to take real team member feedback and improve systems and processes. This is not only allowing NSSL to improve, but team members feel engaged and heard when giving feedback, knowing that it’ll be considered.

Messaging Feature

The tagging feature also allows HR and management to communicate with NSSL team members when they need to send messages to a specific group of team members. The messages are sent through the portal, team members receive an email notification, and then can go check their messages tab in the portal. This allows managers and HR to communicate with ease and allows team members to keep all of those communications in one place.

Nominate a Team Member

NSSL team members can also nominate coworkers for recognition through the portal. These notifications go to the HR department and give NSSL the opportunity to highlight team members who are showcasing NSSL values on social media. This allows current and future team members to see the great things that are happening at NSSL and also showcases that it’s a great place to work!

“We worked with an industry-leading yard management company to build a team member portal that enhanced internal engagement and streamlined HR functions.”

Our Work

Collaboration and Strategic Project Library Bring NewGround’s Website to Life

In early 2019, our friends at NewGround engaged goBRANDgo! to design and build a new website featuring a refreshed brand identity, a full library of projects, and a robust Research & Insight section featuring the firm’s notable thought leadership. 

NewGround is an architecture firm regarded as the industry thought-leader in strategy, innovative design, and project management. They help financial institutions master the power of their space to create the next generation workplace and retail solutions. What makes NewGround different from other design firms is that they create measurable return-on-investment for institutions due to a strategic, data-driven, menu-based approach. From workplace strategy to project management, and from micro-branches to corporate headquarters, NewGround has been known as the market leader in the bank-building category since the company took root over 100 years ago. 

Having established a new brand voice, messaging, and key visual elements, NewGround engaged goBRANDgo! to translate its refreshed identity into their new website experience. 

Showcasing NewGround’s Expertise

NewGround offers a wide variety of services that can be combined into full-scale, end-to-end solutions or be used on their own to deliver other strategic outcomes. To demonstrate the flexibility of NewGround’s “menu-based” approach and showcase real-world results, the goBRANDgo! team set out to create a project library that would be featured prominently on the site.

The goBRANDgo! team also conducted interactive exercises with NewGround’s team to obtain the necessary information (along with independent research) needed to identify the key audiences for the new site, which would then inform the structure of the project library. Through insightful questioning and research discovery, we identified three key audiences—each with different motivations and values. 

To make finding relevant information easier for users, we decided to create a robust filtering system for NewGround’s project library. Projects can be filtered by service, scope, and area of expertise, or a combination of all three. 

Once the user clicks on a single project, they can view a gallery of images showcasing NewGround’s work and easily download an expanded PDF with the project’s information and images. They also can view a full list of services provided by NewGround on each project, with links that take them to explore more about each individual service. 

A Refreshed Identity for the Next Generation of Design

NewGround partners with financial institutions and retail environments to help them transform to meet consumer needs and improve the employee experience. Its new brand identity features airy white space, vibrant colors, and a bold, sans-serif typeface that exudes modernity. 

Taking inspiration from NewGround’s expertise, we crafted the website design with clarity, light, and ease—the same principles that govern architecture, while the clean design serves and uplifts the imagery of NewGround’s work.

The brand voice comes across as sophisticated yet accessible, conveying complex concepts in a way that’s easy to understand for the reader. Its short sentences and bold statements straightforwardly communicate NewGround’s value proposition. 

Conclusion

Through collaboration and data gathering, we were able to deliver a site for NewGround that organized their wealth of expertise in a visually appealing, user-friendly manner. Now, NewGround is able to provide a web experience that aligns with the vibrant innovation that comprises the core of the organization. 

Our Work

Architecting Future Growth

Positioning a Locally-Based Engineering Firm to Compete on a National Level

David Mason & Associates is an architectural and engineering firm that focuses on designing and improving the essential infrastructure that makes our everyday lives possible. The firm was founded in 1989 in St. Louis, MO, offering architecture, civil engineering, and surveying services. Since its founding, it has expanded its expertise in structural engineering along with serving aviation, transportation, parks & recreation, power & utility, and municipal markets. David Mason & Associates has four regional offices in St. Louis, MO, Chicago, IL, and Philadelphia, PA.

Looking Toward Expansion

David Mason & Associates had established a solid reputation in their local markets over the past nearly 30 years by completing thousands of prestigious projects. As the next generation of leadership in the company prepared to take the helm, they approached goBRANDgo! for guidance on how David Mason & Associates could best position itself for growth. In the initial research phase, it was clear that the firm had amazing potential to become a major national player in its industry, but an outdated brand and website was standing in the way. So, goBRANDgo! set out to create an updated logo, brand identity, and website that would reflect the company’s prestige and expertise, as well as help propel David Mason & Associates to national prominence.

Thoughtful Execution

At goBRANDgo!, we employ a defined process of discovery when we are engaged in rebranding and website efforts. In our research, we discovered that David Mason & Associates was commonly known as “DMA” in the engineering community and industries they serve. In developing the new company logo, we created a mark that blended the company initials and engineered structures, with the goal of creating something that could eventually stand alone and would be instantly recognizable within the field. We also wanted to respect the proud history of the company while creating something simple and clean that would convey modernity and structure. 

In the website, the grid imagery present in the original logo was used as a design element throughout in order to visually communicate expertise in engineering. The color palette was updated, and the new site leveraged white space to show purpose-driven and clean as design values. The sitemap was reorganized to appeal to each of their target markets and make it easy to access information. 

In copy, David Mason & Associates’ engineering expertise was clear—however, with heavy use of industry verbiage, the value proposition of the company was lost on the reader. By simplifying the language and clearly communicating to each industry served, the company’s goal of improving essential infrastructure was pulled through as a theme of the entire site.

Finally, the website was mapped out and built in a way that guided the user down a series of defined paths based on personas developed by goBRANDgo!. Thanks to this mindful restructuring, the new website functioned in a way that fueled the growth of the business, instead of being a placeholder online.

Revealing DMA’s Competitive Clout

To mark the unveiling of the new company branding and website, David Mason & Associates hosted a launch party for all employees across St. Louis, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The celebration created buzz and energy among David Mason & Associates’ internal team, bolstering its already high morale and motivating team members to advocate for the business to potential clients and new talent. In addition, new leads began to stream through the website via contact forms, and David Mason & Associates received several multi-million dollar requests for proposals through the new online form.

David Mason & Associates also received recognition at the STL SMPS Marketing Excellence Awards in June 2018, an annual event that recognizes outstanding achievement in marketing communications by professional service firms in the design and building industry. David Mason & Associates was recognized with an Award of Excellence for its refreshed corporate identity, an Award of Merit for the newly launched website, and was named overall Best in Show by the panel of judges.

Through the rebranding efforts for David Mason & Associates, goBRANDgo! helped remove barriers to growth. By updating the look and feel of the brand, the innovation and expertise that were obvious to the company’s past clients and its team members were revealed to the outside world. Now, David Mason & Associates is receiving the attention it deserves from a wider, national market, and is continuing to accelerate revenue growth each year.

“goBRANDgo! did an exceptional job at developing a focused approach to our Brand Refresh which aligned with our strategic focus. From website content to sales and presentation collateral, the GoBrandGo team was professional and responsive to our needs. Ultimately, they made an intimidating process fun and collaborative.”

-Taylor Mason, Principal at David Mason & Associates

Our Work

Igniting Momentum: ÅirIQ Product Launch

About Cosasco

INDUSTRY: Atmospheric Corrosion Monitoring

Cosasco has been exclusively dedicated to corrosion management for over 70 years. They have a strong history of proven product and service solutions as well as a commitment to continue advancing the corrosion industry through innovation and expertise.

Results

Messaging, design, and strategic product launch of the ÅirIQ product

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Units Sold

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Units Quoted

What is ÅirIQ?

One type of corrosion that affects pulp and paper mill and data center environments specifically is atmospheric corrosion. Cosasco created ÅirIQ to help customers in these industries make better decisions about their corrosion management activities. What sets ÅirIQ apart is the hypersensitive electrical resistance technology (which indicates a corrosive environment before damage to assets can occur) coupled with the system’s ability to display real-time data.

This real-time monitoring helps ÅirIQ users stay ahead of corrosion, instead of spending time and resources fixing a problem after it has already occurred. This type of technology and information is game-changing for directors and engineers responsible for controlled environments.

Positioning and Launching ÅirIQ

Every project at goBRANDgo! starts with learning. We met with subject matter experts at Cosasco to learn the features and benefits of the product and gain a better understanding of the target audiences we were trying to reach. We were especially eager to learn about the audience for ÅirIQ because it represented an opportunity for Cosasco to penetrate new markets. Prior to launching ÅirIQ and a few other recent products, they had worked primarily in the oil and gas industry. We needed to ask a lot of questions to gain insight into the audiences of pulp and paper mills and data centers.

To get inside our prospects’ heads, we led a live rapid persona exercise with Cosasco where we delved into the problems, motivations, and desired outcomes for the different audiences they served. 

Once we had a good grasp on the differentiators of the product and the challenges of the audience, we brainstormed how copy and design could work together to create a compelling message. We presented three creative approaches and painted the picture for Cosasco about how each of them could come to life in the launch campaign and future messaging for ÅirIQ. We created sample ads with differing visuals and copy to illustrate what each idea could look like out in the wild.

Once we decided on the messaging and creative direction for the launch, our creative, strategy, and client success teams worked together to create a series of a deliverables and a plan for deployment. We decided that a mixture of traditional sales enablement tools and digital marketing tactics would give Cosasco the multi-channel support they needed to make the launch a success.

Deliverables we executed included:

  • Website Landing Page
  • Website Pop-Up
  • Sales Sheet
  • Digital Ads

The creative approach we landed on used both dark and light backgrounds to bring contrast with Cosasco’s existing visuals for other corrosion monitoring products, which featured mostly dark backgrounds. Since the launch had to appeal to markets outside of Cosasco’s core oil and gas audience, the visual differentiation helped solidify the uniqueness of the ÅirIQ product.

The visuals also incorporated an angular, all-caps sans serif typeface that lent a technological feel, along with other design elements reminiscent of data, which reflect both the capabilities of the ÅirIQ system and the data center environment that it is well suited for (among others). 

We began creating copy inspired by the idea of “invisible monsters,” threats lurking in the atmosphere just waiting to take down critical assets. We wove this concept into the content of the entire campaign, speaking to the way that ÅirIQ’s real-time data replaces uncertainty with confidence in controlled environments—making the unse

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Leads

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Customer Trials

Results

Cosasco secured the first purchase order for ÅirIQ on the date of the product launch. In the three weeks that followed, they had sold 15 units, quoted over 40 units and had secured leads for 120 units. Three customers signed up for trials, and they were invited to speak at a few industry conferences about the product and its capabilities.

Protecting critical infrastructure from the harmful effects of corrosion keeps modern life as we know it up and running. After the momentum gained by this product launch, we’re continuing to work with Cosasco to refine their brand identity and reclaim their position as the go-to provider for corrosion monitoring solutions worldwide.

“Bringing a Cutting-Edge Corrosion Monitoring System to New Markets”

Cosasco

Our Work

Maneuvering for Growth: Innovating and Launching New Products with a Leading Domestic Chain Manufacturer

The customer is an industrial chain manufacturer that traces its roots back to 1854, when it began as a small blacksmith’s shop in St. Louis, MO. Its first products included the chain that hooked oxen to Conestoga wagons as pioneers began their journey west along the Oregon Trail. Today, the company has four facilities across North America that house over 250,000 square feet of manufacturing and distribution space. It produces chain for a variety of applications including overhead lifting, tow & binding, traction, and marine, among others. 

Facing Heavy Competition

The customer engaged goBRANDgo! to provide strategic guidance in honing its competitive advantage as the company prepared for a leadership transition. With competition from foreign-produced chain steadily on the rise, it was becoming urgent for the customer to differentiate themselves in an increasingly commoditized market. This challenge left us two choices: overpower the competition, or outmaneuver it. 

Despite the customer’s strong position as a highly reliable and well-respected manufacturer, we knew that attempting to overpower the competition with a big advertising budget or other conventional tactics would not be effective in differentiating it from its competitors. We began to brainstorm with their team about creating a new product that could fulfill customer needs that weren’t being met at the time. 

The Insight

We began our relationship with the customer (as we do with every one of our clients) with our immersion phase, in which we deployed our proven process that helped goBRANDgo! understand their business and industry through “day in the life” shadowing, competitor research, and customer interviews. The moment we stepped foot into the customer’s Fenton, MO facility, we understood instantly that safety is the first priority of both their operation and the products they produce, and every bit of information we learned after that supported this focus on safety.

Through our research, we also discovered that construction workers comprise only 4% of the labor force, but account for 21% of work-related fatalities. Also, between 2011 and 2015, half of all fatal crane-related injuries resulted from the worker being struck by an object, and 24% of all crane-related fatalities occurred in manufacturing and industrial settings. So, as we continued to brainstorm with the customer’s team, we sparked an idea: what if there was a way to make industrial chain easier to see?

A Chain Like No One Had Seen Before

The customer’s team got to work developing this new product, and as a result of their expertise and ingenuity, produced a chain that was 20% stronger and lighter than any other U.S.-made chain, as well as featuring a brightly-colored powder coated finish. Two finish colors were developed, a bright yellow and a bright green, in order to visually indicate the grade of the chain. 

goBRANDgo! was tasked with naming this innovative new product, and our team conducted a series of structured brainstorms to create a name that would communicate the benefits and quality of the new chain. Thus, Hi-Viz was born. As a result of the collaboration of the customer’s and goBRANDgo!’s teams, they were able to go to market with a product unlike any other in the industry. 

For the launch of Hi-Viz chain, goBRANDgo! created a marketing campaign to educate customers and create excitement for the new product. The campaign included direct mail, an email drip campaign, a website landing page, and other supporting materials to help the customer’s sales team and distributor partners demonstrate the value of Hi-Viz chain.

Safety, Strength, and Profitability: A Win-Win-Win

Hi-Viz chain increases the safety of the environments in which it is applied by making the chain stand out from the environment—whether in a manufacturing plant or outdoor construction setting. With loads weighing as much as 100,000 tons being lifted overhead regularly, the greater the visibility of the equipment being used, the safer the site becomes. Not only does Hi-Viz chain help address safety concerns, but its lighter weight and stronger capacity also make it a more effective product for consumers and increases margins for the customer.

In a highly commoditized industry, the ability to think strategically and differentiate yourself from the market is paramount. It spells the difference between growth and decline. Waging a war of attrition in such an environment is risky—it’s unlikely to work, but is sure to be expensive. At goBRANDgo!, we prefer to help our clients develop a maneuver strategy, which leverages innovation and agility to help them occupy new spaces in their industry that create competitive advantages in ever redder oceans.

Our Work

Equipping Success: Banner Fire Website

About Banner Fire Equipment

INDUSTRY: Fire Equipment Distribution

Banner Fire has been equipping firefighters and emergency responders across the Midwest with best-in-class fire and rescue apparatus, gear, and tools for nearly four decades. Their modern 39,000-square-foot facility ensures they have what emergency responders need to protect their communities.

Results

Updated website and e-commerce experience that helps emergency responders get what they need quickly.

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Manual Hours Saved

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Cost Savings

Equipping for Success

Banner Fire has been equipping first responders and firefighters with the tools they need to protect their communities for nearly four decades. Their 39,000-square-foot facility houses everything an emergency responder needs to get the job done safely, from parts and service to testing and inspections.

The team at Banner Fire had a vision: to be the Amazon for firefighters and first responders to make it as fast and easy for these community heroes to access the equipment they need to stay safe while saving lives. In order to do this, they sought to improve the e-commerce functionality on their website to better integrate with their ERP system. This would make their large inventory and newly expanded product offerings available to customers online, providing an easier buying experience and better access to their full suite of products.

The Project

Improving Automation to Save Time and Reduce Error Risk

Banner Fire warehouses approximately 8,000 products on any given day. To be effective, they needed to bring more automation to the integration between their ERP system and the e-commerce functionality on the website. Prior to this project, Banner Fire team members worked daily with the ERP to pull any information that had changed (prices, descriptions, titles, SKU numbers, manufacturer updates, etc.), and manually entered changes into the e-commerce platform, a time-consuming and error-prone process.

Enhancing Experiences

To reflect Banner Fire’s position as a market leader and align with their vision of becoming the Amazon for first responders, the UI/UX of the e-commerce functionality needed to be simplified and streamlined. We also saw the opportunity to enhance Banner Fire’s brand to better tell the story of the problems they solved every day for firefighters and first responders so that they could build deeper connections with their audience.

Understanding the Market

After leading our Winning Zone and persona workshops with Banner Fire and conducting independent research, we learned how decision-makers in the fire industry shop for equipment. Understanding this buyer’s journey allowed us to make better decisions in shaping the user flows and UI/UX of the Banner Fire website.

On the marketing side of the website, we also worked to flesh out the parts and services content and online experience. While parts and services were once viewed at Banner Fire as a separate branch, they have since been integrated with the organization as a whole, and we brought that integration to life with the website redesign and restructure.

Automating Processes for Accurate Lead Times

Working directly with Banner Fire’s ERP provider, we set up a system that would check for updates every night, and then push those changes to the e-commerce portion of the site. Now, any time a price, product description, SKU, or other product information changes, the site automatically shows the most up-to-date information for more accurate lead times. Some equipment used by first responders comes with long lead times, so having accurate lead times on the site helps Banner Fire customers make informed decisions and understand expectations for when products will arrive.

Updating the Look and Feel

Automated processes? Check. An easier, more navigable user experience? Check. From a back-end perspective, Banner Fire’s site saw an elevated presence that not only streamlined processes but presented information in a way that makes sense. But first impressions count, and we wanted to ensure their site’s look and feel complimented the functionality.

Banner Fire has always been a team that’s proud to serve those who serve their communities during emergency situations. With the website redesign, we incorporated cinematic imagery that captures the bravery and dedication of the firefights and first responders that Banner Fire supports. We also introduced a refreshed color palette that modernized the brand and allowed us to draw more attention to strategic calls to action.

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Bounce Rate Decline

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Page Session Increase

Results

Before the launch of the new e-commerce-ERP integration, creating or updating a single product would take as long as 10 minutes for a Banner Fire team member. The more than 8,000 products Banner Fire offers would add up to nearly 1,300 hours of manual work! By creating an automated inventory process, Banner Fire’s website has provided approximately $200k in labor cost efficiencies, with that number growing as new products are added and updated.

Since the launch of the site, we’ve seen more meaningful user engagement. Pages per Session has increased by 4.08% and the Bounce Rate has declined by 10.53%.

“We want to be the Amazon of fire equipment.”

Our Work

A Brand Electrified

About Holt Electrical Supplies

INDUSTRY: Full-line electrical distribution

Founded in 1960 in a drugstore basement, HOLT has grown into a regional powerhouse with seven locations and over 200,000 square feet of distribution space.

Results

Refreshed branding and a cohesive go-to-market messaging celebrating the “middle man”

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Increase in Website Users

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Increase in Website Sessions

A Brand Electrified

HOLT has always done things a little bit differently than their competitors in the industry. In a sea of giant competitors with about as much of a personal touch as Amazon.com, HOLT has managed to grow and go the extra mile to help their customers win.

We met Ryan Holtzman (CEO) and Shane McCorkle (VP of Business Development) at a leadership training event, and in getting to know them, it became clear that HOLT’s brand image wasn’t doing justice to the passion and capabilities of the company. And with more and more potential customers in the industry buying products directly from manufacturers, we needed to demonstrate the value of a distributor—a middle man—that cares about its customers.

Not only did we want to take Ryan and Shane out for beers immediately, but we wanted to help their business even more—we knew that our team could help refresh HOLT’s brand and get the message out with a marketing and communications strategy to match.

Shedding Light on HOLT’s Competitive Advantage

Our goal was to capture and communicate the energy that HOLT’s team and customers knew and turn it into a results-generating asset. We began by constructing the strategic building blocks of HOLT’s brand platform—conducting research on their competitors, interviewing customers, and learning their business inside and out. While the fuller picture was coming together, we dove right into tactical deliverables like press releases and promotional communications.

Logo, Visual Identity, & Brand Voice Overhaul

With a firm grip on HOLT’s value proposition, target audience, and brand personality, we created a new logo that conveyed the energy of the company and signaled the launch of a new phase of growth. We then developed an entirely new visual system and brand voice that did what Ryan, Shane, and the whole organization had done so well from the beginning—cut the B.S. and make a real difference.

Website Launch

A keystone of the new brand launch was a completely new website, featuring more robust services and careers sections and the HOLT Toolbox—a collection of resources including a new blog, videos, and more.

Ongoing Content Strategy & Email Marketing

We also launched a regular company email newsletter that keeps subscribers informed of new product promotions, learning content, and industry news, in addition to activating social media channels to broaden HOLT’s reach. Finally, our team consistently supports HOLT’s sales outreach efforts with highly targeted email campaigns to engage various customer segments.

Measures of Success

At every level, team members at HOLT have embraced the new brand by proudly sporting new swag and speaking the language of the middle man who cuts the B.S. The HOLT website has garnered significantly more attention since the refresh, more than doubling organic traffic and total website sessions. HOLT has also seen terrific results in attracting qualified candidates for career opportunities in the company. Prior to the new website launch, the company had faced challenges in garnering applications for open positions. Since launch, Ryan and his team have told us that they now struggle to keep up with the interest!

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Increase in Facebook Impressions

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Increase in Organic Traffic

“They’re adaptable. There’s been a lot of changes…and they’ve kept up with it. goBRANDgo! not only keeps up…they stay out in front of it.”