Overview
Beacon Marketing provides on-going strategic guidance on marketing programs for Shelter Works, a manufacturer of premium composite fiberglass field equipment shelters
Situation
The company did not have an effective way to stay top-of-mind with current customers and employed a very limited system for generating new leads
Shelter Works had a website that hadn’t been redesigned in nine years (which in Internet years is a lifetime!). Sales were not where they wanted them to be and there have been a lot of personal changes. The company needed to find ways to support the sales staff with minimum interruption.
Sales Growth
Over 3 Years
Actions
Beacon Marketing came in, did a thorough brand audit, conducting research with manufacturing reps, talking with end-users, and partnering with senior management to identify the key sales drivers. Out of this work, we were able to determine, recommend and implement low-cost, high-ROI marketing activities that we felt would have the greatest impact on sales.
- Overhauled the website
- Added a regularly updated blog
- Refined the RFQ form
- Launched a company newsletter in order to build brand awareness and educate clients on strongest points of differentiation
- Began gathering and telling client success stories
- Gathered more “social proof” in the form of client testimonials
- Began focusing more strongly on search engine optimization activities
- Added a short-term Pay-Per-Click campaign to improve website traffic, company exposure and requests for quotes
- Increase targeted trade show activity in both core markets as well as identified expansion industries
- Activated marketing automation in support of more traditional sales activities (such as tradeshows)
- Leveraged technology to link CRM/sales activities and marketing activities more tightly together
Results
Owner Tracy Switzer said, “As an owner and entrepreneur, I know how important marketing is for the growth of the business. We had a great product, as well as great customer service to deliver that product, and we wanted to communicate our unique point of differentiation in an authentic way. Beacon Marketing has done a great job developing strong marketing activities that shine a spotlight on every aspect of the quality of our product, finding ways to continually take the presentation of our company to the next level. These activities work hand in hand with our sales activity and produce tangible results.” The results have been clear:
- Millions of dollars in quoting activity
- Sales increases of 62% over a three-year
- Website much more user-friendly: website traffic up +158%, referrals up +103%, organic traffic up +81% , page views +66% and 73% more new visitors (all metrics versus prior year)
- By the second month of the SEO campaign, ShelterWorks.com went from being completely unranked on Google to having all 16 keywords ranked, 6 of which were on Page 1 (five at position 1 and one at position 3)
Millions of $$$ in Quoting Activity
All along the way, we’ve added more marketing activities to continue to activate those key sales drivers that we had identified as critical to the success of the business and acted as true partners with senior management within the company.
As an owner and entrepreneur, I know how important marketing is for the growth of the business. Beacon Marketing has done a great job developing strong marketing activities that shine a spotlight on every aspect of the quality of our product, finding ways to continually take the presentation of our company to the next level. These activities work hand in hand with our sales activity and produce tangible results.
Beacon Marketing acts as a true strategic partner to initiate marketing efforts that will help us meet our core business goals. They don’t spend money needlessly on ineffective, high-profile marketing tactics that don’t work. They focus with us on stimulating our most critical key performance indicators with relevant, cost-effective marketing programs that have contributed to tremendous growth for our company.
