Barrett Steel is the UK’s largest independent steel stockholder and processor. The Group’s international headquarters are in Yorkshire. It has 24 depots across the UK and a growing presence in the worldwide oil and gas market.
The board of Barrett Steel wanted to exploit new opportunities in the construction, engineering and energy sectors in the UK and worldwide.
As customer needs and buying behaviour had changed during the global recession, the board knew that success would be influenced by its approach to marketing and communications.
Recognising the important role the internet is now playing in business, the board embarked on a paradigm shift and applied ‘one world’ concepts of the internet to drive strategic marketing across the whole business, not just on the web.
They appointed NetConstruct as their digital marketing partner, appreciating our online marketing reputation, our consultancy-led approach and our 15 years digital experience in construction and engineering.
We conducted a detailed competitor analysis and internal review which highlighted a large number of openings for securing online competitive advantage. As you will understand, these valuable insights remain confidential between Barrett Steel and ourselves!
Using this and other data, we worked closely with Barrett’s central marketing team to build a new main Barrett Steel website for its steel stockholder and specialist technology businesses, a bespoke enquiry system, a mobile site and several microsites including one for its new Energy Division based in Houston, Texas.
The sites were developed on the market-leading Kentico content management system. NetConstruct is a Kentico Gold Partner and ranked in the top five by Kentico out of over 1,200 approved digital agencies worldwide. The sites are hosted by us on the Rackspace platform.
The entire project was completed on time and on budget – prompting one of the Barrett team to say it could not have been a digital project therefore, as finishing ‘on time’ and ‘on budget’ is not something for which digital agencies are usually noted.
“We conducted a detailed competitor analysis and internal review which highlighted a large number of openings for securing online competitive advantage.”
View the
Barrett Steel
site
To reflect the exciting variety of end-uses for Barrett Steel’s materials and products, our in-house WebVU video team produced ‘Making Steel Sexy’, focussing on Barrett’s passion and pride in steel. Turn your speakers up and enjoy!
Following site launch, our MaxURL digital marketeers and technicians have worked with Barrett on a series of campaigns which have seen visitor numbers jump by nearly 300% over the previous site.
The bottom line result says it all. Despite tight world economies, annual Group sales in 2011 are up a massive 25% to £246m.
NetConstruct’s work with Barrett Steel was shortlisted in two categories in the UK Chartered Institute of Marketing’s ‘Construction Marketing Awards’ - ‘Best Use of Strategic Marketing’ and ‘Best Use of Website’.