The client company
Corus is Europe’s second largest steel producer with revenues of £9.7 billion. It is a subsidiary of Tata Steel, the world’s sixth largest steel producer.
Corus Colorcoat manufactures pre-finished steel products for the building envelope market,
used primarily on composite panels by leading manufacturers.
Strategy
Colorcoat had predominantly been sold into the market via specifications for new build projects. However, the recession required a shift in emphasis. Colorcoat had to be positioned as the product of choice for building refurbishment.
Awareness was low in the refurbishment sector. Many perceived Corus as too big to be competing and Colorcoat products were also considered too expensive.
The strategy was to target people involved in the purchasing decision. But with buying decisions not conducted through the standard specification route, identifying the key decision makers and projects was difficult.
Large data lists were hard to find. However, online searches revealed a strong presence on social media websites. IAS therefore developed a fully-integrated campaign with social media and email marketing leading back to a fully segmented website at the heart of the strategy.
Objectives
- Raise awareness of Colorcoat
- Position Colorcoat as the number one solution for metal cladding and roofing refurbishment
- Clearly communicate the superior performance
- Provide a relevant, creative and engaging experience
- Develop a clearly segmented and compelling message platform
- Implement a trackable, measurable relationship programme
Audience
- Property Owners
- Property Managers
- Building Surveyors
- Contractors
Media
Creative concept
Background research highlighted a number of underlying issues among the target audience that ‘kept them awake at night’. These included failure of the building material, spiralling maintenance costs, expensive rectification costs, health and safety issues with asbestos, product durability and the methods of refurbishment available.
To position Colorcoat as the product of choice IAS developed the strategic proposition: “Overcome your building envelope fears with Guaranteed Building Performance from Corus Colorcoat”. The creative extrapolation of this proposition was: “Colorcoat keeps the Big Bad Wolf at bay”.
The Big Bad Wolf was used to bring the refurbishment fears to life. By only showing a shadow of the wolf against the product, we symbolised the ability of Colorcoat to withstand the Big Bad Wolf and allay the fears of the target audience.
Website
A segmented website was created as the ‘refurbishment portal’ for the campaign, with all channels linked back to this hub.
Information Architecture planning sessions were held with the client, including both marketing and sales people. The website was planned around this research, plus agency and client experience, with the objective of enabling each segment to quickly solve key issues.
Each page of content had downloads, links and case studies, ensuring that relevant content could be accessed within three clicks, in line with Google’s three level indexing strategy.
The ‘Community’ section dynamically pulled in content from the WordPress, Twitter and YouTube streams, providing one access point to all social media.
An interactive tool enabled users to simulate the effects of 40 years’ weathering, highlighting the core product differentiation – a market leading, 40-year warranty.
Additional features included ‘Refurb TV’, an interactive Web TV channel delivering on-demand video content.
WordPress blog
Blogs were created enabling Colorcoat experts to discuss key issues and provide advice in a conversational manner. The blogs were also used to draw people from other social media channels. This formed the bedrock of the social media content and connections with the target audience.
LinkedIn
Four Colorcoat® experts were set up with their own profiles, according to a particular area of expertise (refurbishment, testing & technical, sustainability and regulations). The profiles were linked to key members of LinkedIn and discussions started based on the blog content. This engaged members and encouraged users to join the conversation.
Targeted text adverts were also placed, linking back to the blog and the website.
Twitter
Colorcoat was positioned as the ‘voice’ of refurbishment and the twitter page was the output
of that voice. It was used to post links to the blogs, the website, YouTube videos, LinkedIn experts
and additional content on the web that could add value to the Colorcoat followers.
YouTube
A series of refurbishment videos contained case study information, discussions with property managers/owners and advice on refurbishment projects. The videos were uploaded to the Colorcoat refurbishment channel on YouTube to make it accessible to the online community.
Research also found videos posted by property management companies with advice and discussions on how to increase the value of a property portfolio. Colorcoat linked its videos to this content and commented to link back to the refurbishment channel.
The video content was also posted on the website and linked to via Twitter and YouTube.
Email
An exercise was undertaken to populate a database to initiate an email campaign to each audience. The email utilised automatic trigger technology based on the recipient’s action from the initial email. They then received a follow-up email shortly after.
A total of 64 emails were despatched, each building on the content from the blogs and website.
Timescale
June 2009 – March 2010
Results
LinkedIn & Blog
To date:
- 9 blog posts
- 628 blog views
- 50 discussions started across LinkedIn – 20 detailed discussions about refurbishment
Twitter results
- 425 clicks from our tweets
- 82 tweets posted
- 97 people following
- 123 followers
Client testimonial
“Our challenge was to increase the awareness of Corus in the refurbishment market. It had seemed a daunting one, and impossible to achieve without a bottomless budget. However, IAS came up trumps with a truly integrated campaign to target all digital channels cost effectively.
It required a leap of faith into the unknown world of B2B social media. But with IAS’ knowledge of the construction market, and comprehensive strategic plan we believed it possible and weren’t disappointed. The campaign generated some excellent in-depth discussions with key potential prospects.”
Joanne Ingham, UK & Ireland market communications manager, Corus Colors
