SyncShow Helps Cylinder Manufacturer Revamp Their Digital Presence Through Rebranding and a New Website

Overview

B&H Machine, Inc. (B&H) is a third-generation hydraulic and pneumatic cylinder manufacturer. Founded in 1951, B&H started its operations as a producer of tooling and fixture designs for the Army, Navy and Air Force, in addition to production machining for the automotive, mining and steel mill industries. Today, B&H is one of the most experienced and proven cylinder manufacturers in the U.S.

Despite B&H’s long history of success, it became apparent that the company was falling behind competitors online. The leadership team at B&H knew it was time to revamp their digital presence to better communicate their unique capabilities and value proposition to prospects who were becoming more and more digital-first. If they didn't do this, they would continue to fall behind the competition. 

Enter the SyncShow team.

Revamping B&H’s Digital Presence

When SyncShow first met with B&H in 2018, the company website was very outdated and certain areas of the website weren't functioning properly due to redundancies in technology. Additionally, the website was generating little traffic and no leads for the B&H sales team. Most, if not all, of the business generated by the B&H team came from relationships and word of mouth.

To learn more about the B&H team, their business, goals and challenges, SyncShow facilitated a WebSync™ strategy day. WebSync is SyncShow’s proprietary process for strategically building websites aligned with client goals. During this session, SyncShow facilitated discussion about B&H’s:

• Current sales and marketing environment
• Best customers
• Target buyer personas
• Current website challenges
• Identity from a branding, design and messaging standpoint

To make the website plan purposeful, SyncShow needed to understand B&H’s overall goals for the project. Some of these goals included:

Goal 1: Establish a sound website built on an easy-to-maintain platform.

B&H’s old website was built on a platform that no longer functioned properly—resulting in a disjointed user experience for prospects. The platform was also complicated to use on the back end, so the B&H team was unable to make website updates when needed. As a result, the B&H team wanted a website platform that was easy for their team to use and maintain.

Below: The old website design before moving to HubSpot in 2018.

Additionally, B&H was using an Excel spreadsheet as their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for existing contacts and prospects. They needed a website that would seamlessly integrate with a true CRM so their team could easily update and track both existing contacts and prospective opportunities.

Goal 2: Implement a refreshed website that serves as a central hub for promoting awareness and product/service information.

Another challenge B&H was facing with their existing website was a lack of content around who the company was, what they did and why it should matter to their prospects. And, one of the company’s most important service offerings was missing from plain sight—custom cylinder design and manufacturing.

Goal 3: Create a website content and messaging strategy that effectively tells the B&H story and establishes the company as a thought leader in the industry.

Finally, B&H needed a content strategy relevant to the needs of their prospects. The website needed to portray an advanced level of expertise in the industry—and communicate why they were the better option compared to the competition.

SyncShow’s Solution

After assessing B&H’s current state and goals for the new site, together SyncShow and B&H looked at their overall audience and narrowed it down to three main buyer personas who became the primary focus of the new website and content strategy.

SyncShow worked to develop messaging that spoke to the common pain points and challenges of their buyer personas. SyncShow’s team of SEO specialists developed a robust keyword strategy to put the building blocks in place for B&H to rank online for the terms that prospects would be searching for.

Knowing that the B&H team did not have the manpower or skill set to learn a complex new website platform, the SyncShow team recommended that the website be built using the HubSpot Content Management System. This solution offered the B&H team an easy way to make continuous updates to their website while also providing visitors with a great user experience. Additionally, B&H was now able to seamlessly track and manage existing and new prospects by integrating the new website with the HubSpot CRM.

Lastly, the previous B&H website had a very dark look and feel and was not easily navigable by clients and prospects alike. The new site needed a fresh, clean look. To remedy this, SyncShow’s design team did the following:

• Added new colors including blue, green, and light gray to B&H’s existing dark grayscale and yellow color scheme.
• To keep the industrial look and feel, the blue was reminiscent of the blue from traditional blueprint paper. The blueprint paper was also used as a texture throughout the site to convey the precise, high-quality, custom products of B&H.
• Green and yellow were used as accents to highlight important information, including calls-to-action (CTAs).
• New imagery was added that showed products in real-world applications.

Through a refreshed design and site structure, B&H was able to accurately showcase its depth and breadth of knowledge and ability to help customers and prospects with the most challenging of applications.

Instant Impact

The launch of the new website has made a tremendous impact on B&H’s sales. B&H now has a mobile- and desktop-optimized website that is completely integrated with HubSpot CRM, promotes an optimal user experience and accurately portrays the B&H brand.

The new website messaging and SEO improvements not only communicate why B&H is uniquely equipped to address the common pain points and challenges of ideal customers, but have also tremendously helped the website rank higher in organic search results.

The biggest impact of the new website for the B&H team is the number of new leads they are receiving through the website. Within the first few hours of the site being live, B&H received its first sales qualified lead through the website!

Since the website launch nine months ago, B&H has seen the following results:

• 2,146 sessions
• 4,737 pageviews
• 54 new sales qualified leads
• 24% overall conversion rate
• 43% of overall traffic came from organic search

Setting the Stage

With a new website that has become the center of all B&H’s sales and marketing efforts, this is just the beginning of the results B&H will see. SyncShow is a very proud partner in this endeavor, and we look forward to continuing to push the boundaries for B&H in the years to come.

“We have recently finished up our website with SyncShow. To be honest, we were a little worried about getting involved in a redesign of our website. We didn't want to get involved in something that was going to be an overly expensive, time-consuming and a headache on top of our daily work requirements. But it needed to be done. I can tell you now that SyncShow really delivered on all fronts. They are so knowledgeable about what is fresh and new and how to accomplish it. They took the time to find out what B&H was all about.

They wanted to understand the history of our company and what drives our sales and production processes. I feel like the website that was created is the best one that could have been made for B&H at this time. We are extremely happy with SyncShow's abilities to deliver on what they set out to do.” - Nathan Bush, President of Operations, B&H Machine

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