Awning and Shade Company Embraces Digital

Designer Awnings is a family-owned business for 20+ years based in Allentown, PA. The company serves eight surrounding counties with the highest quality, customized awnings and screens for residential and commercial applications.   For many years, the company’s marketing focused on consumer trade shows with occasional buys into print trade publications. Business was good, but inconsistent as the volume of appointments and frequency of scheduling fluctuated based on when trade shows occurred.

Designer Awnings was in need of a more consistent flow of leads and appointments to help make efficient use of its work crews and grow revenue.

YEAR 1 (PRE-PANDEMIC)

Enhance the client’s marketing strategy including digital and traditional print consumer channels to build brand awareness among home and business owners and drive web traffic. The lehighvalleylive digital marketing team implemented a robust SEM/PPC campaign that was highly optimized.  Our search experts established keyword targeting based on the business’s core products and created a segment to allow them to appear for competitor searches.  Print strategists implemented a high-impact print campaign in The Express-Times to increase saturation of the brand message during a ramp-up to summer, the most critical months for awnings and shades.

YEAR 2 (PANDEMIC)

Focus turned to improving organic traffic (SEO) and conversions on the client’s website.  A complete mobile responsive website redesign unified the branding while improving content, messaging and user experience.  This process included removing outdated content and dead links which helps to improve page trust. Designer Awnings reestablished itself as the local, leading brand for quality outdoor shading products.

Despite the cancellation of all trade shows due to the pandemic, the pivot to more stable marketing channels helped build a program that allowed Designer Awnings to generate new customer leads throughout a tumultuous business landscape.  Building the right foundational strategy, Designer Awnings experienced tremendous growth in year two.

YEAR 3 (POST-PANDEMIC)

Anticipating a market slow-down, strategy shifted to expand brand visibility, while still driving solid conversions. Leveraged new channels, including social media, to reach potential customers higher in the funnel and potentially not actively shopping. We used visually impactful creative to both peak interest and drive conversions resulting in near complete offset of post-pandemic slow-down.