Case Study No.2


Success Stories

< Back to Success Stories Main Page

Company Name:

Southern Tool Steel
http://www.southerntoolsteel.com/

Business Profile:

Southern Tool Steel, Inc. of Chattanooga, Tennessee is an international distributor of common and hard-to-find tools steels, metals and plastics.

Business Objectives:

Southern Tool Steel sought to improve their online and offline marketing materials, including corporate logo modification, website and print collateral development. Additionally, STS wanted to improve search engine rankings for key services and provide an easy-to-use online RFI tool enabling customers to specify the material they wanted by type, size, shape, grade and condition.

The Challenge:

From a purely aesthetics view, metal cutting is not a visually exciting, “sparks flying” kind of process, and STS wanted to convey several service ideas at once. Creating a progressive but industrial feel for a one-source solutions company was the mission critical challenge. Creating a matrix of all catalog category permutations for database development also presented a time management challenge, given the number of attributes to consider for each material type and the fact that unique part numbers had to be created for each possible result.

The Solution:

ISM provided a true agency solution for Southern Tool Steel, complete with on site photography, logo development, pocket folder and line card creation, trade show collateral, optimized website development and catalog integration, driven largely by an aggressive ISM managed online marketing campaign through ThomasNet.com. Southern Tool Steel monitors website activity through comprehensive visitor log files and phone call tracking.

The STS online catalog is somewhat unique in that while product numbers exist for each combination available, metal categories do not truly contain products as you would expect. STS catalog features include part number and keyword search, parametric search by product attribute, product comparison, printable page views, add to favorites & email to a friend functionality.

The Results:

Since the launch of the new website, Southern Tool Steel has enjoyed several front page rankings on numerous search engines for core offering phrases, a marked increase in daily visits and steady stream of requests for quote.