Hydrant Guard
Building a Water-Industry Brand from the Ground Up
Client: Hydrant Guard
Website: https://hydrantguard.com/
Industry: Water Supply
Headquarters: Los Angeles, CA
Company Type: OEM producing equipment for the municipal water industry
Our team worked with the founders of Hydrant Guard to build a marketing strategy from the ground up. The company approached us while they were still prototyping their product, giving us the opportunity to create a brand image from scratch and leverage our marketing expertise to help turn Hydrant Guard into a recognized and trusted name in the water industry.
About the Client
Hydrant Guard provides an elegant solution to an old problem: in warm-weather regions (like California and Hawaii) wet-barrel fire hydrants are continually charged with water. That means easy access to fire control and easy maintenance, but it also means that damaged hydrants spew gigantic geysers, wasting water and creating safety hazards. Hydrant Guard offers stainless steel check valves that fit between the water main and the hydrant, snapping shut when a hydrant is sheared and preventing that geyser from happening.
Hydrant Guard valves are manufactured in Michigan and made for markets in California, Hawaii, Arizona and Nevada.
Client Challenges
When we joined the Hydrant Guard team, they were in the final design stages of designing their new product and were preparing to bring it to market. Fortunately, their crack team of engineers, project managers and sales reps had their bases covered. To complete the puzzle, Hydrant Guard needed solid, consistent branding and outstanding marketing materials to grab the attention of the veteran decision-makers in their target market.
One major challenge Hydrant Guard faced was to penetrate a market where they had no established presence. They also had a limited budget, since they started without a revenue stream. Hydrant Guard needed a nimble marketing team that could deliver marketing materials with short turnarounds, who understood the product and target audience, and who could work with them to maximize impact through periods of accelerated growth.
Our Solution
Initial Positioning Through Our Digital Marketing Roadmap Process
Since Hydrant Guard was a new player on the scene, they had a special need for both short-term and long-term marketing strategies that would give them the flexibility to adapt as they grew. We used our Digital Marketing Roadmap process to learn as much as possible about their goals, their target audience and their distinct offering within the industry. The GembaWalk team was ready to help Hydrant Guard break into a new market and to learn alongside them the challenges and intricacies of working with the water industry.
Our Digital Marketing Roadmap outlined all the tools at their disposal to build their reputation and spread the word about their game-changing products. Taking account of the budget constraints of a startup, our strategy was designed to maximize impacts while keeping costs to a minimum.
Our initial implementation focused on tangible results: materials that showcased Hydrant Guard’s innovation and helped drive sales. We then turned to growing Hydrant Guard’s digital audience: web presence, social media and multi-channel branded content. We followed through with an ongoing marketing program that continues to transform Hydrant Guard’s industry knowledge and expertise into a robust inbound network. As sales and industry acceptance have consistently grown, we have always been ready to usher Hydrant Guard into the next phase of success.
Our implementation strategy includes the following solutions:
Establish a Brand Image that Speaks Directly to the Target Audience
We developed a comprehensive branding package to serve as the basis for all Hydrant Guard materials moving forward. The package included honing their logo, implementing a color palette and developing recurring vector graphics for use across marketing materials.
Develop Effective, Comprehensive Print Marketing Materials
Like many industrial markets, it’s not possible to digitize everything in the water industry. We learned early on that sales in the water industry depend on in-person meetings, and in-person meetings require print marketing materials. We worked with the Hydrant Guard technical and sales teams to develop brochures, spec sheets and instructions that would educate customers as well as convert new customers.
Build an Intuitive and Informational Website
Hydrant Guard’s new website needed to show off the various capabilities and mechanical specifications of their product. Most of all, it needed to embody the perspective of a new, fresh company entering a traditional market. We built hydrantguard.com in stages in order to maximize impact on a rolling budget. Because we had already outlined a multi-stage process in the Digital Marketing Roadmap, we were able to follow our own guidelines to ensure consistency and effectiveness.
Design Standout Displays to Maximize Trade Show Impact
Trade shows are also an indispensable part of water-industry marketing, and we made sure the Hydrant Guard booth made a splash. Along with the print materials we’d already delivered, we added a show-stopping backlit backdrop, modular roll-up banners and an ever-evolving assortment of SWAG. Add the magnetic personalities of the Hydrant Guard sales team, and you can see why the HG booth has become a mainstay in shows from Las Vegas to Honolulu.
Grow Social Media Channels from Scratch
Social media can be a great outlet for companies to reach new customers and achieve widespread brand recognition, but it only works if someone is listening on the other end. We methodically built highly engaged social networks for Hydrant Guard, with Instagram as the centerpiece. In the beginning, we had to introduce Hydrant Guard to the world. Now, a crowd of water industry pros are ready and waiting to engage with and boost the company’s updates.
Create an Interactive, Inbound Content Network
We developed a multi-pronged inbound strategy to bring traffic to the website, educate customers and generate sales leads. We were able to achieve a lot with a limited budget and time frame because we repurposed existing content whenever possible. We also developed a content series that would translate well to social media, further increasing reach and engagement across the Web. The result is a healthy digital marketing bouquet, with hundreds of entry points that feed into the overall growth of Hydrant Guard’s brand strength.
Build Brand Trust Through Multimedia Testimonials
Hydrant Guard is the kind of product that doesn’t just attract customers, it earns fans. We work with existing customers to tell the stories of how Hydrant Guard has made their jobs easier and their cities safer. The GembaWalk team spearheaded a campaign to gather testimonials by turning interviews with Hydrant Guard users into video, multimedia and text articles testifying to the product’s transformative value. These Success Stories contribute significantly to building trust in the Hydrant Guard brand.
Client Results
Hydrant Guard has grown in a number of ways since the company’s inception, and their marketing strategy has provided support every step of the way. While needs for new materials arise quickly, GembaWalk has always been able to respond on time and complete projects before the deadline.
Not only has Hydrant guard achieved strong brand recognition and domain authority, but the category of the product has now been elevated as a Google keyword, boosting the industry as a whole. Hydrant Guard’s active web presence ensures its place at the top of search results even though some of their competitors are much older and more established companies. New customers also engage with Hydrant Guard through social media, especially through the company’s highly active Instagram account.
In the competitive water-supply industry, the key to success is to gain the market’s trust, and that’s not always easy for the new kid in town. Tireless work from the company’s sales team, coupled with rapidly evolving marketing materials from GembaWalk, have combined to create a brand associated with innovation, quality and customer service. Hydrant Guard’s testimonials have also been invaluable in convincing skeptical customers to jump on board.
Just a few years after selling their first product, Hydrant Guard has already captured significant market share and is rapidly growing year over year.
Do you want to see similar results for your own company?
Schedule a consultation now to find out how GembaWalk Creative can help you harness the power of digital marketing.