How We Helped a B2B Company Make a Connection

Learn how we helped a surfacing company grow their B2B business by bringing a more human and playful approach to marketing. 

Prairie Surfaces is a commercial surfacing company headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba that serves commercial customers all across Canada. Their products provide a variety of solutions for indoor and outdoor athletic courts, playgrounds, splash pads, pool decks, and more. Prairie Surfaces has been recommending and installing a range of premium surfacing products and systems since 2014, and already has a large list of clients including Jumpstart Charities, Triple E Developments, and many cities and municipalities across western Canada.

THE CHALLENGE

Prairie Surfaces had a goal to drive a higher volume of leads at a lower cost per lead year over year - a true challenge considering that we were still in the middle of a global pandemic, and many companies and municipalities were not investing in these types of projects at typical levels. 

In addition to that, Prairie Surfaces needed to separate its B2B brand from its complementary B2B/B2C brand: Prairie Rubber Paving. Prairie Rubber Paving and Prairie Surfaces share the same ownership group. While their products are different (PRP offers only rubber paving solutions while Prairie Surfaces offers a range of surfacing solutions), both companies specialize in surfacing - and resurfacing - with highly customized solutions depending on a specific need.

This situation required a strategy that could help Prairie Surfaces communicate a strong, independent, and unique identity that would resonate with their B2B customers and be remembered.

THE STRATEGY

In our preliminary research, we identified a pattern in the industry. Prairie Surfaces’ competitors promoted themselves in a way that was very functional and straightforward - with a primary focus on their experience and the services they provide. We realized that there was a missing element that no one was using: no company was communicating from a consumer perspective or talking about their very human needs. Prairie Surfaces had an opportunity to change the status quo and speak to their B2B audience in a new way. 

Prairie Surfaces offers products and services to commercial customers… but at its core, what it really delivers is an experience. Each project created using a Prairie Surfaces product becomes an experience - somewhere for kids to play or families to explore or athletes to train, that is made possible through quality, right-fit surfacing solutions. They are committed to creating places that are going to be enjoyed, and where imagination plays a significant role.

THE EXECUTION

Our strategy focused on giving each product category its own campaign and creative, highlighting specific products and their applications.

With Prairie Surfaces, every space can become a world that’s just waiting to be explored. Our creative solution takes real Prairie Surfaces spaces and shows them in action, being enjoyed and explored. Playing off the childhood memories we all share - where our imaginations were limitless and we could play make-believe for a whole afternoon - we wanted to capture the energy of these moments and the humans who are interacting with them, the true heart of every commercial surfacing project. We brought human emotion and connection to a B2B product and created true differentiation in the market.

Our campaign tagline - LET’S CREATE SOMETHING AMAZING - communicates action, partnership, and inspiration for your next project.

ANOTHER WAY TO CONNECT WITH B2B

Another way we helped Prairie Surfaces connect with their B2B audience in a new way - again, driven by our findings that many competitors were failing to deliver on what their customers truly needed - was to partner with them to help build and conduct an online webinar.

Our process involved building a comprehensive targeting list for their sales team and partnering with a national association that represented municipality administrators to help market the opportunity and drive signups. We created a landing page to share information and collect leads and registrations. To create the webinar content, we partnered with one of Prairie Surfaces’ key product manufacturers (Life Floor) and a happy client that had recently completed a project. 

We had approximately 60 attendees and the webinar was very successful. We recorded the session and added it to the signup landing page - then replaced the webinar signup form with a contact form. 

Since the webinar, Prairie Surfaces has been having much better conversations with prospects and the webinar content has been a great sales tool for their team.

THE RESULTS

The team at Prairie Surfaces is busy with new leads and new projects. While this campaign has been in market, users from paid campaigns have grown to make up 80% of all website conversions in 2022. We’ve also seen great results through Google and Social Advertising platforms.

Google Advertising

• 281% YoY increase in users and new users 

• 300% YoY increase in sessions

• 200% YoY increase in overall website conversions 

Social Advertising

• 271% YoY increase in users, 274% YoY increase in new users

• 303% YoY increase in sessions

• 25% YoY increase in overall website conversions

"We have been very happy with our decision to go with Metric Marketing. The team there has been very responsive and helpful, and often going above and beyond their given scope of work in order to make the process easier for us as a customer. They have definitely earned our continued business and would be happy to recommend them to anyone looking for an attentive and invested firm. We see Metric as a partner in our business strategy.”

Dave Stephens, Owner

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