Reputation and recommendation no longer enough in this tough market

Until the recession, Central Construction Services enjoyed ten years of dramatic growth. It had built an enviable reputation among customers and competitors and attracting new business in a buoyant market was not a problem. When the economy showed signs of slowing, Managing Director Mick Barham made sure Central was ready to meet the challenge. The first step in his marketing strategy was to commission a corporate website. He explained: “In the main the construction industry is not very technical and has tended to lag behind as far as computers and the internet are concerned. As a supplier to that industry, so had we. Historically, we had generated new business as a result of our reputation for good service and by the face to face activity of our sales team. But this approach that had worked well for us in the past was not going to be enough in a tough economy. We needed to move with the times and utilise the internet to promote our business.”

Central serves the construction and civil engineering industry using its own 40 vehicle fleet of modern vehicles. It sells and transports primary and secondary aggregates, road stones, and soils as well as offering site clearance and road sweeper services. Mick Barham asked Quiet Storm for a website that would increase the company’s wider profile and advertise its services.

“I knew what image of the company I wanted to convey and I relied on Quiet Storm’s expertise to help me achieve it. The site gives us a professional looking web presence, captures our strong corporate identity and is a great resource for customers. It’s also a great medium for showing our own staff the full range of products and services and how we sell them. The photographs used on the site are from an image library created for us by Quiet Storm. This is already proving beneficial as we put together our first sales brochure.

“Bringing a business through this recession has given me a fresh appreciation for the benefits of marketing. It does get you thinking though. We did extremely well over the last decade – doubling our turnover in the second half, but how much more business could we have won if we had put more focus on marketing?”


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