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A clean slate

Welsh Slate is the world’s leading supplier of high-quality slate for a range of exterior and interior design applications. It owns and operate the famous Penrhyn and Cwt-y-Bugail quarries in North Wales, and has been supplying the world with high quality slate for hundreds of years. 

Penrhyn Quarry has been producing roofing slate since the 13th Century and has been the centre and the focal point for UK natural stone for more than 700 years, while its industrial minerals plant in Ffestiniog supplies the UK and Europe.

Its products are widely recognised as the finest natural slate in the world. In recent decades, new sources of roofing slate have come into production across the globe, but none come close to matching the appearance and performance of Welsh Slate. Its products are suitable for interior and exterior use in a wide range of landscaping, roofing, construction and property-related industry sectors.

Welsh Slate is a part of the Breedon Group plc which is the largest independent construction materials group in the UK. Breedon is a longstanding Quiet Storm client and we have worked closely with various parts of the business on many projects over the years.

For this one, we were appointed to support three specific initiatives – a website redevelopment project, new exhibition graphics, marketing materials and event support, and a new roofing and landscaping product brochure.

 

A revitalised website

Quiet Storm had previously developed the original version of the Welsh Slate website around 15 years ago, when the brand was owned by a different company.

The website was taken in-house over the years and wasn’t performing as effectively as it could have been. We were tasked with reviewing the website and its architecture and developing a new version of the site, with better SEO and mobile responsiveness, to better reflect the Welsh Slate brand, showcase its full product range and help customers access the products they are looking for quickly.

The new brochure site has an attractive design, which reflects the company’s position as part of the larger Breedon Group. The simple navigation structure breaks its full product range down so it can be searched by type and application, and there are strong calls to action throughout to prompt sales enquiries and requests for information. Each product page also includes links to relevant case studies and image galleries, downloadable product spec and data sheets and certification documents.

Once the site was built, we delivered full training to all users and an ongoing active support contract, where the site’s performance is reviewed every six months to ensure everything is working as it should, any issues can be resolved, and any improvements can be made.

 

An enhanced events presence

On the back of the website project, and based on our knowledge of the business and our expertise in events, we were tasked with helping to create new exhibition graphics and materials for use at industry events and expos. These included the Homebuilding & Renovating Exhibition, and Landscape 2021.

We helped produce large-scale printed display graphics, pop-up banners and leaflets, as well as connecting Welsh Slate with an exhibition stand builder in our network, which helped the firm to save money on its new exhibition stand. We worked closely with both parties to coordinate the project and ensure the graphics and marketing collateral we supplied met the stand builder’s specifications, while meeting Welsh Slate’s creative brief.

On the back of this work, we also developed a new look and feel for Welsh Slate’s roofing products brochure, and also its new hard landscaping brochure, which showcase its full range and are  available in print form at events, and as PDF downloads from the website.

 

Testimonial

“We’ve really enjoyed working with Quiet Storm on these projects and the results speak for themselves. Their team are very easy to work with and are always there to provide advice and support whenever we’ve needed anything. We operate in a complex marketplace and we’re not an easy company to understand, but because Quiet Storm has partnered Breedon for many years, they’ve handled these projects really well to give us everything we need.

“Our previous website wasn’t optimised for the search engines properly, but we feel confident that the Quiet Storm team is on top of this and has made sure we’ re getting found for all the right keywords.It was a big project to work up, but they made the process really easy to give us the solution we need. It gives us the platform to keep engaged with our existing customer base, as well as providing a warm welcome to any new clients who find us online.”

Visit the new website at www.welshslate.com


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