The John Bourne Group manufactures and distributes landscaping, horticultural and sportsturf products. The Group comprises three separate companies John Bourne & Co, Bourne Amenity and Gardenscape Direct. John Bourne & Co is a manufacturer, supplier and haulier of bulk materials to agriculture and construction. Bourne Amenity deals in the distribution, supply, construction and maintenance of natural and artificial turf for sporting organisations as well as commercial and community sporting/recreational facilities. While Gardenscape Direct offers online sales and home delivery of discount landscaping and garden products.
The organisation needed a new website that represented the Group and also provided a distinct identity to its three separate divisions. Its existing two sites were proving difficult to administrate and did not reflect the scope and function of the business.
To meet this need, Quiet Storm designed and created a portal website for the John Bourne Group to give an over-view of its services as well as a route to three other company sites to represent each division. The style and design of the John Bourne & Co and Bourne Amenity sites were made consistent with the portal to promote a strong group identity. The Gardenscape Direct site called for a different approach as it offers an on-line ordering service to landscaping professionals and the general public. Whilst retaining the same clean and simple lines of its sister sites, its imagery and overall look is softer. It also includes a user log in window and a wealth of information about the products on offer and how to use them. A seasonal tips section replaces the news links displayed by the two Bourne branded sites. The four sites now clearly communicate the range of products and services available to customers.
An additional requirement of Bourne Amenity was the ability to use efficient e-marketing techniques. Quiet Storm’s Mail-Blast software fitted the bill perfectly. This sophisticated package uses a company’s existing marketing database to send high quality, content rich emails. These can be used to communicate special offers and invitations or simply to stay in touch with customers and prospects. Marketing lists can be easily managed and the responses to campaigns are tracked using detailed real-time reports. Five primary measurements of feedback on the success of each mailing are provided including number of messages opened and opt-out requests.
Bourne Marketing Manager, Nicole Banister said: “The Quiet Storm team injected some much needed marketing zest into our group of companies. It was quite an achievement to get four websites live and successfully working in six months. I had worked with the team before so they were an obvious choice to take up the challenge.
“Mail-Blast has been working brilliantly for us – it generated genuine sales enquiries within hours of our first mailing!
"Bourne Amenity Ltd have an in-house CRM system and although this is an effective tool for managing the day to day contact with our customers and prospects it does not have a system where it can automatically track who has read, discarded or no longer wishes to receive emails. Mail-Blast does this and it also provides us with a consistent format that is in line with our companies branding.
“Mail-Blast has given us the ability to target and track our marketing communications. We are now able to accurately pinpoint sales that have been secured as a result of a Mail-Blast. This is a fantastic system that has really added value and substance to our marketing activities.”