Concrete 247 - Branding & Design

Concrete 247 by Hilcon are a Southampton-based concrete and aggregate supplier, delivering across Hampshire. Concrete is delivered using volumetric mixers, mixed on-the-job, avoiding expensive waste - only pay for what's poured.

Hilcon have decades of experience in commercial concrete supply to housebuilders, highways and the trade. With the business growing, Hilcon wanted to reach a new consumer market directly.

We worked with the Hilcon team to:

• research and establish a name for the new brand
• design logos and branding for digital, signage and the concrete mixers
• develop an online platform for calculating the amount of concrete required with lead-generating enquiry system
• continue on-going optimisation for organic search (SEO) and for paid search (PPC)

The Hilcon team had a simple brief for us: deliver a name and logo concept that 'looks familiar, using construction colours representing the building trade'. 

We're not often given full reign to concept the name and the design, so this was an excellent chance for us to do some research and shortlist the top three names. The digital presence was crucial to a successful project, so ensuring the all available domains and social handles was an important consideration.

Concrete 247 (pronounced Concrete two-four-seven) 

Sometimes, things are better left simple. The logo had to work from a distance and seeing it at a glance in moving traffic. Using capital letters allowed the logo to stand out.

We provided Hilcon with three logo designs, merging the two structures into a single logo that can be reproduced for digital, signage and displayed on the volumetric mixers.

We've built the Concrete 247 on our preferred Content Management System (CMS), ExpressionEngine. The site is updated by the office team without any knowledge of coding required. 

The Concrete 247 site's driver is to engage visitors in the online cost calculator and turn them into an online lead processed by the office team.

The Concrete 247 site is mobile-first and includes:

• Online Cost Calculator - An interactive calculator to help visitors calculate how much concrete they need. Works in metres, centimetres, inches, feet or yards. This information is automatically included as part of the online enquiry
• Campaign Tracking - Leads are tracked based on their location, service required and telephone number dialled. 

Creating pre-qualified leads is the primary goal for Concrete 247. We make this possible with content-rich, high performing landing pages that are regularly maintained and updated.

We monitor the performance of our key search phrases across multiple search engines for changes. Our hands-on approach has us optimise pages and queries as necessary to maintain the organic position of pages.

• Monitoring keywords and key phrases for the service types and location areas
• Generating new content and adjusting existing copy to maintain top positions
• Monitor for new search terms and build content-rich pages to capture new audiences

We build and maintain cost-effective paid advertising campaigns on behalf of Concrete 247.

• Creating new service and location campaigns
• Managing Adwords budgets spends and identifying poorly performing campaigns
• Identifying new audience types through untargeted keywords and phrases

 In 2020 we've helped Concrete 247 reduce their average customer cost by 34% and increase their return by 62%. 

Source: Google Ads, December 2020