Hastings Bath Collection Gets Industry Traction with a New Brand Identity and Website

Overview

A long-established luxury bath design company gets a comprehensive brand, messaging, and website update to align with its current product offering and create a better user experience.

Key Results:

A site reorganization and comprehensive content strategy improved its user experience.
Marketing is streamlined and all business operations are in a single platform with 100 percent of assets in HubSpot.
Hastings has higher organic search volume and receives more invitations to industry trade shows.

Background

With a deep history that dates back to 1885, the company formerly known as Hastings Tile and Bath has evolved from installing paving materials in Central Park to becoming a leading luxury bathroom design resource: Hastings Bath Collection. To bring the brand identity in line with their current product and service offerings, Hastings engaged SmartBug to create a fresh new logo, brand guidelines, and website redesign.

The Problem

Outdated Branding Plus a Disorganized Website Equalized Missed Opportunities

Although the company has been a leader in luxury bathroom design for decades, when it decided to stop offering tile products, the company name and associated branding became officially outdated. It was time to take tile out of the equation, so Hastings had to find a new way to communicate its value proposition to potential customers.

Modern-day Hastings employs an innovative modular design approach that offers design flexibility and endless possibilities for personalization. The organization of the existing website didn’t adequately capture this unique selling proposition or the value that Hastings brings to both bathroom designers and end users. It also didn’t thoroughly showcase all of the company’s products, which meant that customers weren’t getting the full picture of everything Hastings has to offer.

Behind the scenes, there was no SEO strategy in place, and the team felt limited by the capabilities of the existing website platform. The Hastings team knew they were missing opportunities to reach their ideal customers and that a new website was a key part of the solution.

We’re still early in our digital transformation journey and the SmartBug team consistently pushes us and keeps us moving forward. The process to redesign the website made us feel comfortable and confident and we’re looking forward to continued growth with the team’s expertise, accessibility, and collaborative spirit.

Ryan Homola

Chief Financial Officer, Hastings Bath Collection

Our Solution

An Adaptable SmartBug Team Delivers Flexible Solutions to Tell the Story of Design Flexibility

With a keen eye on the big picture, our inbound team recommended a comprehensive strategy that included new messaging guidelines with a brand and visual update to accompany them. Hastings had confidence in the team’s expertise, our collaborative approach, and the clear road map we had outlined. All systems, grow!

With a consistent brand package as the foundation, the SmartBug web team migrated the website from WordPress to HubSpot to give Hastings the power to streamline all of its marketing efforts—website, blog posts, premium content, marketing emails, and more—within a single platform. The sales team now also uses HubSpot’s CRM, and with the website aligned seamlessly with the lead funnel, they are streamlining the sales process to align with the buyer’s journey.

To refresh the brand and optimize the website, SmartBug provided:

Messaging Guidelines
Visual Brand Identity
Website Strategy
Website Development

Smartbug-CaseStudy-Hastings

The Results

Before

After

A Solid Foundation for Growth Across the Full Customer Lifecycle

Paired with the new brand messaging matrix, logo, and brand identity that our team developed, the Hastings website has a fresh new look that is consistent across all other marketing assets.

After the site launched, Hastings quickly gained more brand recognition by having a uniform visual identity and a compelling website that tells the company’s story. Hastings has capitalized on this brand awareness and visibility to become recognized as a leader in the world of luxury bathroom design and gain even more traction in the industry.

The new site features:

Architecture to accommodate pages that serve personas at various stages of the buyer's journey
A content strategy, content hierarchy, and conversion opportunities that align with the mindset of potential customers
Storytelling across key pages to meet user expectations and accommodate browsing habits across different browser viewports
Website and page content scalability to allow for a future optimization strategy
A streamlined user experience with quick-view windows for all products and the ability to search, filter, and add favorites
Significantly more imagery to inspire and engage potential customers

With the majority of its marketing efforts consolidated into a single software platform (HubSpot), Hastings had one more lingering area to streamline: PR. Fortunately, as a full service agency, SmartBug was able to quickly fill the gap. Up next? We’ll be working together to develop and implement a paid media strategy.

What started with basic inbound marketing services has blossomed into a rich partnership based on trust and proven results across the full customer lifecycle.

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