Case Study: Herkowski Stickler & Associates

Client Background

About the client

Originally formed almost a century ago, Herkowski Stickler & Associates (HSA) services the plumbing industry as a manufacturer’s representative. Located in Wisconsin and Illinois, they service those states by providing first class sales, service, and training to architects, engineers, and mechanical contractors.

Company was founded in 1931
Services the states of Wisconsin and Illinois
Carries a wide range of B2B plumbing supplies
Has worked with Leaf Design since 2013

Visit Website

Where We Started

The challenge

Designed by Leaf Design, the previous HSA website simply provided a point of presence online (as it was originally intended). Now almost 8 years old, the previous website had significant untapped potential from a digital marketing standpoint.

It included some outdated facts about the company, and provided a simple list of manufacturers. Beyond that, it did not contain much valuable content, nor did it focus on generating new business.

A dated visual design
A lack of details on product lines and information
Ineffective calls to action resulting in negligible leads generated
Web pages that are not usable by visitors using mobile devices
A fairly rigid and limiting content managements system

How We Collaborated

Design process

With an existing set of corporate colours, HSA had a great palette with which to work with. The goal was to design a flexible set of page layouts that were bright and utilized whitespace effectively.

Because very little content had been prepared in advance for the website design process, the layout we conceptualized needed to have a decent amount of flexibility to handle content that varied – both in terms of type and length. Shorter pages with very little product photography needed to still look visually appealing.

What was equally challenging during the design process was the fact that HSA itself was undergoing a fairly radical transformation. Throughout the course of the project, the number of manufacturers doubled in size. This not only affected the scope of the work, but also had an impact on the menu design, footer design, and some index page layouts.

1. Original website

The previous website was intended to act as a simple online brochure, with little focus on generating new business.

2. Design brief

To ensure a successful design process, a design brief was generated to capture the client’s objectives and preferences.

3. Initial concept

The initial concept for the Home page was initially location-focused, with manufacturers and benefits being secondary.

4. Final design

The final design of the Home page involved re-arranging the core content elements and cleaning up some of the design elements.

The Results

Our solution

Multiple locations

Throughout the design, we made sure that the two available locations (Wisconsin and Illinois) were obvious to all web visitors. Not only are the two locations geographically different, they also carried different product lines. As such, information about the various manufacturers needed to be split by state, to avoid any false promises.

Both locations contact information is visible in many different design elements, so it is always easily accessible to potential clients. Given the number of manufacturers in both locations, a mega menu format was used for this section of the main navigation. This allows visitors to see the product lines offered at each location at a glance, without needing to drill down into submenus.

Flexible pages

The custom WordPress back-end interface that was built for the client allowed for a very flexible design for all of the pages. This is most noticeable on the individual manufacturer pages, where some pages included a significant amount of content and imagery, while others were more sparse due to limited product information from the manufacturer.

A personal approach

A major part of the HSA’s success is the people that they hire. With most clients interacting with their sales reps on a daily basis, we ensured that the HSA team was featured throughout the new website. The About Us page, along with the individual Location pages showcases the appropriate team members and their various roles.

The call to action blocks were designed to incorporate an isolated photo of a random team member on each page load. This added a personal touch to these elements, while allowing for some visual variety for visitors.