Case Study: DAWSON
A trusted leader in premium metal fabrication for 75+ years, DAWSON is well renowned for its precision-crafted, custom sheet metal and door solutions. With world-class construction projects like the Chrysler Building and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in its past portfolio, DAWSON needed to grow its client base and move its esteemed business into the future by expanding its audience. With this in mind, DAWSON leaders identified the need for a new sales and marketing strategy. What resulted from this initial challenge would set the stage for years of continued partnership between DAWSON and Open Eye.
Pictured: DAWSON’s balanced door on the Irvine Spectrum Center in LA
The Initial Challenge
In early discussions with DAWSON leadership, Open Eye experts learned that the main source of the company’s growth had been word-of-mouth referrals. With this rich history of customer trust and loyalty in mind, the challenge that emerged was to develop a modern sales and marketing strategy that would match DAWSON’s 75+ years of excellence. Open Eye would also need to build a change management plan to ease the transition through a rebrand and updated strategy, keeping DAWSON’s long-standing employees and deeply embedded processes in mind.
The First Project (2019–2020)
In early 2020, Open Eye worked with DAWSON leadership to develop a sales and marketing strategy that aligned with company objectives and would target their ideal new customers. With an understanding of the company’s history and its business offerings, Open Eye experts devised a strategy that defined and showcased DAWSON’s unique and myriad value propositions for a broader audience.
A crucial component of this work was a modern brand revitalization and redesign, including a website overhaul. Open Eye also delivered content marketing and outreach tactics, new product sales sheets, customer lifecycle mapping and management using new CMS tools, and a performance tracking system for key metrics.
Once the rebrand and sales and marketing strategy were completed, it was essential to ensure that leaders and employees would be prepared for the impending changes that would follow. So, as work continued, Open Eye collaborated with DAWSON leadership to adjust the company’s organizational structure and ready employees for change. This included creating clear process guidelines for all key stakeholders, facilitating the recruitment of a new marketing hire, and hands-on integration and mentorship from our marketing consultants.
A key factor in the success of this project was the launch of DAWSON’s Instagram presence. This new digital space helped DAWSON establish a branded presence through consistent content that showcased its products, services, capabilities, and employees.
Additional Projects (2022–2024)
Open Eye was thrilled to continue working with DAWSON after the success of its new sales and marketing strategy. From 2022 to 2024, Open Eye experts partnered with DAWSON to continue increasing its brand awareness, launch new products, and expand their digital footprint. From November 2022 to February 2023, Open Eye created educational digital content to support the launch and promotion of DAWSON’s industry-leading thermally-broken entrances known as “Transcend”.
Building on this product launch, throughout most of 2023 and 2024, DAWSON engaged Open Eye experts to help expand its digital footprint across social media. After creating a social media strategy to promote Transcend, Open Eye experts went on to create and schedule social media posts and provide DAWSON with useful analytics. DAWSON’s online presence and audience expanded from these efforts, creating a stronger and more consistent social media presence for its heritage brand.
The next logical step that DAWSON identified was to continue to improve its marketing efforts with a focus on the company website. In the spring of 2024, Open Eye experts worked with DAWSON to test a Google Ad campaign, implement website strategy updates, and provide marketing outreach assistance. What resulted from this work were new web pages that highlighted DAWSON’s expertise beyond their signature products and communicated their suitability to new industries.
Monthly Retainer (2024–ongoing)
DAWSON continues to partner with Open Eye on a smaller, ongoing engagement focused on maintaining its owned digital presence, preserving the value of the infrastructure and brand assets established through the earlier work.
As part of this ongoing engagement, Open Eye experts design and update digital marketing materials to increase customer understanding of DAWSON’s products and provide them with a professional resource. Open Eye also manages DAWSON’s social media content creation and publication, maintaining a consistent presence in front of customers and prospects. Over the course of the engagement, the team has created a content generation guide and templates, tested Google Ad campaigns, revised a previous sales plan, and provided website strategy updates for trackability and calls to action. Open Eye has also assisted with marketing outreach and with the hiring and onboarding of a Marketing and Sales professional. These monthly efforts help to bring greater visibility to DAWSON’s products, expertise, and people.
KEY INSIGHTS:
When partnering with a heritage brand, it’s important to honour and consider its rich history and understand its people and processes before embarking on any project. Open Eye thoroughly enjoyed helping launch DAWSON into the modern era to make it easier for their customers to find, understand, and see the value in their unique, specialized products and services.
