Product excellence, in terms of quality, performance and appearance, backed by a policy of continuous technical development have all played their part in establishing Lonsdale as one of the UK's leading suppliers of Patent Glazing, Rooflight and Atria Sytems. Their client list bears testimony to this, featuring
as it does such impressively eclectic names as Legoland, Tesco, Railtrack, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, The British Museum and Cliveden.

Three things to take into account

Following our appointment by Lonsdale, The Creative Department attended a lengthy and comprehensive induction session. It became evident during the session that there were three things in particular our communications recommendations should take into account.

1. Specifiers are the prime source of new business generation and keeping them abreast of company developments and notable projects, on a regular basis, is an important requirement.

2. Certain types of client, particularly utilities, represent
a real opportunity for medium to long term repeat business and Lonsdale need a means of keeping their name in front of those companies.

3. Lonsdale's policy is to concentrate on manufacturing and development and not be tempted to diversify into the installation market. The benefit to clients of this 'market focus' should be reinforced through our communications activities.

Cost-effective and complementary

Regular contact with specifiers…

Our recommendation was to employ three cost-effective and complementary methods of maintaining regular contact with specifiers. A product card campaign has been developed for distribution via the top - two specifier titles, RIBA Journal and Building, to generate literature and project enquiries and raise awareness of the company's activities. Press coverage is to be achieved through the placement of comprehensive case studies, each containing site photography, product detailing and application drawings. It is intended to develop a series of these case studies, with examples covering topics relating to issues such as new build, refurbishment, historic buildings and maintenance.

Lonsdale are members of the RIBA CPD Providers Network,
so for regular, direct interface with specifiers, optimising the use of their recently developed CPD Seminar is an ideal solution. The Creative Department was responsible for producing the seminar, which is written in HTML format.
As a result it can be transferred to the web or burnt to a CD ROM, making it accessible to users at any time. A feature that is particularly beneficial for distance learning.

Keeping in touch…

A number of clients will be requiring additional work in the future and naturally Lonsdale would like to be considered
the prime candidate to handle those projects. Often though, there is a long interval between the completion of one job and the commissioning of the next. To keep their name at the forefront, we are producing a 'soft-sell', authoritative, newsletter, highlighting industry trends, legislative changes, research findings, product innovations and other useful industry reference material. It will be distributed quarterly
to the Lonsdale database.

Need to address any key issues?

Contact Adrian Hargreaves adrian@creative-department.com or Lucy Garrett lucy@creative-department.com and see if we can help

To enquire further about this case study please go to our enquiry form.