Case Study - Howarth Timber & Building Supplies

OBJECTIVE

Howarth Timber asked Yorkshire Podcast Studios to create a podcast concept for them that helped increase the amount of video content they produced internally but also met several key objectives. The podcast and associated video content had to enhance the historic brand; to show how the company worked with its suppliers and clients; and to illuminate the work going on across its 37 branches in the UK.

Howarth needed humanising in a 21st century marketplace. 

STRATEGY

Led by an enthusiast commercial and marketing team, Howarth identified one of its directors to take control of the project as host of the podcast. The marketing team worked with YPS to look at a strategy across multiple threads of content, looking many months into the future. Podcasts would look at the history and structure of the company; at each individual branch; at suppliers, moving focus to the stories behind the products they sell; and at customers, bringing them into the studio to tell their stories of how they work using products supplied by Howarth. 
The full range of stories told by a remarkable range of PEOPLE. It’s about their lives and the role Howarth plays in what they do. 

RESULTS

The results have been astonishingly good. Helped by a company that believed in the content it was creating (and creating itself through its own resources) the Howarth Timber Podcast has quickly found an audience that watches, listens and responds to each episode. Suppliers and clients have actively asked to come on to the podcast. They know that Howarth has a solid base of customers who are being served the content and - to put it mildly - they want to use the audience base Howarth has provided. 
It’s a brilliant example of how a brand can take an existing customer base, be that a mailing list, trade accounts or membership scheme, to post engaging new content that enhances their customer offering and brings a feeling of community to what is normally a simple transaction.
As one guest put it, the podcast shows that there are people BEHIND the business and humanises their offering.

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves!