Case Study:

Applied Bolting Technology

Applied Bolting Technology® is the USA’s only manufacturer of heat-treated Direct Tension Indicating (DTI) washers made in accordance with ASTM, AISC, RCSC, and the United States Fastener Quality Act of 1999. Their Squirter® DTIs emit Safety Orange DuraSquirt® Formula to indicate when bolts are tightened to the desired tension, making installation and inspection accurate, fast, and foolproof.

Located in Vermont and serving the global structural steel industry, Applied Bolting Technology had promoted its products largely through trade shows, print ads, and on-site visits to customers and prospects. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, the company struggled to maintain existing relationships and grow awareness of its products in new markets.

At the same time, the Applied Bolting Technology team needed to wrangle the thousands of email addresses and contact records they’d collected over many years and stored in various places. They weren’t using a CRM for marketing or sales purposes at the time, so keeping in touch with dormant accounts and prospects was virtually impossible.

When the Hydrate Marketing Fractional CMO and implementation teams began work with  Applied Bolting Technology, we assessed the company’s products and services, marketing, customers, and competition. Along with creating a sales playbook, we set them up on HubSpot, which would act as a hub for all their inbound marketing, lead generation, and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) activities. We also planned to use the platform for:

• Landing page creation and hosting

• Lead generation and nurturing

• Website CTAs (Calls To Action)

• Webinar registrations

• Blog posts

• Email newsletters

• And much more…

As part of the long-term engagement, Hydrate also guided a complete redesign of the Applied Bolting Technology website. The existing site had become difficult to update, no longer reflected the company's current brand standards, and contained outdated messaging around product offerings that were no longer part of the business. Navigation challenges and limited opportunities for conversion also made it difficult for prospects, distributors, and the sales team to find the information they needed.

Working closely with Applied Bolting Technology's internal marketing manager and contracted web developer, the Hydrate team provided website strategy, copyediting, messaging guidance, sitemap recommendations, lead-generation planning, and SEO tactics such as schema markup to ensure the new website functioned as a true marketing tool. Hydrate also helped Applied Bolting Technology optimize their YouTube channel so their website's video library could be useful and attractive. This was a priority because their training videos are valuable resources often used in the field—their most-viewed YouTube upload has reached over 65,000 people!

Overall, the redesigned site places greater emphasis on Squirter® DTIs, includes a more robust distributor portal and video library, and features improved CTAs, webinar registration opportunities, and lead routing that connects inquiries with the appropriate team members. The outcome is a modern, easy-to-manage website that better supports sales efforts, improves search discoverability, strengthens the brand, and gives the internal team greater control over ongoing website maintenance and updates.

Over the five years of partnership, Applied Bolting Technology presented to over 1,000 webinar participants, grew their LinkedIn network to over 4,000, and added over 16,000 contacts to their HubSpot CRM. With web forms and automated workflows, the sales and distribution teams are notified of contacts that require personal outreach, enabling them to focus their efforts.

Inbound and account-based marketing activities continue to increase awareness of the company and its value proposition while opening opportunities in new markets. This has resulted in record sales years and contributed to substantial overall business growth.