LAIRE Web Design Mastery In Action With Premier Building Systems’ Four Dynamic Brands

Case Study Overview

For parent company Premier Building Systems and its product brands, Premier SIPS, R-Shield, and Premier ICF, a cohesive digital ecosystem was needed to uplift all brands to better compete and establish their strengths in the current marketplace.

As the largest structural insulated panel (SIP) manufacturer in North America, Premier SIPS already had significant website traffic and ranked well for some relevant keywords, but Premier Building Systems and the other product brands had little to no digital presence.

LAIRE got to work designing four website concepts at once to provide a cohesive yet unique user experience across the board. Now, each brand maintains its own unique logos and color palettes, but the sites carry a uniform theme that has led to more traffic, leads, and loyal customers.

Who Is Premier Building Systems?

Founded in 1977 originally as Big Sky Insulations, Premier Building Systems is renowned for pioneering the molded polystyrene (MPS), SIP, and insulated concrete form (ICF) industries in North America. They remain at the forefront of innovation in sustainable construction solutions. Premier Building Systems is the parent company of three distinct brands:

Premier SIPS
This brand specializes in SIPs for residential, commercial, and industrial building construction. These high-performance panels offer superior insulation, energy efficiency, and durability, providing a sustainable and cost-effective solution for modern builds.

R-Shield
Focusing on providing advanced building enclosure systems, R-Shield insulation systems are designed to enhance the overall thermal performance, airtightness, and moisture management of structures. R-Shield products help to create comfortable, energy-efficient, and environmentally responsible buildings.

Premier ICF
Formerly known as Diamond Snap Form, this brand specializes in ICFs, the sustainable and resilient building solution that consists of interlocking panels filled with concrete to create highly insulated and durable building envelopes.

The Problem: Lack of Digital Presence and Streamlined User Experience

Premier Building Systems came to LAIRE in 2021 wanting to redesign the website for one of its four brands: Premier SIPS.

The Premier SIPS website already had healthy website traffic and ranked well for some relevant keywords, but the website style was outdated and difficult to navigate. The site’s downloadable resources were extensive and disorganized, which led to a confusing user experience. Additionally, it didn’t compete well with the more modern websites of the brand’s competitors.

That said, the client had a vision of establishing Premier Building Systems as the parent company with its own, new digital presence, with its three other brands under its umbrella. So, while they initially wanted a new look for the Premier SIPS site, to ensure a clear brand relationship with the parent company, we had to first create a presence for the parent.

The Solution: Redesign, Restructure, Reorganize

Even at the beginning of our partnership with Premier Building Systems in 2021, the company already used HubSpot Marketing Pro, HubSpot Sales Pro, and the HubSpot CRM platform. This familiarity with the ecosystem led them to want to pursue a HubSpot CMS subscription as well.

As a Platinum HubSpot Partner, the team at LAIRE was elated and incorporated a migration to the HubSpot CMS into our website plan for the company.

Website Design Blueprint

The LAIRE team created a customized strategy to incorporate the following goals:

• Implement a gradual redesign of multiple brand websites and introduce a new parent website for Premier Building Systems on the HubSpot CMS.
• Reorganize existing website content, simplify website pages, and create a clear and concise flow for an improved user experience.
• Highlight brand Remarkables like performance data, environmental impact, ease of installation, and other unique identifying elements in the branded imagery and copy.
• Implement inbound tools to promote future marketing and lead generation initiatives.
• Perform and implement search engine optimization (SEO) research to improve current keyword rankings.

Planning the URL Structures

Originally, the three child brands had their own established domains. Premier Building Systems itself had no digital presence — only a logo used inconsistently. There was no brand story and no distinct brand voice or persona.

To differentiate each brand while positioning Premier Building Systems as the clear parent company, the client chose to make changes to the URL structures for each brand and use subdomains, under the new parent domain premierbuildingsystems.com.

Various issues typically arise when changing an established brand domain, however. For Premier SIPS, the current domain had been in place for over 10 years and already had established rankings. The client would be giving this up to change the URL. But that was a choice they made, to better benefit all the companies working together. 

The results (or lack of results) from launching a website with a new domain would require patience as it needs some time for the URL to become established within search engines.

The Redesign Project Begins

Creating a cohesive and interconnected website design and structure for four distinct brands — each with its logos, color stories, and market presence — is a nuanced set of tasks. In the end, a large library of page designs would be shared amongst the brands. But to minimize the initial design time to create ALL of the page designs needed for all 4 sites at one time, the LAIRE team broke down the process into four separate phases.

With each phase/brand website build, we created the page design templates needed for that site and the main structures of the next sites, and then with each sequential project, page templates were added. We also addressed unique needs for each site as we went.

It’s important to note that, while websites can be built in shorter timelines, we moved at a comfortable speed for the client. They had a lot to coordinate internally, from first creating a brand identity for the parent company, to getting resources organized and approved across departments and companies.

Project Timeline at a Glance

• The website build for parent company Premier Building Systems began in the summer of 2021, with the new site launching in March 2022. This initiative involved building the 6-page launch site, and creating core page layouts that would be used for future sites.
• The Premier SIPS website redesign began in spring 2022 and went live in September 2022. Here, we built a 29-page website, and a structure to house the companies’ vast library of resources and project portfolios.
• The next piece of the puzzle was creating a new website for R-Shield, which began in the fall of 2022 and launched in May 2023. The brand relaunched with a 25-page website.
• Lastly, the Premier ICF website (formerly Diamond Snap Form) creation began in the winter of 2022 and went live in May 2023. We created an 11-page website, built from the page templates we’d rolled out with the previous 3 sites.

Phase 1

In Phase 1, the LAIRE team started by establishing a parent website for Premier Building Systems, a 6-page website, and created the following seven core website page layouts, plus the navigation structure:

• Home page
• About page
• Contact page
• Find a Rep page
• Careers page
• Blog listings page
• Blog post templates
• MegaMenu structure

Phase 2

In Phase 2, LAIRE built a 29-page website site for Premier SIPS, and created the following nine templates to add to the layout library:

• Solutions Overview
• Solutions Detail
• Product Advantages
• Project Gallery Overview
• Project Details
• Video Library
• Document Library
• Landing Page
• Thank You Page

Phase 3

In Phase 3, LAIRE created a 25-page website for R-Shield, including the following new page designs, and unique page modules based on content needs:

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Case Studies Overview
• Case Study Listing

Phase 4

During Phase 4, LAIRE built the final child site for Premier ICF, an 11-page site. In this phase, all of the page layouts had been previously designed for the other child sites, so the build focused on customizing the pages for Premier ICF’s product needs.

A Unique But Unified Look for Each Brand

The LAIRE team decided to design the four site concepts simultaneously, making sure that if a certain design component worked for one brand, it also worked for the other three.

Each brand used the base color palette of white, black, and grey but was given its own designated accent color to set it apart from the others: blue for Premier Building Systems, bright green and blue for Premier SIPS, red for R-Shield, and dark green for Premier ICF.

LAIRE incorporated similar shapes and patterns to each logo and incorporated a recognizable page flow on the website of each brand. This gave visitors a unique brand experience, sprinkled with the familiar essence of the other family sites.

The navigation design was a key element in our website redesign. It needed to be easy to navigate, it had to link to the brand sites and show the relationship of each brand with the other.

LAIRE used a utility navigation layout which helped keep the other brands present at all times, while still allowing for easy navigation between sites.

The Results: Improved Rankings and Increased Organic Search Traffic

Premier Building Systems

For the parent site, Premier Building Systems, organic web traffic has been trending up month over month since we began tracking in 2022.

• Direct search traffic increased by 99% from 2022 to 2023.
• Organic search traffic (sessions) increased 57% from 2022 to 2023.
• The number of new contacts increased 339% from 2022 to 2023.

Premier SIPS

The number of keywords the Premier SIPS site is ranking for has continuously trended upward since the launch of the new subdomain in 2022.

The average number of ranking keywords in early 2022 before the redesign was around 1,200 per month, and by October 2023, the site was regularly ranking for 2,000+ keywords per month.

It’s important to note that the Premier SIPS website experienced a dip in rankings after launching the new site and adding the redirect link. Now, however, it consistently ranks for more keywords than it ever has due to the creation of the new website structure and the optimization of new and current content.

R-Shield

Since LAIRE started tracking data in HubSpot in July 2023, we’ve gained 3 new leads from organic search and 3 from direct traffic.

Generate Leads With Strategic Digital Marketing

Through a strategic redesign and launch of all four websites, Premier Building Systems and its family of brands experienced an increase in direct and organic traffic, an increase in new contacts, and a seamless user experience on each brand website.

The company’s use of the full HubSpot platform — Marketing Hub Pro, Sales Hub Pro, Service Hub Pro, CMS Hub Pro, and Operations Hub Pro — has streamlined the buyers’ journey for leads, enhanced internal operations, and, of course, improved lead generation.

We continue to be impressed with the polished design, functionality, and user experience the team at LAIRE helped create. They had the foresight to make recommendations for future growth and compatibility with other marketing channels (social, online learning, email marketing, and more) that we simply wouldn’t have known to do without them. The result is something we are extremely proud of and one that’s driving a huge increase in MQL and SQL lead generation as a result of the site design, UX, and conversion points.

– Becky Susan, Marketing Director, Premier Building Systems