Bolt Case Study

Someone recommends your business. Great. The prospect Googles you, opens your website and has a look around. What do they find?

For plenty of good B2B businesses, the answer is a fairly ordinary website. Some information about what they do, a few pictures of the team, a services page and perhaps a news section that hasn't seen much news for a while.

That's pretty much where Bolt Fire were when we first met them. Which was a shame, because the business itself was considerably more impressive.

Bolt had spent years building a successful fire safety company, with experienced engineers, excellent processes and long-standing customers who trusted them. You just couldn't see enough of that online.

And with founder Amrit looking to generate more business through SEO, LinkedIn and other marketing activity, that was becoming a problem.

After all, there's not much point spending money getting people to your website if you're giving them very little reason to stick around. So we set about fixing it.

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First, we needed to understand the business

One of the easiest things for a video production company to do is turn up with a camera and start filming. You'll probably come away with plenty of footage.

Whether any of it is particularly useful is another matter. We prefer to work out what we're trying to achieve before deciding what we're going to film.

So we started with discovery.

We spent time understanding Bolt's business, reviewing its existing website and sales channels, and talking to Amrit about what made customers choose them.

And something became pretty obvious. Bolt's professionalism was one of its biggest selling points.

The engineers knew their stuff. The processes were thorough. Customers trusted them to look after something as important as fire safety. But prospective customers researching Bolt online weren't getting much of that story.

Bolt's original website explained the services, but it didn't give prospective customers much of a sense of the people, expertise and processes behind them. For a business responsible for something as important as fire safety, those details matter. We wanted customers to see what made Bolt worth trusting before they ever picked up the phone.

That was the opportunity.

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Four questions. Four videos.

We have a fairly straightforward way of approaching B2B video strategy.

We look at the questions prospective customers are likely to ask when deciding whether to work with a business. Then we work out how video can help answer them. For Bolt, four questions stood out:

• Who are you, and what do you actually do?
• What happens if I work with you?
• Can I trust you?
• Who are the people I'll be dealing with?

Rather than producing a collection of videos and figuring out what to do with them afterwards, we gave each film a specific job. A company introduction to explain the business. A process film to show how the service works. A customer case study to provide independent proof. And a Meet the Team film to introduce the people behind it all.

That gave us the content strategy.

Now we had to make it.

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Making Bolt look as professional as they actually are

There's quite a lot that goes into a good video before anyone presses record. And for Bolt, some of the most important decisions had very little to do with cameras. During discovery, Amrit had spoken a lot about the standards he expected from his team. Professionalism was a big deal to him. So we wanted everything on screen to reflect that.

Which meant getting involved in everything from the filming locations to what the engineers were wearing. Yes, we even got involved in the uniforms. We developed styling ideas and mock-ups to help create a more consistent appearance across the films. Because if we're making a video about a business that prides itself on professionalism, we'd quite like everyone to look the part.

We also needed the right environments. We could have spent two days filming people sitting in chairs talking about fire alarms. But there's only so much of that anyone wants to watch. Fortunately, Amrit had access to a specialist fire safety training facility, which gave us a much better setting for parts of the production.

We also planned filming around live jobs so we could capture Bolt's engineers doing what they actually do.

And then there was Makita. One of Bolt's long-standing customers, Makita UK, agreed to feature in a customer case study. Which is brilliant, but also means asking a busy customer to give up their time, appear on camera and talk about your business. We handled the planning and coordination around that shoot too.

Amrit made the introduction. We took care of getting the story on screen.

That's an important part of our service.

Our clients have businesses to run. They shouldn't suddenly have to become film producers just because they've commissioned some videos.

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Two days of filming. Here's what we made.

With the strategy agreed and the production planned, we spent two days capturing the footage needed to bring everything together.

Here's how the finished films answered those original questions.

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The Company Introduction: Who are you, and what do you do?

The original Bolt homepage explained what the company did. But you had to read your way through it. We wanted someone to understand the business in about a minute.

So we produced a company introduction showing the team, the work, the scale of the operation and the personality behind Bolt. You get a much better feel for the company you're dealing with.

And because we've filmed the actual business, we're showing prospective customers something they couldn't get from stock photography or a few paragraphs of copy.

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The Process Film: What happens if I work with you?

Buying a B2B service can involve a fair bit of uncertainty.

What happens after I enquire? Who turns up? How disruptive is the work going to be? What am I actually paying for? In Bolt's case, the answers were good. Their engineers were experienced, their processes were well organised and they understood how to work around live businesses.

A lot of the things that made Bolt good were details customers might only discover after hiring them. We wanted to show those things earlier.

So we produced a film explaining how Bolt works, giving prospective customers a clearer idea of what to expect.

[VIDEO: BOLT HOW IT WORKS]

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The Makita UK Case Study: Can I trust you?

Every business says they're brilliant on its own website. Some even have the awards and certificates to prove it. But there's something particularly convincing about hearing a customer explain why they continue to work with you. Bolt already had a great example in Makita UK. We interviewed Justin Maule, Makita's Health and Safety Officer, about the relationship and the work Bolt carries out for them.

He spoke about the maintenance contract, technical advice and the smaller things Bolt does to make his job easier.

One comment summed things up nicely:

"Whenever they're on site, I know that I can rely on them for the technical knowledge and to make sure that they're giving me the right advice."

That's considerably more useful to a prospective customer than another headline promising excellent service.

Especially when you're asking someone to trust you with the safety of their building.

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The Meet the Team Film: Who will I be dealing with?

There was another thing missing from Bolt's original website: a proper introduction to the people behind the service. Potential customers could read about the business, but they didn't get much of a feel for the engineers they'd actually be dealing with.

We wanted to change that. So we produced a Meet the Team film.

You see the engineers at work, get a feel for their experience and meet the people who might actually turn up at your building. For a service where professionalism, expertise and trust matter, that's a pretty useful introduction.

[VIDEO: MEET BOLT]

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And we didn't stop there

Alongside the four main films, we produced additional insight content and six short-form videos. That gave Bolt a collection of content it could use across its website, LinkedIn and YouTube.

All captured as part of the same planned production.

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Making the most of the finished videos

We've seen plenty of businesses spend good money on professional video production, post the finished film on LinkedIn once, get a few likes and then forget about it. Which is a bit of a waste. We wanted Bolt to get considerably more use out of its investment.

So alongside producing the films, we looked at how the content should work across the company's main sales channels.

• Website: The company introduction gives homepage visitors a better first impression. The process film explains the service, the Meet the Team film introduces the engineers and the Makita case study provides independent proof.
• LinkedIn: We created new company page artwork and supplied video content Bolt could use in future posts, helping people researching the business find a more professional and informative presence.
• YouTube: We created the channel artwork, organised the films into playlists and uploaded the short-form content as YouTube Shorts.

Now, we appreciate that running a fire safety business is probably enough to keep Amrit busy. He doesn't need to become a YouTuber as well. But YouTube is one of the world's biggest websites, owned by Google, and its videos can appear in search results.

It makes sense for Bolt to have a professional presence there, particularly when we've already produced the content.

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So, was it worth it?

Well, straight away, Bolt had something it didn't have before. A professional, consistent presence across its website, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Prospective customers could now see the people behind the business, understand how its services work and hear directly from a customer who trusts them. And the videos were produced to a standard that reflected the quality of the business.

That's a pretty good start. But what about sales? Well, this is where we think businesses sometimes misunderstand how marketing works.

There's a brilliant observation from Peter Thiel in his book Zero to One:

"Advertising doesn't exist to make you buy a product right away; it exists to embed subtle impressions that will drive sales later."

And we think that's particularly relevant to B2B video marketing. Someone might watch your company introduction today, see a customer case study next month and finally get in touch six months later when they actually need your services. They might not even remember watching the videos.

But those impressions can influence how they feel about your business and whether they choose you over someone else.

Of course, we'd love to tell every client that investing in professional video production will immediately generate more sales. But anyone promising that is either incredibly optimistic or telling porkies. There are simply too many factors involved. And in Bolt's case, they've also been investing in SEO to help more people discover the business.

So we're certainly not going to take credit for every new enquiry.

But the early feedback has been encouraging. Shortly after the videos went live, Amrit told us:

"We've had some more enquiries coming through in the last 2 weeks, so things are looking good."

He went on to say:

"This is in line with our SEO campaign improving our Google/AI listing. I feel the videos have charged things up, from just website clicks, to people making calls - this is great and we're pleased with the results so far."

Lovely to hear. And it's exactly what we hoped the content would help achieve.

The SEO activity is bringing more people to Bolt. The videos give those visitors a better understanding of the business and more reasons to trust them. Over time, we'd expect that to improve their chances of turning interest into enquiries.

Will Bolt ever know precisely which video influenced which customer? Probably not.

But they've already got a much stronger collection of sales and marketing assets, they're receiving encouraging feedback, and Amrit is seeing positive signs in the enquiries coming through. And unlike an advert that disappears when you stop paying for it, these videos can continue working across Bolt's sales channels for years to come.

We think that's a worthwhile investment.

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What can you take from this?

If you're spending money on SEO, LinkedIn, outreach or advertising, have a look at what happens when someone checks your business out. Pretend you've never heard of your company before. Can you quickly understand what it does? Can you see what makes it good? Is there evidence that customers trust it? Can you see the people you'd be working with?

If the answers are buried in paragraphs of copy, or missing altogether, there's probably an opportunity to improve things.

And you don't necessarily need months of filming or hundreds of videos to do it. For Bolt, we identified the most important questions, planned the right content and captured everything we needed across two filming days.

The result is a collection of professionally produced films that work together across the company's main sales channels.

We call this Content Foundations. It's how we combine video strategy, creative planning and professional production to help B2B businesses make a better impression on prospective customers.

And we take care of the whole process, so you can get on with running your business.

Want to see what we'd recommend for yours? Book a free strategy session with our team.

We'll review your website and sales channels, identify the content gaps and show you the videos we'd recommend producing.

[CTA BUTTON: BOOK A FREE STRATEGY SESSION]

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