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Interactive map and focus on expertise enable a new HubSpot build to support growth

How a Strategic HubSpot Website Set the Stage to Align Cummings Electrical's Brand, Showcase Expertise, and Accelerate Growth

To align Cummings Electrical’s digital presence with its reputation and business goals, SmartBug Media® built a HubSpot website from the ground up as a storytelling platform designed to convert.

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Stronger Brand Clarity

The new website strengthens brand alignment across three distinct business units. Its persona-driven content speaks to unique audiences to illustrate the company’s expertise and innovation.

Scalable Growth Foundation

A customer-centric approach to site architecture reflects audience needs and provides a backbone for marketing, lead generation, and SEO.

Enhanced User Experience

The company created a brand experience that supports customer decision-making and partnership success, with an interactive project map that proves expertise.

Background

Cummings Electrical is one of the largest full-service electrical contracting providers in Dallas-Fort Worth. The company operates with three distinct business units: Construction Division (CBS), Service Division (SVC), and Integrated Manufacturing Division (IM). This unique operational structure sets Cummings up for success in its market, but it isn’t easy to explain from a marketing perspective. In fact, 30 percent of leads misidentified which business unit would best serve them!

Cummings knew it had to wipe the slate clean and rethink its web presence. The company turned to SmartBug for a website strategy project based on the agency’s HubSpot expertise and problem-solving approach.

While the initial project was to align those three business units, Cummings soon realized it would need a full-scale website redesign. SmartBug created a new website that promotes the brand’s services under one "Cummings Electrical" umbrella, sharing the business unit story in a way that wouldn’t interfere with customer confidence.

The Problem

A Fragmented Website Hiding Brand Expertise

Despite a rebuild in 202o, Cummings’ website was disconnected. It felt more like a series of internal org charts—illustrating how internal units are organized—and made it difficult for users to understand how Cummings provided end-to-end solutions.

The website lacked a clear audience journey and didn't have a platform for thought leadership or social proof, negatively impacting its SEO rankings. So, in 2023, Cummings Electrical chose SmartBug to redefine its web presence with a focus on clarity, credibility, and conversion. SmartBug implemented HubSpot to not only reimagine information architecture to reflect how customers think but also provide a scalable foundation for future inbound marketing and SEO.

The initiative was designed to elevate the brand across every business unit, leveraging HubSpot to support persona-specific content throughout the buyer’s journey. It also supported SEO and lead generation efforts to expand into new verticals and geographic markets, with the website architecture building trust and highlighting Cummings' commitment to safety, quality, and innoation.

Our Solution

Creating a Customer-First Digital Experience Through Authentic Storytelling and UX

Interactive Project Map
Flexible Assessment Tool
Dynamic Resource Library
Custom Layouts
Modal Windows

SmartBug built Cummings Electrical a brand-new 64-page website entirely in HubSpot, combining modern storytelling with strategic UX to support the company’s business goals. The new site features customer-centric architecture with 11 fully custom layouts to reflect how prospects evaluate services, as well as unified messaging with 40 pages of persona-driven copywriting that capture each unique business unit and Cummings’ culture of success and partnership.

The new website puts the company’s services, expertise, and approach front and center, showcasing how it reduces risk, maintains quality, and stays on budget. HubDB supports content across the site, including its Expertise, Testimonials, and Resources sections. But the main showstopper it supports is the interactive project map, which allows users to filter by location, industry, and expertise to learn about project successes nationwide.

On top of all this, SmartBug used the full scope of HubSpot’s capabilities to integrate a dynamic resource library, flexible assessment tool, and modal windows to support additional media. The team built accessible drag-and-drop modules in Content Hub to assist the client with DIY updates.

The new CummingsElec.com offers a sleek, confident, and modern design that meets users where they are and supports long-term goals. It gives the company a platform to share expert insights through guides, pillar pages, case studies, and blog articles that support lead generation and long-term relationship building. This scalable foundation sets the stage for SEO performance, marrying a competitive keyword strategy with page structure to improve visibility.

Personalized Prospecting

Phase 1: Web Strategy

Discovery and Kickoff (Week 1)

After Cummings became a web strategy and development client, SmartBug administered a discovery questionnaire. Discovery served to capture business goals and design guidelines while giving SmartBug platform access. With the necessary details in hand, a kickoff call aligned both parties on project requirements and process expectations.

Analysis (Week 1–2)

SmartBug’s development team performed a deep analysis to understand the current state and inform next steps. During quantitative analysis, we reviewed the performance and infrastructure of the original Cummings website, including top pages, assets to migrate, bounce/conversion rates, and integrations. By contrast, qualitative analysis focused on personas, user behavior tracking, pain points, and actionable insights.

Strategic Plan (Week 2–3)

Using a combination of data, the team formulated a comprehensive plan to improve Cummings Electrical’s web presence. The resulting strategy incorporated redesign objectives, keyword themes, and sitemap recommendations.

Website Build Proposal (Week 3–4)

SmartBug created a website proposal for Cummings, including the scope of work, design/development costs, and a draft of the project schedule.

Findings and Next Steps (Week 5)

SmartBug met with Cummings' leadership to present the dev team’s findings. We offered our recommendations, soliciting client feedback to best align on the next steps for a full redesign project.

Lead Management Tools

Phase 2: Website Redesign and Development

Discovery and Setup (Pre-Kickoff: Month 1)

Similar to the web strategy, SmartBug again administered a discovery questionnaire to understand Cummings Electrical’s website priorities. We used this information to guide our kickoff discussion before moving on to UX strategy, sitemap, and wireframe creation.

Creative and Technical Design (Months 1-2)

In the early months, SmartBug designers collaborated on layout design and visual direction. The team used these designs to initiate development planning.

Build and Content (Months 2-4)

While the dev team created a site framework with core features, the copywriting and SEO teams made Cummings’ content informative and search-friendly. We rounded it all out with image selection and internal QA processes to ensure the website was attractive and functional.

Testing and Launch (Months 4-5)

Does this look, feel, and work the way everyone hoped? The Cummings team weighed in down the stretch through user acceptance testing (UAT) to ensure functionality and compliance. With their feedback, SmartBug was able to make adjustments and initiate final launch preparation and go-live.

Post-Launch Support (Month 6)

Upon the launch of the brand-new CummingsElec.com, SmartBug has remained vigilant to ensure continued performance. The dev team provides ongoing support for everything from bug fixes to optimizations.

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The Results

Building a Foundation for Marketing and Business Growth

SmartBug's work on CummingsElec.com successfully transformed the site into a high-performance conversion and storytelling platform, driving immediate and long-term value.

Key Deliverables & Functionality

Conversion Focus: The new architecture is built to support the full customer lifecycle, focusing on inbound marketing, lead generation, and SEO.
Dynamic Project Showcase: An interactive project map pulls data from HubDB, providing prospects with a clear, dynamic illustration of the company's work, methodologies, and commitment to quality.
Future-Proofing: Easy-to-use content templates and revamped site architecture were created to support Cummings Electrical's future expansion and ensure content consistency.

Major Wins & Client Feedback

Measurable ROI: Since the launch, many new customers have specifically mentioned the updated website as a significant point of influence in their decision.
Brand Alignment: The project delivered strengthened brand alignment and clarity across all business units.
Exceptional Partnership: The Cummings project team praised SmartBug for mirroring their sense of reciprocation and partnership, specifically noting the "human observation approach" and commitment from the development team.