Stroud Auction Rooms

The client

Based in the heart of the Cotswolds, Stroud Auction Rooms are a family business offering online and salesroom-based auctions of antiques, collectibles, artwork and more. We started off our business relationship offering them print work, and it has grown and developed into search engine marketing and website design. They are even in the midst of a rebrand with us which will come into effect when they open their new salesroom in 2023.

Before we started our work, our client was frustrated with a website that they had no control over. They wanted a website rebuild which would last and would be flexible so they would be able to edit it themselves to add on new products and services, whilst retaining the functionality of displaying lots for their upcoming auctions.

The Website

We built a CMS from the ground up using the MERN stack, giving us the flexibility to have full control over the functionality we provided. Although this meant we had to develop everything from user authentication to file uploading tool it did mean we were then able to customise everything to work just for the client.

One of the hardest pieces of development to was allow for the upload of thousands of lots each months. The client would create a CSV list of the lots and upload the associated images to an FTP directory. We would then run a script to automate the upload process.

The website launched and the client was extremely happy with the results. They know manage the content of their website in-house and lean on Brace for support and maintenance of the website.

The Marketing

We have also supported them with reputation management, where we stayed on top of what was said about Stroud Auction Rooms by monitoring their social media and Facebook and Google reviews, running a social media and member competition to encourage reviews. This was a campaign with a leaflet push in the auction rooms too. We also formulated responses to reviews and managed their Google My Business account. Their review rating on Google increased, which in turn will increase their presence in the search engine results pages.

The print

Our graphic designers were asked to create a leaflet for a door drop campaign in the local Stroud area, to attract more customers to Stroud Auction Rooms. We produced a enticing 8 page roll-fold leaflet, expertly designed to persuade customers put their items up for auction, visit and highlighting key benefits of Stroud Auction Rooms’ service. It also featured their key auction dates and has a small teaser about their upcoming name change and rebrand.