Walthall Oil

Since then, Walthall’s growth in the fuel and oil market has been remarkable. Following a series of acquisitions that started in 1993, the company has become a market leader in Middle and Coastal Georgia, Atlanta, Florida, and Southern South Carolina. In addition to their seven warehouse facilities in three states, the company owns and operates six retail convenience stores with gas and diesel pumps in the Middle Georgia area. Recent acquisitions have added commercial cardlock stations to Walthall’s operations.

Walthall and M&R first partnered in 2015 to develop a website and new print materials for the growing company. They also wanted help with lead generation, and we began a successful Google Ads campaign that helped grow their business for six years.

In 2021, they approached us with a new need. Their 70th Anniversary was approaching, and they wanted to go all out to celebrate. They wanted to use their anniversary as an opportunity to increase brand awareness, improve customer understanding of the breadth of their service offerings, and share their pride in their company and history.

In 2023-24, Walthall has continued to partner with M&R for a number of marketing services, including improving their website content, marketing their cardlock (Fuel Pro) and asset reliability (Walthall Asset Reliability Solutions – WARS) divisions, and writing blog articles to further improve their local and traditional SEO performance.

70th Anniversary Solutions

In preparation for the upcoming milestone anniversary, we got to work. With a customer base as wide as Walthall’s, we had to reach a number of audiences:

• Retail gas, diesel, and convenience store customers who are served by Walthall’s retail locations in Middle Georgia.
• Commercial fleet operators who are served by Walthall’s commercial fueling sites and new cardlock stations.
• Industrial, construction, and agricultural customers who rely on Walthall for fuel, oil, and lubricant delivery and storage solutions.
• Plant and factory operators who contract with Walthall to provide asset reliability services that help keep their equipment working smoothly and efficiently.

Our solutions drew from several different services.

Logo

A milestone anniversary demands a milestone logo. Our design team developed a unique “70 Years” logo to appear alongside Walthall’s other branding throughout 2022. The design includes the “drop of oil” motif that directly reflects the company’s core business and services. The design element brings to the forefront a representation of what the family business is built on, and it connects all of the Walthall sub-brands, including Walthall Asset Reliability Solutions (WARS) and Fuel Pro cardlock stations.

Website

Since contracting us for their first new site in 2015, Walthall had acquired three more companies, all of which expanded the company’s service area and also opened up opportunities for Walthall to explore new lines of service, such as industrial reliability consulting and cardlock fleet fueling stations.

The new website provided Walthall with a cleaner, more contemporary look, along with a structure better designed for expansion and the ability to grow with the company.

Anniversary Video

One centerpiece of the Walthall anniversary celebration was a 90-second video that highlighted Walthall’s long history as a family owned and operated company. Placing historical photography from the company’s early days alongside clips of the company’s present-day operations, the video shows how far Walthall has come since 1952.

The video also needed to help showcase the company’s wide range of services. By including footage of operations in every market segment across every division of the company, we were able to effectively demonstrate Walthall’s versatility.

Additionally, we were able to repurpose footage that was shot for the anniversary video to produce three shorter videos highlighting specific aspects of Walthall’s operations.

Social Media

With such varied audiences to reach, M&R’s social media strategy for Walthall’s 70th anniversary year included:

• LinkedIn ads and posts to target decision makers in the industrial and commercial sectors
• Facebook ads and posts to target retail consumers

Throughout the year, the M&R team made posts and developed social ads that highlighted Walthall’s services, but also worked to build engagement with their audience.

Beyond the 70th Anniversary

Since 2022, we’ve performed a number of additional marketing services for Walthall, including:

As a result of M&R’s efforts, the marketing efforts associated with Walthall’s 70th anniversary paid off not only during the 2022 anniversary year but have continued to help the company grow its brand recognition and engagement with their customers.

Anniversary Video

The 90-second anniversary video produced by M&R was a top performer on social media. In 2022, it reached more than 2,500 users on Facebook and collected almost 200 clicks. Since its launch, it’s been viewed on YouTube almost 1,000 times.

One of the subsequent videos, a 60-second spot highlighting services for industrial clients, reached almost 1,300 Facebook users and has been viewed on YouTube more than 200 times.

Social Media in 2022

Recent Results

M&R’s efforts continue to yield solid results for Walthall. In one quarter:

• Walthall’s digital display ads produced a massive 306,000 impressions, 1,230 engagements and 124 conversions, plus a whopping 86 leads in one month alone!
• Their search ads yielded click through rates almost three times higher than the industry benchmark and a conversion rate almost double the benchmark.
• Their website generated 340 conversions, including click-to-calls and form submissions
• Their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts yielded more than 270,000 impressions
• Their eNewsletters outperformed industry averages, with a click-through rate of almost 6%, compared to the industry benchmark of 2.95%.
• Their website’s SEO has improved noticeably, with nearly 500 new ranking keywords due to M&R-written blog articles.

“We were excited to celebrate our 70th year in business and wanted to create a video to do just that. We knew what we wanted; we just didn’t know how to execute it perfectly until we went to the drawing board with M&R… We still get so many compliments on our 70th Anniversary video and could not be more impressed with how it turned out. We couldn’t have done it without the help, guidance & expertise from M&R and will continue to utilize them for any additional video needs in the future!

We also desperately needed a revamp of our website and tasked M&R with that tedious job. They were so easy to work with and made what can be a long, drawn-out process very seamless every step of the way… We live in such a digital age now and know how important it is to have a professional-looking website representing our company to the public. Websites seem to be a never-ending project that always needs updating, and we’re thankful to have M&R as our trusted partner to get that done for our company!”

– Allison Walthall, VP of Marketing and Branding, Walthall Oil Company