Digital marketing helps PSD secure major international partnership

Colne-based PSD Groundscare has secured an exclusive deal to distribute Canycom brushcutters in the UK.

PSD sells a range of landscape machinery and tools to customers including local authorities, landscapers and homeowners.

Canycom, a family business founded in 1960 which exports to more than 40 countries, designs and builds ride-on brushcutters capable of easily cutting long grass and brash on both steep slopes and rough terrain.

The deal is, in part, a result of the strength of PSD’s digital marketing efforts, which have been designed and implemented by Blackburn-based eBusiness UK.

The PSD team had been aware of the Japanese manufacturer for some time, having been impressed with the quality of its products at various trade events around the world.

The company originally held an exclusive distribution deal with another manufacturer and when that came to a natural end, Canycom was the first company that the group reached out to, gauging interest in forming a partnership.

Chris Gibson, founder of PSD, said: “The Canycom brushcutters are top quality – they’re reliable, they’re packed with features and their commitment to safety, are as good as it gets.

“In many ways we were glad that they weren’t as widely available in the UK as they are in other parts of the world because they would have provided serious competition for us. But when the opportunity came to find a new supplier, they were top of our list.”

Chris and the team sent a speculative message to Canycom and discovered that the Asian company was already aware of – and impressed by – PSD Groundscare’s number one position in the UK landscaping machinery sector.

Chris added: “At the same time we had been admiring their technology, they had been impressed by our ability to capture UK market share. When we got in touch asking if they would be interested in us bringing their machines to the UK, they were delighted!”

Canycom had first become aware of PSD Groundscare by researching the UK market online. They found that when searching for products within their product category, whatever search terms they typed into their search engine, PSD was always the most visible company.

Chris explained: “We thought we were introducing ourselves, but as they had been tracking us online, they were already familiar with our company.”

Canycom usually takes over 12 months to fully investigate suppliers it hopes to work with, but due to its existing familiarity with PSD, less than four months passed between Chris’s initial email and his trip to Japan to sign the contract in record time.

Latif Kothia, director of eBusiness UK which implemented the digital marketing strategy for PSD Groundscare, said: “This just goes to show the power of digital marketing. So many decisions in today’s world start with an online search. And as this story shows, it’s not just future customers. It can be investors, new recruits or – in this case – lucrative business partnerships.

“In this case, search engine optimisation brought PSD’s name to the attention of a major global company. The fact that they were the most prominent consitently for so many keywords underscored PSD’s dominant position in the market and helped demonstrate that it is a heavyweight company.

“We’re absolutely delighted to have played a role in bringing these two great companies together and look forward to continuing to work with PSD in the future.”