A long-standing digital partnership with one of the UK’s finest instrument auction houses

– Tim Ingles and Paul Hayday have a long history of working with fine and rare stringed instruments. Together, they use to run the musical instrument department of Sotheby’s.

When they decided to launch their own dealership and auction house, they asked us to help them create a web presence that reflects their credibility, and position them in the market as leaders. We have worked with Paul and Tim ever since, providing strategic brand, web, and marketing services to help them navigate the digital world.

A website with an abundance of class

The fine stringed instrument market is full of savvy buyers and sellers, who’s worlds revolve around the finest details. A clean, modern look was needed, with a focus on presenting the instruments in an immersive gallery experience. A fully custom instrument zoom feature was created, allowing users to explore almost microscopic levels of detail from any device.

A notable sales section provides a library of information on instruments that have passed through their hands, as well as media rich biography pages for the makers. The private sales section intentionally feels slightly more prestigious and is a place to feature their finest, multimillion pound instruments.

Crafting meaningful connections

One of the most important aspects of the new web project was to provide seamless connections between each section of the website. Instruments listed in the live auctions can be tagged to pages in their notable sales, or articles from their insights section. Likewise, when a maker in the notable sales section has an instrument in the current auction, or in the private sales section, cross links and calls to action are generated. For easy administration, we also created a custom tool that allows Ingles & Hayday to move instruments from private sale or auction straight into the notable sales section.

Record breaking live auctions

Ingles & Hayday run two live auctions every year. Historically this was exclusive to bidders and telephone bidders in the room at Sotheby’s. We were asked to help Ingles & Hayday select the right live auction partner and advise on technical integration.

Following a research phase, many calls to third party providers and in person meetings, we found the perfect solution that gave us high levels of control over the design and functions for live auctions. Ingles and Hayday have since had multiple record-breaking sales due to the much-improved bidding experience for their international client base.

Raising brand awareness to global markets

We have worked closely with Ingles & Hayday for many years as their digital partner. We provide flexible, strategic marketing support that covers a broad mix of services. We have helped grow their search traffic by over 80%, capturing international searches for buying, selling and valuations. Dedicated paid ad campaigns were set up to increase exposure in target countries, with foreign language ads and landing pages. These have proven a great success, with dozens of quality enquiries coming through each month.

%

Increase in new users

%

Increase in conversion rate

%

Increase in enquiries