Growing ICON and Beyond: The Timber Trading Transformation Story

Building a Smarter Marketing Foundation for Sustainable Growth

Timber Trading is a leading lumber wholesaler in the Northeast with decades of experience serving architects, builders, and distributors. Known for its commitment to quality wood products and sustainable innovation, the company’s thermally modified line, ICON, represents the future of natural wood performance and design with its promise: Perfecting wood, naturally.

When we first connected, Timber Trading had a strong product and a compelling story but needed to strengthen how that story reached and influenced professional audiences. The leadership team wanted to increase specification and awareness for ICON while building a more modern, connected marketing and sales foundation that could support long-term growth.

Photo by James Reed

The Challenge

Timber Trading’s business was evolving quickly, but its marketing and sales systems had not kept pace.

HubSpot, their CRM and CMS, was not configured to reflect how buyers move through the sales journey.
Website content highlighted product beauty but lacked educational depth for architects who needed case studies, technical documentation, and design inspiration.
Email and digital outreach to their database were inconsistent and lacked segmentation and scale.
Marketing and sales were operating independently, limiting visibility into what was driving engagement or conversion.

What Timber Trading needed was not just a set of campaigns but a connected marketing system and strategy that would evolve with the company’s growth.

The Strategy: Start with AEC, Then Strengthen the Foundation

We started with our AEC Strategy engagement, focused on how Timber Trading could better reach and influence architects, specifiers, and builders within the AEC community.

Our team led an in-depth assessment that included:

A competitive analysis of how ICON compared to leading brands in the thermal modification category.
Persona development to clarify what architects value most in material selection, from sustainability to design performance.
Buyer journey mapping to understand how architects and specifiers move from awareness and trust to preference, ultimately driving ICON to become the basis of design.

Through this work, we uncovered a range of insights that informed every element of the solution, from foundational systems to brand storytelling and market positioning.

We recognized that before Timber Trading could accelerate specification and long-term growth, it needed a more modern, connected sales and marketing infrastructure. The solution would bring together data, strategy, and execution through a unified framework. It needed to integrate technology like HubSpot with actionable insights, ensuring that both sales and marketing were working toward shared goals.

It also required redefining how Timber Trading communicates its brand story, creating meaningful content experiences that move audiences from awareness to advocacy. This approach ensured every tactic is guided by strategy and every investment is connected to measurable business outcomes.

Photo by James Reed

The Solution: Building Systems That Scale

1. Reimagining HubSpot as a Growth Engine

To create alignment between marketing and sales, Point To Point reconfigured Timber Trading’s HubSpot CRM and marketing automation system to serve as a true growth engine.

Defined and aligned HubSpot’s lifecycle stages to match the real-world buyer journey.
Improved visibility into lead engagement, follow-up activity, and outcomes.
Created segmentation strategies to better tailor content and outreach by audience type.

HubSpot now functions as an integrated platform for data-driven decisions and continuous improvement.

2. Expanding the Content Ecosystem

With a stronger foundation in place, we turned our attention to storytelling and content. Our team developed a content plan designed to educate, inspire, and convert, key components included:

Creation of project profiles that highlight real-world installations and design outcomes.
Expanded website content to explain the thermal modification process, product applications, and sustainability story.
Developed email and database campaigns to re-engage architects, specifiers, and distributors with relevant, valuable content.

This approach repositioned Timber Trading’s marketing from a focus on features to a focus on inspiration, aligning the brand more closely with how architects evaluate materials.

3. A Partnership That Evolves with the Business

What began as an AEC marketing strategy for ICON has evolved into a broader marketing transformation. Today, Point To Point works alongside Timber Trading to refine its full go-to-market strategy across all product lines. The partnership has expanded from driving product awareness to strengthening the company’s overall marketing operations, messaging, and lead management process.

The Results: Transformation Over Time

While specific data is proprietary, Timber Trading’s leadership and team have seen clear improvements across key areas of performance and collaboration.

Alignment between marketing and sales: HubSpot now supports shared visibility into lead engagement, pipeline activity, and performance trends.
A more defined brand story: ICON is positioned as a premium, sustainable material backed by craftsmanship, innovation, and authenticity.
Consistent engagement with architects and specifiers: Content and outreach are now cohesive, targeted, and ongoing rather than project-based.
Strategic clarity: The leadership team now has a unified view of what marketing is doing, what’s working, and how to plan for growth.

Most importantly, Timber Trading now has a marketing foundation that supports its vision for the future, one that can scale across product lines and continue to drive specification through strategy and storytelling.

Looking Ahead

What began as an initiative to grow ICON has become a full-scale marketing transformation. Point To Point now serves as Timber Trading’s Fractional CMO, acting as their outsourced marketing leadership team to keep initiatives moving, deliver work more completely, and stay embedded in the business. With a connected strategy, clearer processes, and a long-term partnership, Timber Trading is positioned to lead with expertise, material knowledge, and brand trust.

“The AEC strategy opened our eyes. It wasn’t just about ICON. It helped us see how to position the entire company for growth.”

Rodger Ekstrom

CEO, TIMBER TRADING

A Message to Building Materials Leaders

Timber Trading’s story reflects what many mid-sized building materials manufacturers experience. Great products and strong sales teams are essential, but true growth requires a marketing system that’s aligned, strategic, and built to last.

At Point To Point, we help companies in the building materials space bridge the gap between marketing and sales. We bring strategy, structure, and storytelling together so your brand connects with the right audiences and drives measurable business impact.

If you’re ready to build your own foundation for growth, let’s talk.