The Client

PlayCore is the corporate brand behind more than 40 specialty brands that create holistic outdoor recreational spaces. While PlayCore doesn't manufacture products, it acquires and manages specialized companies that each provide unique elements for community spaces — from playground equipment to park amenities, bike racks to splash pads, turf to benches, trash cans to gazebos, and everything in between.

The corporate mission centers on building communities through play and recreation, creating spaces that are inclusive, engaging, and accessible to all. Many of their brands focus specifically on inclusive and accessible designs for children with disabilities, ensuring that playgrounds include features like wheelchair-accessible swings, adaptive climbing equipment, and sensory play elements.

This unique business structure allows PlayCore to be the go-to provider for any playground, church, community park, or recreational space project. Whether a customer needs a complete playground redesign requiring multiple product lines and specialized equipment from a specific brand or simply wants to replace a few trash cans, PlayCore's family of brands can deliver a comprehensive solution. They're also expanding into fitness equipment and gym solutions, continually growing their offerings through strategic acquisitions to create truly holistic recreational environments.

The Challenges

PlayCore's business model, while powerful for customers, presented a significant lead management challenge. When potential customers visited PlayCore's corporate website or attended their educational webinars, the corporate marketing team faced complex routing decisions that required a nuanced understanding of each brand's offerings and capabilities:

Should corporate handle the lead directly for large multi-brand projects? Which specific brand would be best suited for a specialized request? If multiple brands were needed for a comprehensive playground installation, how could PlayCore ensure coordinated communication without overwhelming the customer?

Before working with Lynton, PlayCore's process for routing leads to their brands was entirely manual and inconsistent. This created what their team aptly called "the dark hole" or "black abyss" of lead management. When form submissions came in, or webinar attendees registered, PlayCore marketing staff would manually forward these leads via email to what they believed was the appropriate brand contact. From then on, corporate had virtually no visibility into what would happen next.

There was no closed-loop funnel reporting to show conversion rates, no system to prevent multiple brands from contacting the same prospect about the same project, and no way for corporate to track which marketing efforts were actually generating revenue across their brand portfolio. Representatives from corporate would have to manually follow up with individual brands to get status updates, often finding incomplete or inconsistent information.

The problem became even more complex when considering the distribution model some PlayCore brands employed. For example, if a lead was sent to their bike rack brand, but the customer needed a specialized component the brand couldn't manufacture directly, that brand might engage an external distributor or manufacturer — creating another layer of opacity in the customer journey. One striking example we encountered was a brand using internal terminology like "blue folder," "green folder," and "sent to Express" as their lifecycle stages, making reporting across brands virtually impossible.

The core issue wasn't just inefficiency but the fundamental inability to track marketing effectiveness across a complex multi-brand organization. Without standardized processes or unified language around lifecycle stages and deal pipelines, PlayCore had limited insight into which marketing efforts worked and which brands successfully converted leads. This made strategic marketing decisions extremely difficult for PlayCore's corporate vice president of marketing, who needed clear metrics to guide the marketing direction for the entire brand family.

The Solution

The Master Buyer's Journey Development

Lynton began by tackling the most fundamental issue: the lack of a standardized language and process for tracking leads across the PlayCore ecosystem. We conducted extensive discovery work with both the corporate team and individual brands to understand existing processes, pain points, and business requirements.

Working closely with PlayCore's sales and marketing technology manager, we developed a comprehensive master buyer's journey to serve as the foundation for all lead management activities. This wasn't a simple matter of imposing corporate terminology on brands. It required carefully mapping each brand's existing processes to a new standardized framework serving everyone's needs.

We established clear, actionable definitions for lifecycle stages that could be implemented across the entire family of brands:

• Subscriber: Contacts who have engaged with content but indicated no upcoming project. These individuals receive nurturing content but aren't actively pursued by sales.
• Lead: Contacts who have explicitly indicated they have an upcoming project. The critical "Do you have an upcoming project?" question became mandatory on all middle and bottom-of-funnel forms across all brand websites.
• Sales Qualified Lead (SQL): Leads that have been reviewed by marketing and distributed to a specific sales team or representative. This stage indicated the handoff from marketing to sales ownership.
• Opportunity: Prospects who have received a formal proposal or quote indicating advanced sales progress and serious buying intent.
• Customer: Contacts with at least one associated deal marked as Closed/Won, allowing for proper tracking of conversion rates and customer journeys.
• Evangelist: Brand advocates who attend multiple events or engage deeply with PlayCore brands, a special designation to prevent these non-prospect contacts from skewing lead reporting.

For the sales teams, we developed a standardized deal pipeline with specific stages that mapped to the lifecycle stages:

• Leads to Qualify: The initial deal stage for marketing leads needing review
• Idle Leads: Leads that sales have not yet contacted
• Active Leads: Leads actively being worked by the sales team
• Sent to Distributor: Leads forwarded to non-rep distributors for specialized handling
• Quoted: Deals where sales has delivered a formal proposal/quote Closed-Won: Successfully closed sales
• Closed-Lost: Deals lost to competitors or budget constraints
• Closed-No Project: Deals closed because they weren't qualified or the project was abandoned

The implementation process involved individual discovery calls with each brand, during which we documented their existing terminology and processes. We then carefully mapped these to the new standardized stages, creating brand-specific transition plans that respected their unique needs while aligning them with corporate standards.

The most powerful element was implementing key qualifying questions on all forms. The seemingly simple question "Do you have an upcoming project?" became a powerful segmentation tool, allowing immediate routing to the appropriate lifecycle stage. We also standardized fields for project details, budget expectations, and timelines to qualify leads before routing further.

The PlayCore Workbook/Blueprint

The master buyer's journey provided the foundation, but successfully implementing it across 10+ brands required a structured, repeatable approach. We developed a comprehensive four-phase workbook that became PlayCore's standardized blueprint for onboarding new brands and aligning existing ones. This wasn't just a document but a practical roadmap detailing every step of the process.

Phase One: Brand Discovery

The first phase focused on thoroughly understanding each brand's unique position and processes. This included:

• A detailed assessment of the brand's current marketing technology stack, including its website platform, CRM usage, and any existing HubSpot implementation. We created custom questionnaires and surveys for each team member to complete independently, which helped identify internal misalignments in understanding processes.
• We held documentation sessions where we mapped out existing sales processes, including "as-is" lifecycle stages and lead handling procedures. These often revealed surprising inconsistencies. As noted earlier, one brand used color-coded stages like "blue folder" and "green folder," which would need careful translation into the standardized system.
• Evaluation of the brand's technical capabilities and resources to determine the appropriate level of support needed during implementation. Some brands had sophisticated HubSpot setups requiring minimal adjustment, while others needed comprehensive rebuilding.

Phase Two: HubSpot Lead Management Onboarding

With a clear understanding of the brand's current state, we moved to implementation, which included:

• Creation of brand-specific properties in HubSpot that mapped to corporate standards while accommodating unique needs. Key properties included "Brand Assigned" and "Most Recent Brand Update" in the corporate portal, with corresponding "PlayCore Lead" properties in brand portals.
• Development of custom workflows that automated the movement of contacts through lifecycle stages based on specific trigger criteria. These workflows eliminated manual processes while ensuring data consistency.
• Setup of reporting dashboards that provided both brand-specific insights and fed standardized data to corporate dashboards. This gave brands autonomy while ensuring corporate visibility.
• Implement the "Upcoming Project" qualification process with corresponding automation to properly route leads based on their response.

Phase Three: HubSpot Portal Onboarding

Recognizing that brands had varying levels of HubSpot expertise, we created two distinct onboarding tracks:

• For brands new to HubSpot or with underutilized portals, we developed a comprehensive training program covering everything from basic data management to advanced campaign setup. This included hands-on workshops where brand teams practiced building segments, creating email templates, and setting up workflows with our guidance.
• For established HubSpot users, we conducted portal audits to identify optimization opportunities and provided targeted training on specific features relevant to the standardized process. This might include advanced list segmentation, custom reporting, or lead scoring implementation.

Both tracks included dedicated sessions on lead nurturing, conversion path optimization, and email marketing best practices to ensure brands could effectively engage prospects throughout the buyer's journey.

Phase Four: Website Evaluation and Improvement

The final phase addressed the critical front end of the lead generation process. This included:

• Comprehensive website audits examining UX/UI, technical performance, and on-page SEO factors. These audits helped prioritize improvement opportunities.
• Strategic recommendations tailored to each brand's situation—whether keeping their existing site, migrating to HubSpot CMS or building a new website from scratch.
• Implementation of standardized lead capture forms with mandatory qualifying questions, ensuring consistency in lead qualification across all brands.

The true power of this blueprint (particularly the lead management process) was demonstrated at PlayCore's annual marketing summit in Tennessee. Lynton team members presented the complete framework to 15 different brand teams and conducted hands-on workshops where we guided each team through practical implementation exercises. The summit agenda included dedicated sessions for lead management fundamentals, lifecycle stage workshops, and custom journey mapping activities where brands documented their specific processes while aligning them to corporate standards.

This in-person event was significant for everyone involved — brand teams that had previously operated in silos began to see themselves as part of an integrated ecosystem. The workshops fostered both alignment with corporate standards and cross-brand collaboration, as teams shared challenges and solutions with peers facing similar situations.

Website Efficiencies Through Standardization

While the lead management framework addressed the back-end processes, we recognized that the front-end digital experience was equally critical to PlayCore's success. Through our work with multiple PlayCore brands, we developed a cohesive approach to website development that balanced brand individuality with system-wide efficiency.

Our web development team created a proprietary PlayCore theme system within HubSpot CMS that revolutionized the company's approach to digital presence for new acquisitions. This wasn't simply a matter of visual consistency — it was a comprehensive system that incorporated PlayCore's strict requirements for accessibility, performance, and lead generation.

Accessibility was critical, given PlayCore's focus on inclusive play experiences. Their websites needed to reflect this commitment, so our theme incorporated WCAG compliance standards throughout, ensuring that all users, regardless of ability, could effectively navigate their digital properties. This included careful attention to color contrast ratios, keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, and descriptive image alt text.

The standardized theme system provided remarkable efficiencies:

• New brand websites could be implemented in significantly less time, allowing PlayCore to quickly bring acquired brands into their digital ecosystem while maintaining quality standards.
• All sites were built with a consistent user experience framework that incorporated PlayCore's best practices for driving conversions while maintaining brand-specific visual identity through customizable elements.
• Standard form implementations ensured that all required qualifying questions — particularly the crucial "Do you have an upcoming project?" field—were consistently present across all properties, supporting the master buyer's journey.
• Performance optimizations were built into the theme architecture, reducing page load times. This improved both user experience and search engine performance.
• Every form submission, regardless of which brand site it originated from, was tracked with consistent properties and naming conventions, enabling accurate cross-brand reporting and attribution.

The theme system was particularly valuable when incorporating newly acquired brands. Rather than starting from scratch with each acquisition, PlayCore could rapidly deploy a proven website structure while customizing the visual elements to maintain brand identity. 

This gave corporate marketing visibility and control over lead generation while respecting each specialized brand's unique market positioning.

The approach was so successful that it became a standard component of PlayCore's acquisition integration process. New brands were immediately evaluated against the website standards, and plans for migration to the standardized platform were incorporated into the onboarding timeline