16 Apr Northamptonshire stone specialist grows UK and US presence with Zinc Digital partnership

Northamptonshire stone manufacturer Haddonstone has joined forces with local digital agency Zinc Digital – through a partnership spanning website development, AI-generated imagery, SEO, paid search and social advertising.

Haddonstone, celebrating its 55th anniversary, and Zinc Digital, which marked its 20th last year, have been working in partnership for four years – combining website management, digital marketing and the latest AI tools to drive online sales growth across the UK and US.

Haddonstone’s landscaping range including its pier caps and copings– have traditionally been shown on its website through technical line drawings. For trade buyers and builders, that level of detail is exactly what has been needed. For a homeowner wanting to picture a product on their garden wall or boundary, it has not proved sufficient. Getting photography across the whole range has proved impractical, so Haddonstone turned to Zinc Digital to find a smarter solution.

Zinc created a series of AI-generated lifestyle images showing the products in real garden settings – planted borders, boundary walls, the kinds of spaces Haddonstone’s residential customers are actually imagining. These images are now being used across the stone manufacturer’s website and in Zinc Digital’s pay-per-click campaigns, giving home and garden buyers the visual context that line drawings alone have not been able to provide.

Nicola Clements, Marketing Manager at Haddonstone, said: “For our trade customers, a precise technical drawing is exactly what they need. But a private homeowner wants to be inspired. Working with Zinc to create AI imagery has given us a practical and cost-effective way to do that right across the range. It really is a gamechanger for our business.”

For those who want to see the range in person, Haddonstone’s Show Gardens at East Haddon are open to visitors by appointment only: Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm, and Friday from 9am to 3pm, and entry is free. For those who cannot make the trip, the new AI imagery brings the show garden experience home, allowing customers to browse the range in realistic planted settings from the comfort of their own sofa.

The AI imagery project is the latest development in a partnership that began four years ago, when Haddonstone decided it wanted to work with an agency closer to its Northamptonshire base. Zinc Digital now manages the Haddonstone website end-to-end – from hosting and WordPress maintenance through to ongoing development and future-proofing – ensuring the site is built to grow and adapt as the business evolves. Alongside this, Zinc delivers a full monthly digital marketing service covering Search Engine Optimisation, Pay Per Click advertising and Paid Social Media campaigns, with strategies designed to grow Haddonstone’s visibility and reach among home and garden buyers in both the UK and US markets.

Both teams are based in Northamptonshire and meet in person every month – alternating between Zinc Digital’s offices in Little Houghton and the Haddonstone site in East Haddon.

Nicola added: “I specifically wanted a local agency because I wanted that face-to-face relationship. What we have with Zinc feels much more like an extension of our own team than a typical agency arrangement. The conversations we have in person are far more collaborative, and that makes a real difference to the work.”

Oliver McKeown, Head of Digital at Zinc Digital, said: “Haddonstone is a genuinely special business – deep roots, real craftsmanship, and a product range with a lot of beauty behind it. Our role is to make sure that comes through online, whether that’s through a website that performs and grows with the business, SEO and paid campaigns that put the right products in front of the right audiences in the UK and US, or tools like AI that help bring the range to life visually. Two businesses celebrating milestone years, both built in Northamptonshire – it feels like a fitting partnership.”

Hannah Stevens, AI Champion at Zinc Digital, added: “The brief was simple – show these products in the settings customers could actually picture them in. AI allows us to create those lifestyle images quickly and cost-effectively across an entire product range, without the need for a photo shoot at every location. It’s a really practical, budget-friendly application of the technology.”

Founded in 1971, Haddonstone has grown from a small family business into one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of architectural, landscaping, and garden cast stone, supplying customers across the UK, US and worldwide.

Zinc Digital, founded in 2004 by former Wellingborough schoolfriends Joe Zielinski and Paul Coverdale, has grown to a 20-strong team with over 140 years of combined experience – winning Small Business of the Year and the West Northants Innovation Award at the 2025 Northamptonshire Chamber Business Awards.

Together, the two businesses represent 75 years of Northamptonshire enterprise.

For more information visit: https://www.zinc.digital/