The Business

Fisher Barton got its start in 1973 when founder Dick Wilkey, who had a background in metallurgy, decided he wanted to start a manufacturing company. The company started out producing lawn mower blades in a 2,400-square-foot rented building in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Over the next four decades, Fisher Barton grew through acquisition and innovation to include 11 brands and seven divisions — including its Zenith Cutter division, which has been in business for more than 100 years.

Today, the company is based in Watertown, Wisconsin, where the Fisher Barton Technology Center offers its customers process development and prototyping for new and existing parts. Fisher Barton’s focus on technology led the company to patent several of its innovations, including the heat-treating process to produce MARBAIN, which has been a market-recognized premium mower blade material for more than 20 years. 

In addition to manufacturing more than 360 million lawnmower blades, the company also produces industrial knives, agricultural components, oil and gas parts, bronze gear, blanks, shafts, and medical components to serve customers in a wide range of industries.

The Problem

Despite its overall growth, Fisher Barton still operates with relatively lean marketing and IT teams. When website security problems hampered the launch of a new website in 2022,  Marketing Director Tiffany Jaske reached out to Thomas for help. 

“When I came to Thomas, I had five sites on four different platforms,” Jaske said. “I was starting to bring those sites all together, and I was looking for better security and support. The Thomas team walked me through site design, SEO marketing, support production timelines, and new marketing channels on the Thomas site. And today we are developing a microsite that we're going to spin up out of our current site.

The Solution

Combining all of the company’s websites “really exposed customers to the entire breadth of Fisher Barton,” Jaske said.

By consolidating all of the company’s websites into a single website with SEO-optimized pages dedicated to each of its capabilities and customer bases, Thomas significantly increased the number of potential customers finding Fisher Barton online. The Thomas team worked with Jaske to increase Fisher Barton’s ranked keywords from 1,467 to 4,798 between October 2023 and October 2024, which boosted Google clicks by 115%.

For Jaske, the Thomas team quickly became an extension of her own internal team.

“By going to Thomas, I extended the reach of my team. Not only with marketing, but sales and IT,” she said. “Thomas has provided me with a secure platform for my site, 24/7 support, and analytics that support all of my marketing efforts.”

Thomas worked with Jaske to strategize and create SEO-optimized content for the Fisher Barton site, fleshing out existing pages and creating content around new campaigns. When Fisher Barton opened a new turning center to increase manufacturing capacity, Thomas put together a campaign that included a sponsored article on Thomas Insights and sponsored content placements in the Thomas Industry Update newsletter, which has more than 285,000 manufacturing-specific subscribers.  

Fisher Barton's sponsored newsletter content

The Results 

Teaming with Thomas increased Fisher Barton’s organic web traffic by more than 140% between October 2023 and October 2024. Since 2022, the company’s engaged sessions have increased 82% and total conversions have increased 67%.

Fisher Barton doubled the size of its Thomasnet and Thomas Marketing Services programs in 2025. 

“The growth I've seen in web traffic, downloads, and RFQs over the past two years has allowed me to increase my marketing spend,” Jaske said. 

Working with Thomas has also freed up Jaske to work on tasks she had limited time for.

“I have been able to focus on both internal and external marketing with the help of Thomas. I would individually have to outsource many of the tasks that Thomas does for me,” she said.