Don't Be Out-Marketed: Selling in the New Reality

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

Don’t Be Out-Marketed: Selling in the New Reality
Sponsored by: Trefoil Group
Presented by: Mary Scheibel & Christy Domanoski
April, 2012

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Agenda
– Introduction
– Marketing in Manufacturing Today: Key trends
– Review of 2011 Marketing Effectiveness Research
– Your Brand: A Company’s Most Important Asset
– Execution of a Strategic Marketing Program
• Today’s new fundamentals
– Website/online
– Lead nurturing and content marketing
– Employee engagement
Sponsored by: Trefoil Group Presented by: Mary Scheibel & Christy Domanoski

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• About Trefoil Group
– Full service strategic marketing communications firm
• Business/strategic counselors
• Solid understanding of both traditional and new mediums
• Experience in attracting both customers and talent
– B2B with 20 years of experience in manufacturing
• Niche focus in plastics – Clients have included material
suppliers, toolmakers, equipment manufacturers, processors
and related associations


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Our Three Critical Success Factors
o Partner with business leaders to align communications with
vision, objectives and strategies driving the business
o Create meaningful differentiation through brand-based
communications, grounded in research
o Integrate communications to reach target audiences
wherever they are – with information they care about


Marketing in Manufacturing Today: Key Trends

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Marketing in Manufacturing Today
– New opportunities. New technologies. New tools.
– Expanded focus
• From lead generation to lead nurturing
• Attracting talent as well as customers
– Today’s new B2B customer is armed with information
and sometimes knows more than you do!
– Marketing savvy, yet inferior competitors can beat you
more easily than ever before


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Key Findings: 2011 Marketing Effectiveness
(Research conducted in partnership with Plastics News)
– A significant shift: companies 52.90 24.20
are investing more in % %
marketing than in sales
– Feet on the street no longer
Increased Increased
enough: marketing efforts investments in
• 50% report sales are the sales force
reaching less than 50% of
their targets

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

– 72% claim unique niche expertise (in what they do or
how they do it), but don’t communicate this well

Above Average Excellent

22.90%
20.30%
10.10% 5.60%
44.10% 35.90%
23.50% 28.80%

Sales Internal Website/online Marketing
conversations communications presence materials

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

– 75% say recruitment is critical to success, but don’t
know how to reach younger audiences
Felt the following are
important/very important to
71.60% future success
59.80%
40.50% 48.10% Ranked themselves as very
31.70% 39.60% good or excellent at the
following
20.60%
18.70%

Recruiting and retaining talent
Equipping employees to be brand ambassadors
Getting your message out via new mediums
Using social marketing effectively

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• What This Means to Us As Marketers
– The risk: Companies are increasing investments, but
not necessarily ROI
• Creates ongoing dissatisfaction with marketing
• If you’re not connecting what you’re doing to the goals of the
business, you are part of the problem and not the solution
– The opportunity: To connect marketing to the goals
and objectives of the business, creating measurable
ROI.


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• The More Specific Opportunity:
– Be strategic in aligning marketing with sales strategies
– Move the needle from lead generation to lead nurturing
– Create meaningful differentiation that speaks to both customers
and recruits
– Own the leadership position where you can
– Integrate programs to include face-to-face, digital, PR and social
media
– Equip your employees to be brand ambassadors in your
marketplace and your communities


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Bottom-line Opportunity
– Create metrics to measure the true success of your
program
• Business goals, not open rates or click-throughs
– Demand a return on your program
• New opportunities to show ROI through targeted sales
augmentation
• If marketing is an investment, not an expense, than we as
marketers need to prove it.


Your Brand: A Company’s Most Important Asset

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• The brand is a company’s most important,
yet most overlooked asset
– As important in B2B as it is in B2C
– Crucial in both customer and talent acquisition
• Your brand is what you want people to think
about you
Your Company = X


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Common Branding Pitfalls
– Basing your brand on the category you’re in
• Leading Plastics Injection Molders
• Thermoforming Experts
– Staking your claim to entry level attributes
• Solutions Provider
• Meeting or exceeding customer expectations
– Relying on internal perceptions of your value
– Mimicking what your competitors do and say


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Good Brands:
– Establish relevance, personality and connect
emotionally
– Specify the company's value proposition
– Change the conversation
– Reposition the competition as followers
– Drive perceptions externally and the culture internally
– Differentiate the company for a competitive advantage


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Strong Brands Produce ROI By:
– Sustaining differentiation in a crowded marketplace
– Supporting premium pricing/guarding against price-
based competition
– Accelerating entry into new markets
– Recruiting and retaining top talent
– Increasing enterprise value


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Discover Your Brand
– Answer key questions:
• What do you do better than anyone else?
• How does this align with what your target audiences care
about today and in the future?
– Conduct research – Information today is easy & fast
• Internal interviews with leadership, sales and others
• Company-wide on-line surveys
• External research with customers, suppliers, industry experts
– Face-to-face, telephone, focus groups, on-line


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Discover Your Brand
– Look at your competitors
• Your value is a relative assessment against the value I can
get somewhere else
– Be different. Not the same.
• Understand what your competitors are saying and determine
the opportunity to say something better
• Remember, if everything else is equal, all that’s left is price


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Bring Your Brand to Life
– Maintain consistency throughout all communications
• Core narrative, communication keys to launch and cap
conversations
• Align messaging with audience needs and concerns
– Be creative
• Reach the consumer that’s in all of us
• Make it compelling. Make it memorable. Make it relevant.


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Bring Your Brand to Life:


Designing & Implementing a Strategic Program

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Key elements of a strategic marketing
communications plan:
– Goals, strategies, key action items and metrics
– Timeline, budget and responsibility
– Integration across all platforms and technologies
– Audience-specific messaging in the context of your
overall brand promise
– Integrate new thinking into your plan without
abandoning what’s already working

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

The New Fundamentals:
• Your Website: The #1 B2B Marketing Tool
• Create your website as a marketing portal
– Hub for both outbound and inbound marketing
– Make it engaging and easy to navigate
– Optimize your site for easy search engine discovery
– Use on-line newsrooms to build awareness and leadership
reputation
– Use microsites and landing pages to reach specific target
audiences with audience-specific messaging and to increase
quality content for search engines to index


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Create a robust online presence:
– Customers are now their own gatekeepers
• Active users of websites, social networks, search engines,
product/company reviews, news venues, industry bloggers
– Create profiles and become active in the social
networks that make sense for you
– Ensure you have a clear, consistent and compelling
brand across all channels


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Make marketing communications your
supplemental sales force
– Deepen relationships, keep prospects warm, free
your sales team to focus on more productive prospect
engagement.
– Use tools to help navigate this new buying cycle
• Lead nurturing software
• Content development and marketing process


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Embrace Lead Nurturing & Content
Marketing
– Integrate a CRM system and/or marketing automation
software to manage this lead nurturing process
– Reach prospects with customized messaging or offers
– Learn about and embrace online, social behaviors


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Content Marketing
– Nurtures prospects until they are qualified, educated
and ready-to-buy, then pass to sales
o Maximizes marketing investment while controlling cost of
sale
– Content marketing samples:
o Company blog - provides current insights and information
o E-communications vehicles, e-newsletters
o White papers and primary research
o Video content


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Content Marketing


SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Equip Your Employees to Be Ambassadors
– Provide consistent messaging that they can take to
the marketplace
• Hold the promise of your brand
• Viral channels, social media, word-of-mouth
• Produce social media policies
– Distribute internal communications
• E-newsletter
• Internal social network (i.e. Chatter)
– Reward and recognize top performers

SPI’S BUSINESS OF
PLASTICS CONFERENCE

• Questions?


Don't Be Out-Marketed: Selling in the New Reality

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Don't Be Out-Marketed: Selling in the New Reality