marketing for manufacturers: what today's ceo needs to know

Marketing for Manufacturers:What Today’s CEO

Needs to Know

Agenda

• Introduction • Marketing in Manufacturing Today: Key trends • Marketing Effectiveness Research & Where You

Stand• Your Brand: A Company’s Most Important Asset• Today’s Marketing Fundamentals

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– Launching the Dream It. Do It. Wisconsin Campaign

Our Three Critical Success Factors

• Partner with business leaders to distill complex environments and issues to advance their visions

• Create meaningful differentiation through brand-based communications, grounded in research

• Integrate communications to reach target audiences wherever they are – with information they care about

Marketing in Manufacturing Today: Key Trends

Marketing in Manufacturing Today

• New opportunities. New technologies. New tools.– You can reach targets more easily & directly than

ever before

• Expanded focus– From lead generation to lead nurturing– Attracting talent as well as customers

• Customer penetration strategies are critical– OEM decision makers are changing chairs and focus

• Brand-based communications to create differentiation with customers & recruits

Key Findings: 2011 Marketing Effectiveness Research

• Conducted in partnership with Plastics News – A significant shift:

companies are investing more in marketing than in sales

– Feet on the street no longer enough:

• 50% report sales are reaching less than 50% of their targets

52.90%

24.20%

Key Findings: 2011 Marketing Effectiveness Research

• 72% of respondents claim unique expertise (in what they do or how they do it), but don’t communicate it well

44.10% 35.90%23.50% 28.80%

22.90%20.30%

10.10% 5.60%

Above Average Excellent

Where You Stand

• 73% of you believe you have a differentiating offer, but don’t communicate it well either

Sales tools Internal comms. Company

website Digital marketing Customer

comms. Social media

55%

36%55%

9% 9%27%

9% Above average Excellent

• 72% say recruitment is critical to success, but don’t know how to reach younger audiences

Key Findings: 2011 Marketing Effectiveness Research

71.60%

59.80%

48.10%39.60%

40.50%31.70%

20.60%18.70%

Important/very important to future success

Ranked themselves as very good or excellent at the following

• 100% of you believe recruiting and retaining talent is very important or important to success, but don’t know how to reach younger audiences

Where You Stand

100%

73%

45%36%

55% 55%

36%27%

Important/very important to future success

Ranked as excellent/above average

• The risks: You can increase investments without a correlating ROI– Absent a strategic, brand-based approach (that includes

measurements) it is an expense, not an investment

• Marketing savvy, yet inferior competitors, can beat you more easily than ever before

• The opportunity: To connect marketing to the goals and objectives of the business, creating measurable ROI – and a competitive advantage

What This Means to You as the CEO

• 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

The More Specific Opportunity

Where the Journey Begins: Your Company’s Brand

Your Company’s Brand

• 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

B2B Branding Example

Moving | Building | Powering | Curing

Your Company’s Brand

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

Your Company’s Brand

• 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

Your Company’s Brand

• 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

Your Company’s Brand

• Discover Your Brand– Answer key questions:

• What do you do better than anyone else? • How does this align with what your audiences care

about today and in the future?

– Conduct research – information today is easy & fast

• Internal interviews with leadership, sales and others• External research with customers, suppliers, industry

experts

Your Company’s Brand

• 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• If everything else is equal, all that’s left is price

– Remember, if you don’t tell your story, someone else will tell it for you

Create a Story People Want to Be Part Of

Create a Story People Want to Be Part Of

Create a Story People Want to Be Part Of

Create a Story People Want to Be Part Of

The New Marketing Fundamentals

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

The New Fundamentals

The New Fundamentals

The New Fundamentals

The New Fundamentals

The New Fundamentals

• 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

– Video, frequently updated content and strong search optimization can immediately impact search engines

– Job seekers are online and actively searching. Be where they’re looking with information they care about

The New Fundamentals

• Make marketing communications your supplemental sales force– Deepen relationships, keep prospects warm,

free sales to focus on more productive prospect engagement.

– Use tools to help navigate this new buying cycle

• Lead nurturing software• Content that’s relevant, meaningful and customized

The New Fundamentals

The New Fundamentals

• Own the leadership position through strategic PR – Position business executives as thought leaders

through• Leadership positions in industry and local organizations• Becoming a voice for your industry

– Raising awareness and providing analysis of industry trends and topics

– Demonstrate expertise and capabilities through – Leveraging PR successes to:

• Build reputation with current and prospective customers• Build a sense of pride and commitment internally

Build Your Reputation as an Industry Leader

Build Your Reputation as a Local Leader

Use PR to Connect with Key Audiences

The New Fundamentals

• Equip Your Employees to Be Ambassadors– Provide consistent messaging that they can

take to the marketplace– Empower them to be confident in all their

external communications, hold the promise of your brand

– Distribute internal communications – Reward and recognize top performers