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