ManufacturingMarketing

ManufacturingMarketing

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Exclusive Interview with Authenticity 50 Exclusive Interview with Authenticity 50

GROWING YOUR BUSINESS GROWING YOUR BUSINESS

MADE IN USA MADE IN USA

COVER:

Jimmy and Steph MacDonald, the co-founders of Authenticity 50.

FROM THE EDITOR | March 26—April 8 2019 | Issue 26

1 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

This issue, we introduce you to the co-founders of Authenticity 50, manufacturers of Made in the USA bedding.

ManufacturingMarketingIssue 26

ManufacturingMarketing

ManufacturingMarketing

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Exclusive Interview with Authenticity 50 Exclusive Interview with Authenticity 50

GROWING YOUR BUSINESS GROWING YOUR BUSINESS

MADE IN USA MADE IN USA

Editor Dianna Huffdianna@huffindustrialmarketing.comDesigner Rachel Cunlifferachel@cre8d-design.com

Contact Manufacturing MarketingManufacturing Marketing is published bi-weekly by Huff Industrial Marketing and cre8d design. ISSN 2641-0214 (online).37 Plaistow Road, Unit 7-245Plaistow, NH 03865(603) 382-8093inquiries@huffindustrialmarketing.com

Subscribe to Manufacturing Marketinghuffindustrialmarketing.com/magazine

Magazine Archiveshuffindustrialmarketing.com/magazine/archives

Sponsor Manufacturing Marketinginquiries@huffindustrialmarketing.com

© 2019, All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

WHAT MAKES JIMMY AND STEPH MACDONALD, the co-founders (and husband and wife) of Authenticity 50 so remarkable is they’re single-handedly bringing back a textile manufacturing process that had all but disappeared from the United States – while also creating a fantastic product that people rave about.

In their interview, you’ll learn how they market their sheets and bedding products by being open and transparent about their “seed-to-stitch®” manufacturing process.

We then explain how you can take the marketing lessons they’ve learned and apply them to your own manufacturing business.

You’ll also find the QOTW and a brief write up of another Made in USA product – Jelly Belly candies. Yum.

Have a fantastic week.– Dianna Huff, Editor, and Rachel Cunliffe, Designer

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

2 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

Honest Bedding: Authenticity 50 Brings Back Made in USA Sheets By Dianna Huff

After getting married, Jimmy and Steph MacDonald knew they wanted to invest in high-quality, Made in USA items for their house. Avid sleepers, they searched high and low for luxe bedding made in the US – but couldn’t find anything.

After sleeping like babies on US-made sheets at a B&B, they learned from the innkeeper the sheets had been purchased years before, and that sadly, production had moved to China.

Researching the domestic industry for over a year, the couple learned that America used to weave millions of yards of sheeting fabric, and was a mainstay of the global textile industry – until it all went

overseas for cheaper labor and production costs.

Additionally, it was expensive to manufacture sheets in the US, and the consumer market was non-existent. Added to the high cost was the traditional retail markup model, which inflated prices by up to 10x through an archaic system of distribution and middlemen networks.

Jimmy and Steph realized that they could potentially revitalize this industry and bring it back to the States. Their goal was to create premium Made in the USA sheets and bedding that cut out those markups – while also providing jobs, fair wages, and safe working conditions to hundreds of skilled American workers.

IN BRIEF

• Great pay, no college degree. High school students learn about welding jobs. Read

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• Great PPC needs great web design. Pauline Jakober explains via SearchEngine Journal.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

3 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

In 2015, they founded Authenticity 50 together, and launched the business via a successful online crowdfunding campaign.

Authenticity 50, based in California, is the first and only company that creates luxe bedding seed-to-stitch® domestically.

From their California-grown Supima® cotton, to the spinning and weaving of their yarn into fabric, and hand-made cut and sew of their sheets, to their boxes, tags, and packaging, every part of their product is sourced and made here. (Full disclosure: I own these sheets. They’re the best sheets you’ll ever sleep on.)

The couple recently sat down to discuss their marketing – and some of the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

MMM: Your marketing is fantastic. In the beginning, when your budget was tight, how did you get the word out about your sheets?

A50: We launched the business with a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. It was a litmus test to determine if people were interested in American-made high-quality luxe bedding.

To our surprise, we doubled our funding goal – and word spread from family and friends to strangers, which helped us build a community and foundation of supporters. It was a great platform to share our

products and mission, and we ended up with backers from all over the world!

We first began our marketing by making sure we were listed with all the “Made in USA” organizations, such as USA Love List, Made in America Co, and Buy Direct USA.

Because we were unique, people found our story interesting. We’ve been blessed with great media coverage, such as the Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, Wired, and Martha Stewart Weddings.

We also use email marketing – but sparingly! We don’t spam our subscribers and are considerate of their inbox. We generally send a couple of emails a month. We provide brand-relevant content that benefits our readers, such as “Five Ways to Beat the Winter Blues.” Our email list has been a powerful marketing tool for us.

Our best marketing platform, however, is the product itself. We wanted to provide a high-quality product that people would love giving as a gift.

MMM: How do you come up with your messages, such as “Seed-to-Stitch®”? Do you use an agency?

A50: All our marketing is done by our small in-house team. We came up with “Seed-to-Stitch” ourselves. We wanted something like “farm-to-table,” which encompasses an entire

movement. We chose “authenticity” as

our name because we wanted to be honest and transparent – about our manufacturing process, our pricing, and educating consumers about sheeting and industry terms, such as thread count.

We also focus on the manufacturing story and the people who make our sheets – we love featuring stories of the cut and sew techs in our partner mills.

All of this resonates with our customers, who share our content on social media, and more important, buy our sheets for themselves and for friends and loved ones.

MMM: How do you work with your partners to have them help you get the word out about your manufacturing process?

A50: That’s a great question. The first time we visited with the mills, they wouldn’t let us take photos because they have proprietary machines and processes.

But, we spend a lot of time on the road visiting them. The more time we spent, and the more we got to know our partners and they got to know us, the more the trust grew.

Nurturing these relationships has been mutually beneficial. Showing photos and videos of the manufacturing process allows us to educate consumers.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

4 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

They can view the steps and the people who make their sheets. The entire process is authentic and honest.

MMM: Do you plan on selling to business accounts – e.g. B&Bs or hotels?

A50: We have a few business accounts – people who care about Made in the USA. Buying multiple sets of our sheets is a little expensive; people tend to see the purchase as an investment. We’re looking to grow this aspect of our business in 2019.

MMM: What has been the most rewarding aspect of manufacturing in the US?

A50: It’s definitely been a challenge. We’ve had wonderful highs and sad lows – such as when one of our partners closed down their operation.

Textile mills are located in the deep South; the buildings are measured in terms of acreage. They’re located in the middle of nowhere. We put hundreds of miles on our rental vehicle when do our visits.

As we travel, we see so many shuttered mills and buildings. So much manufacturing has left our country and gone overseas. That part is sad, but it’s exciting for us to see a steady resurgence and interest in American-made.

When we have a hard day, we tell ourselves that what we’re doing is important. We’re bringing back jobs. Most important, we’re keeping the last wide sheeting mills in the US running.

We’re preserving a craft, skills and knowledge. Once these jobs leave the US, they won’t come back. It takes three years to become competent in the weaving mill. A person with 20 years of experience has a great deal of knowledge.

We’ve come to the realization that if Authenticity 50 doesn’t succeed, then the mills will no longer be here. That’s what keeps us going. To learn more about Jimmy and Steph MacDonald, their honest bedding, and their “Seed-to-Stitch” manufacturing process, visit the Authenticity 50 website.

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MARKETING STRATEGIES

5 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

Although Authenticity 50 markets a consumer product, many of the marketing tactics Jimmy and Steph MacDonald use can be used by industrial manufacturers, too.

EXPERIMENT WITH MESSAGING

Messages that resonate with your audience take time to create and often require tweaking over months. Instead of hiring an agency, Jimmy and Steph used Google Ads to see which ad messages worked and which didn’t.

EDUCATE YOUR AUDIENCE

Jimmy and Steph use their website to explain what is thread count, and why a higher thread count doesn’t necessarily mean higher quality. They explain the difference between percale and Supima cotton sheets – and which is better.

As an industrial manufacturer, you can help your audience understand industry terms that may be super familiar to you – but are “Greek” to outsiders. Urethane Innovators, for example uses common images to explain the concept of durometer – the hardness or softness of rubber, plastic, and urethane.

What Industrial Manufacturers Can Learn from Authenticity 50

PULL BACK THE CURTAIN

Jimmy and Steph use photographic images taken at their partner mills to show consumers the cotton yarns being spun and workers sewing the sheets by hand. The result is people form a connection – with Authenticity 50 but also with the people who make the sheets.

As an industrial manufacturer, you can do the same. Use a professional photographer to capture your story with images that include people. Let website visitors see how your company makes things – chances are, you have some pretty cool processes, such as mixing, melting, forming, casting, drilling, welding or stamping. To add vibrancy and excitement, make your employees the stars.

Photos can be cropped or photoshopped to leave out anything you don’t want seen. (Plus, they do double-duty: they show prospective employees what it’s like to work for you.)

© Authenticity 50

Shore Hardness Scale, © Urethane Innovators

Photo courtesy of Authenticity 50

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

6 | MANUFACTURING MARKETING

Question of the Week

Sometimes called “answer boxes,” a featured snippet is a special block of text that Google shows at the top of the search results. Usually, it’s shown in response to a question.

According to Google’s help file, the featured snippet block includes a summary of the answer, extracted from a webpage, plus a link to the page, the page title and URL.

Here’s what one looks like:

Many SEO gurus work very hard to get these exclusive listings as they drive a fair amount of traffic!

Given that, is it possible to tell Google what content to use for a featured snippet?

Unfortunately, no. Google programmatically chooses which content to show for featured snippets. However, you can help things along.

Think of the questions you hear regularly, then create optimized FAQs around these questions. Add this content to your website and then wait. Google may or may not pick one of your pages as a featured snippet, but even if they don’t, you’ll still have great content that drives organic conversions.

What’s a Featured Snippet?MADE IN THE USA: JELLY BELLY® JELLY BEANS

Born in 1976 with eight flavors, Jelly Belly today sells its candy worldwide and features 50 different Jelly Bean flavors.

The company manufactures 1,680 beans per second, with 15 million of the company’s delicious sugary beans eaten each year! (True confession: that’s partly due to us.)

The company’s California manufacturing facility was a featured stop on the recent National Association of Manufacturers 2019 tour – with NAM posting some pretty amazing photos from the factory floor.

Sign up for a tour of the CA factory or the Wisconsin warehouse.

www.jellybelly.com

NAM’s #MFGTour19 Twitter feed

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