If you are a manufacturing company you need to grow your revenue. Read how industrial manufacturers can learn how to market and sell in a changing environment.

1. Manufacturing Revenue Growth
How to Sell Successfully in a World that Buys
A Guide for: Industrial Manufacturers
• OEMs
• Capital Equipment Manufacturers
• Automation & Process Control
• MRO Suppliers
• Industrial Distributors
• Consumables Manufacturers

2. Executive overview
Manufacturing is sexy again. America’s resurgence excites everyone in the industrial world. And companies have
applied scientific method to improving operational efficiency and quality. It’s a great time to be in manufacturing.
But...it’s also getting harder and harder to sell B2B products. Traditional business development approaches are
decreasingly effective.
There’s a proven and measurable approach which manufacturers can implement. The process proactively:
• aligns the sales process to current buying habits
• leverages digital tools as drivers of growth rather than gadgets
• automates lead nurturing to build a long-term pipeline
• establishes broad thought leadership (rather than simple product expertise)
• opens new market opportunities
• enhances enterprise valuation
• allows companies to manage the top line as deliberately as they do the bottom line
The beauty of this transition for manufacturers is that as it improves results, it simultaneously creates a framework of
analytics and metrics which allow the previously vague world of business development to be measured and managed
just like operations.
Here’s how to build that for your company….and how to grow revenue and enjoy business in today’s
competitive markets.
About the Authors
Ed Marsh
Ed Marsh Todd Hockenberry

3. (978) 238-9898
Ed was going to be an architect because he loved the nexus of
engineering and design. That was before he was going to be an engi-
neer; before he graduated from Johns Hopkins; before he was an Army
Infantry Officer (Airborne Ranger); before he set B2B industrial sales
records; before he was partners with a German capital equipment
manufacturer; before he founded a distribution/rep company for
industrial products in India; until he decided that managing a business
and employees wasn’t what he enjoyed. Now that Ed’s got all of that
out of his system he runs a consultancy that helps US manufacturing
companies grow by applying process excellence to business
development – completing the full circle back to an engineering &
design combination. His practice is built on a unique methodology
which combines powerful digital marketing methodologies (a HubSpot
partner) with his extensive international biz dev experience.
Consilium assists American manufacturers in applying process
excellence to their business development. In other words we help lean,
well managed companies with rock solid bottom lines effectively and
consistently grow their top lines to match. We work primarily with
mid size industrial manufacturing companies, guiding them through a
journey of designing and executing business grade B2B inbound
marketing and focused, profitable global market expansion.
(407) 406-3959
Todd Hockenberry and Top Line Results specialize in leading top line
revenue growth at small and medium sized companies with a focus on
manufacturing, technology, and capital equipment companies. Delivering
high return inbound marketing capabilities with and for manufacturing
companies is their specialty.
Todd has over 20 years of experience in direct selling and leading com-
panies selling technology and capital equipment to companies in global
industrial markets. He has developed and cultivated direct sales teams
as well as managed sales representative and distribution networks--all
to significant sales improvements.
Todd’s client experience ranges from small family owned manufacturing
companies to large publicly traded technology providers and come from
industries including automotive, advanced materials processing, defense,
metal fabrication, consumer goods and system integration.
Todd HockenberryEd Marsh

4. 93%
of all B2B purchases
originate with an
internet search
Marketo

5. Buyers are
70%
through their buying
process before they
are willing to speak
to a sales rep
Forrester Research - 66-90%

6. You manage your
operations....but
you hope for
revenue growth
Why you’ve lost control of top line growth
You make amazing stuff! Bending, stamping, welding, brazing and
extruding - after designing, improving and patenting. And then you and
your team apply the latest in management science, LEAN and six sigma
to improving the manufacturing efficiency. You’re part of a resurgence
in American manufacturing strength and excellence. Congratulations
But admit it….even as you know you’re improving the ‘making’ piece,
you’re also fretting about the ‘selling’ piece. You might not have this
conversation with your sales manager or partner, but it’s the sort of
thing you might bounce off a spouse in a moment of reflection. It’s
almost as though the more rigorously you manage the bottom line, the
less control you have over the top line.
Your gut is right. This eBook will explain why and outline the process
required to improve revenue growth.
It starts with recognizing what’s changed. And while the obvious
answer to that is “everything,” the relevant answer is how people buy -
or more specifically the fact that the internet has disrupted sales.
Back when direct sales reps ruled the earth, they occupied that
position of power because they controlled information in a world of
information asymmetry between buyers and sellers. Buyers needed
sales reps as the conduit to product and application details. The
internet eliminated that asymmetry, and in practice inverted it. Now
buyers often know as much about you as you yourself, and more about
your competitors and their alternatives. They no longer need sales
reps until late in the process for negotiation and granular details.
Today buyers control their buying process. They search the internet;
research solutions; educate themselves on options; and compare
suppliers all before speaking to a rep. They’re buying on their own, yet
you’re still trying to sell to them.
In short, you’re manufacturing modern products in the 20teens and
trying to sell them with a stale approach from the 1990s.

7. The solution isn’t to tweak something. But that’s the mistake many
companies make. Adding a bit of SEO, social media, another sales rep, an
outside telemarketing firm, another magazine ad or similar tactical steps
is akin to beefing up the drive shaft without increasing the motor size
and redesigning the entire powertrain to ensure the rest of the design is
capable of the resulting increase in stress.
Here’s what you need to do... It’s time for a
biz dev
transformation
akin to
implementing
LEAN for
operations
Want to learn more about the evolution of B2B
sales & marketing
Download a Our eBook

8. High level - what needs to change
According to the legal definition of a contract (payment in
consideration for product) you’re still selling products (machines,
devices, automation, engineered components, etc.) But nobody’s buy-
ing products. This sounds trite and obtuse but the very real reality is
that they only buy value to their business. In other words the ability to
automate has no inherent value to a customer. Reducing labor costs is
simply shuttling money from a cost account to a depreciation account.
But the ability to scale to add new customers; or to resolve quality
issues; or to reduce workers’ comp claims; or to manage WiP inventory
and floor space costs; or to shorten lead-times and increase
inventory turns are examples of business value that customers may
realize through implementing automation.
And that’s what they are buying. They may tell you they want XXX
speed or a minimum of XX horsepower - but those are details which
mislead you into trying to sell them products. Stop!
Making that shift isn’t easy though. The features & benefits sales
mentality is etched into the manufacturing psyche. But we’ve got a
model to guide the change - an analogous evolution which was every bit
as traumatic and unwelcome; and one which American manufacturing
companies conquered - the change of manufacturing itself over the past
couple decades.
Now’s the time to apply process excellence to a re-engineering of the
top-line part of your company just as you’ve done to the bottom line
part. This will position you to actually manage revenue growth!
At a high level here’s what needs to change:
• stop selling - transition to helping buyers buy
• deliberately focus on helping the right buyers buy
If perception is
reality...your
digital presence IS
your company (at
least as far as
prospects care)

9. Digital World Reality Check
You think of your website as a delimited series of pages that was
created as a defined project and required various technical skills
to implement and update. That was fair….in 2000. It used to
be that a website was a gee whiz gadget that eventually evolved
into a credibility discriminator. Real companies had websites.
That was back in a world when people would type in the URL for
your site to go there to see if you were hip.
Then there was a phase when sites included a bit more infor-
mation - product specs and industries served for instance - and
‘SEO’ became important. Including ‘key words’ like
“automation” or “welding supplies” was a tactic to rank well
when people used the internet as a vast product index. And
search was clumsy enough that one had to include common
misspellings too!
The evolution of search engines has changed the role of websites,
though, and product focused sales methodologies haven’t caught
up even as 95% of B2B purchases start with internet search.
Today search is contextual. People enter questions, phrases,
descriptions of outcomes, etc. They no longer enter a word to
describe a product. They’ve changed the way they search
because the search engines have changed the way they index and
provide answers.
Today searches sound like “best warehouse management system
for office products distribution” or “reducing seal quality
defects in hermetic sealing of lidding for sterilization.” And a
site built on keywords like “pallet racks” and “heat sealing” is
simply useless if you hope to grow beyond repeat customers and
a few referrals.
The term “website” as it’s often understood is semantically
misleading. Today a website is the beating heart of a vast digital
circulatory system. To be effective it must constantly beat,
circulating information not only through the veins which you
control, but throughout distant capillaries that reach the 95%.
And it must do so in a way that automatically addresses the
needs of buyers, and be optimized so that the search
engines properly understand and convey the value you provide.
Successful revenue growth is built on the credibility and reach
that result from thought leadership. A company’s digital
presence, including but not limited to a dynamic website, is the
platform upon which thought leadership is established. From
thought leadership flows traffic and leads, and the ability to help
buyers through a complex buying process without unwelcome,
aggressive intervention by sales reps.
That creates several challenges for most industrial
manufacturers:
• in house skill sets are focused on applying product
knowledge to marketing
• management teams don’t have the perspective to recognize
the limitations of internal staff (read more)
• benchmarking against competitors is misleading as they are
often equally inept
• the temptation is to find an easily implemented tactical fix
when what’s needed is a structural change to sales and
marketing staffing and budgeting
• marketing is no longer a precursor to sales - but rather
marketing and sales are a continuum of buyer facilitation
• the same relentless innovation that is required on the
product development side must now be applied to the
revenue growth side
• empathy for customers and understanding of their
business is now as important as technical understanding of
your products
• your website, indeed ALL of your marketing, must c
ontinuously expand and evolve
This isn’t unprecedented, of course. After all how many of the
drafting tables you had in 1990 are still in use in your office
today? See, you’ve evolved operationally but your sales and
marketing structure is nearly unchanged!

10. ...and of those
95% of buyers
that start with
internet search
80% ignore paid
ads
&
75% never scroll
past the first page
“When we’re at the table we
win. We need to be at the
table more!”
Invisible is irrelevant
The first problem companies need to address is “getting found.” In a
world where buyers buy, and 95% of that buying starts with an internet
search, you need to be relevant to their online research at the very
beginning of their process. That means you have to master search - and
today’s SEO, or search engine optimization, requires a complex synthesis
of engineering and creativity.
Search engine algorithms are constantly evolving. MOZ offers a great
recap of the progression here, including Google’s frequent and
innocuously named (e.g. hummingbird & panda) updates. The evolution
of the algorithms has driven the change in user interaction:
• from entering a URL
• through entering a keyword
• and describing a solution
• to posing a question about a problem
statistics via HubSpot

11. To succeed, therefore, companies need to create a web of information
which helps search engines find them, and clarifies how the
information applies to different search queries. Additionally the
information needs to be of high enough quality that it engages users in
ways which search engines use to gauge value. For instance time on
site, frequency and volume of new material, sharing on social networks,
inbound links, etc. are all indicators which search engines consider - so
it’s not merely absolute quality, but also popularity.
To be popular, your thought leadership (we’ll call it generically ‘content’)
must resonate with someone. Obviously you want that ‘someone’ to be
your ideal buyer. So the first step in getting found is to understand your
buyer in far greater detail than you likely do today.
In the marketing world this is a called a persona. Most companies
have 3-5 personas which they target. It’s a very detailed dive into the
world of your target buyer and includes demographic information
(typical age, gender, educational background), professional characteristics
(title, time in job, scope of responsibility), pain & objectives (what are
his/her main challenges and what constitutes success), and how they
collect information (typical magazines read, use of social media, LinkedIn
groups, trade shows attended, professional associations, etc.) With that
background then you can research how they search (what terms they
use, what search engines, what results they value, etc.)
Adele Revella sets the gold standard in
buyer persona research and her
“Manifesto” (available here under cre-
ative commons license) is a great learning
resource.
Google keeps moving the goal posts
image - found.co.uk

12. Once your personas are built, and long phrase keyword work is
completed, then you begin to create content designed to resonate with
the personas. Most commonly you’ll write articles which specifically
answer the common, early questions folks have when they’re trying to
fix a problem for which your product may be appropriate. Note that
this isn’t a series of articles about your products! It’s about the
challenges folks wrestle with and what solutions exist. Your products
are only tangentially mentioned.
If you optimize those articles well, and write enough of them (statistics
indicate 70 is a critical mass) on a consistent pace (minimum 2-3/week)
you’ll start to grow site traffic. And that traffic will be special - it will be
the right traffic since these are folks that aren’t coming based on some
generic search, but have the precise problems you can particularly solve.
But that’s not enough. The internet has created all sorts of nooks and
crannies where people congregate to exchange ideas. That’s where
many of today’s referrals are exchanged. That’s where many seek peer
advice and recommendations for how to solve challenging problems. It’s
imperative that companies engage in forums and exchange ideas. The
problem is that many of those forums are known as social media...which
many company owners find nonsensical. But you must be there and be
active.
And you probably have an enormous channel sales (distributors, reps,
agents) at your disposal...although you may wonder how many of them
really even understand your products. Use them to create new traffic
through “white label” thought leadership content that you cobrand and
provide for making it is easy for them to share and create new leads for
both of you.
Does social media freak you out? Our
eBook outlines “The 7 Biggest Busi-
ness & Legal Risks of Social Media in
B2B Marketing”
Download our eBook

13. Done consistently and properly this combination will build the flow of traffic to your site - and
increasingly it will be the right traffic. This is representative of what companies typically
experience over the 6-12 months after launching an effort like this.
The debate over when to invest and what works is settled by fact, not opinion
This chart represents the results of a new site design combined with a strong inbound marketing content development and
publishing campaign. The client transitioned from a paid search heavy traffic generation approach to an organic inbound getting
found online approach using problem/solution oriented content.. Note that this report distinguishes between each category of
traffic source (organic search, social media, paid search, email, referrals, direct traffic, etc.) and every lead, project customer and
revenue $ can be attributed to specific marketing activity and content.. And the resulting leads typically cost 61% less!1
1 - HubSpot “State of Inbound Marketing”

14. Have you tried
paying your
commercial
credit line with
impressions?
Wondering how to improve your
internet marketing? Download our
“Step-by-step Guide”
Download the Guide

15. Field Notes & Case Studies
Learn how a fiberglass manufacturer uses inbound marketing to drive new leads and increase
sales.
Download this case study and discover:
• The importance of Long Tail Keywords, Calls-to-Action and Landing Pages
• The benefits of having a Blog and having a social media presence
• The value of Email Marketing
• How these combined efforts resulted in sales growth of more than 20%
Download this case study and discover:
• Doubled the number of website visitors from 2013 to 2014
• 75%+ increase in leads from 2013 to 2104
• Visit to lead conversion doubled from 2013 to 2014

16. Content? What do we mean?
There are many ways to create content., and many types incuding articles, whitepapers, videos, illustrations, audio recordings and others. One of
our favorites is to ask sales people to write down every question a customer/prospect asked along with some bullet points on how they answered.
Writing about the issues and problems of your customers and prospects is a great place to start.
There a wide variety of ways to create content a few key ones are:
Content that builds trust:
• Customer and product reviews
• Testimonials or endorsements from happy customers
• Articles you’ve written or that mention your firm in outside publications
• case studies of how people have successfully used your products or services
• “How to” content – specific advice or tips and tricks
Content that educates: Once you create awareness and trust a prospect will be hungry to find out much more about your unique approach,
your solution, your story and your organization.
• ·White papers – not boring, dry technical stuff, your best writing tying a bigger topic together with your specific area of expertise
• ·Newsletter – Weekly or monthly education that nurtures their interest
• ·Seminars – in person or online, these allow prospects to learn as well as engage
• ·FAQs – some folks just need the answers to their questions and this format serves well
• ·Survey data – results from surveys can be very compelling as a way to let prospects know you understand them
Customer generated content:
• ·Referrals and reviews – create ways to move happy customers to a referral and review process
• ·Testimonials – automate this process by providing online audio and video tools
• ·Video success stories – create events that bring customers together to tell their story and network
Other people’s content: Be instructive and helpful by aggregating / curating industry info
Content that converts: call them to action and convert prospects to the action of buying.
• ·In person events – live events are the absolute best way to use content to close
• ·Case studies – deep studies into the success of another client act as tangible proof in the buying decision
• ·ROI calculators – use content to help prospects understand the specific value of making a change

17. but….Traffic is meaningless
(like impressions and other market stats that folks like to use)
Are we nuts? We just told you that you had to increase traffic...and in
the next section we’re telling you that’s meaningless?
An apparent contradiction? Yes. Nuts? No...at least not on this topic.
You need to grow traffic as a business asset - not merely a number.
Statistically only some of your traffic will be interested in what you have
to say. The goal is to grow the percentage of interested traffic first, and
then grow the absolute number second.
In fact you may actually want to reduce traffic - by being clear enough
in focus and optimization you’ll avoid folks that arrive by mistake and
‘bounce.’ And you’ll build time on site and engagement by attracting the
right folks.
But turning traffic from a statistic into an asset requires an almost
universally overlooked step - conversion. Numbers of visitors are
meaningless - but visitors who engage and who exchange a name and
email address for some of your expertise are the future customers that
you’ll never have to cold call.
Remember those articles you wrote to help attract traffic? Well here’s
the next place those come into play. Visitors will arrive at your site
through the side door - that article that you wrote that spoke right to
them and their problem. Sure, they can navigate around, but they don’t
normally come to your homepage to begin. So you’re establishing direct
credibility from their first visit.
But here’s where you’ve got the chance to step things up. On that
same article page where you’ve gotten them nodding in agreement with
your insight, you then offer the opportunity to download something of
more substance; a whitepaper for instance, or an eBook that digs into
a related topic even deeper. You capture an email address and a couple
other contact details in exchange for that material. And now you’ve got
an early stage lead that you can get to know personally - not just
anonymous traffic.
The bonus? You’ll also instantaneously have historic perspective into
what they’ve looked at on your site and done prior to the conversion.
Once you know who they are, and that they’ve been to a certain page 7
times on 5 different visits, for instance, you’ll start to formulate a
strategy to develop the opportunity.
Here’s what the process looks like to convert traffic using a
methodology of “CTA” (call to action) to “Landing Page” to “ThankYou
Page.”
# visitors X typical conversion rate = # of marketing qualified leads

18. CTA leads to
“Landing Page”
with conversion
form
a conversion
creates a prospect
from otherwise
anonymous traffic

19. Form leads to a “ThankYou Page” which offers
more helpful information

20. A lead is not a lead
Do you remember bingo card decks and the ‘leads’ they produced? Or
how about the leads that resulted from other lead generation methods?
When sales reps controlled information, prospects had no choice but to
raise their hand and request that a sales rep call them.
Today prospects are emphatic that they want to be left unmolested by
sales reps - and they’re pretty wily in avoiding them. So it’s critical that
“leads” are treated according to a new set of rules, not the old
pouncing and selling approach. Any early follow up needs to be strongly
oriented toward assistance in their research. With sales reps who are
incented by a commission payment structure to concentrate on
immediate deals, the experience is likely to be unsatisfactory for leads.
Further, if you typically hand fresh leads off to channel, you’ll waste many
of them.
Buyers follow a journey. Nobody arrives at a site like yours, to buy an
important and likely
complex product
like yours, in one
sitting. Buying deci-
sions for complex
B2B products and
services require
a lengthy “buying
journey.” A buyer’s
questions and
perspectives evolve as a they move along. For instance, at the outset
questions like:
• has anyone else had this problem
• how have they fixed it
• what causes it
• what’s the best outcome
are common. But as you move deeper into the buying journey the
questions evolve:
• how do I compare different solutions
• what does it cost
• how can I sell it internally
And then toward the end of the process:
• what’s involved in implementation
• how soon will it be effective
• what could go wrong
• who else has tried this successfully
Often the buyers who are first aware of problems and take initiative to
define challenges and research solutions are NOT the actual
buyers who will financially approve a project. Therefore it’s important
that your content includes materials to help your prospect understand
how to sell within their organization. Commonly IT and finance, as well
as ‘management’ in general, are groups whom you must prepare your
lead to ‘sell’ as your proxy.
This “journey” is viewed by traditional salespeople as a waste of time
or unqualified lead. But companies that understand how to help buyers
recognize the great opportunities it provides. These include:
• Virtually recreate the traditional sales rep interaction - It used
to be that letters, brochures, phone calls and meetings provided
reps an opportunity to be in frequent touch with buyers; to
build a relationship and project momentum in small chunks with
a series of ‘yeses’; and to obtain frequent status checks. Done
properly, this sales nurturing process builds a similar relationship.
image - business2community

21. • Learn more progressively - As the relationship develops and
prospects seek more specific information as they journey, they’re
willing to share more. Even if you only ask for a couple bits
of information at each interaction, you’ll quickly build a more
complete picture of the buyer, Maybe it’s first and last name
and email address initially. Company name, website and job
title are next, followed by several industry specific questions.
This “progressive profiling” is innocuous to engaged prospects.
And there’s another level of progressive information which you
collect gradually based on a number of interactions. Patterns
emerge based on specific topics, pieces of content and the rate
of engagement. It’s likely that you’ll develop the ability to
anticipate, based on a series of prospect behaviors, the likelihood
that they will buy and when!
• If your process is really skewed toward helping buyers with
educational material that supports their professional goals
(remember the personas?) then people will readily engage. As
they do, and you build a progressively more complete profile,
you’re able to personalize the experience for them - IF you have
invested in marketing automation tools to do so. Traditional
tools like Google Analytics provide a high level, cumulative view
of all traffic. But effective lead nurturing is based on detailed
understanding of each lead individually - and the right tools allow
you to gather a complete picture and execute in a nuanced and
individual way.
• These are often early stage leads. Not only do they not want to
speak to a sales rep, but they’re not yet qualified. Your reps don’t
want to talk to them and you don’t want to waste valuable sales
time on them. Yet through nurturing many will become qualified.
So it’s important to automate the process to run in the
background, delivering value to each lead without consuming
routine sales & marketing resources. Leads want to be left alone
and reps should invest their time in current deals - yet the leads
are nurtured and cultivated as a business asset in the interim.
• Each lead is an individual with personal preferences. Some will
find a brief video easiest to digest. Others will want to
download and read meaty whitepapers. Others may find that
graphics which outline concepts are the easiest way to under-
stand their challenge at a high level. It’s up to you to serve
content in various formats, through various channels, so that
leads can consume that which is most comfortable to them,
when they want it.
• While you’re automating this you also want to add a “human
touch.” Ensure that leads are aware of the resources you
provide, and that if they reach out they are assisted by some-
one who is knowledgeable, and who isn’t a “close early & close
often” rep. A great approach is to build opportunities into your
marketing automation which prompt specific personal
interaction based on a lead’s behaviors. For instance, if they
download one of your case studies, trigger a call from your

22. company offering a handful of others
that are related. Use that conversa-
tion to highlight other types of business
value that other customers have derived
from your product. Be ready to answer
product specific questions - but don’t call
to talk about that. Let leads set their own
pace. Gently offer other bits of info that
you know will address questions which
will arise as they move along, but don’t
force it. Nurturing leads will create a
robust long-term pipeline. When they’re
ready to buy they won’t call you to ask
for one of three quotes. Rather they’ll
call you to discuss implementation.
• Well trained, creative and insightful sales
reps have an opportunity to substantially
distinguish themselves, and by proxy the
company, from competitors. Buyers will
value the approach as much as the
information.
The process framework is the same one you’ve
followed for years. Generate leads, work with
them on projects, and close them as custom-
ers. The lead generation now, though, will be
driven by a sophisticated program which will
help the right people find you (vs. cold calling
them). Leads will be automatically nurtured in a
manner, at a pace and with information which is
appropriate to them personally, based on their
requirements and preferences. And leads will
either self select in or out - you’ll be able to
focus valuable rep time only on actual projects
but still nurture many leads that will become
future projects.
image - smallbusiness.yahoo

23. # of marketing qualified leads X typical nurturing success rate = # of sales qualified
leads
# of sales qualified leads X typical close rate = # of new customers
X average lifetime revenue = $$$
image - linksmart

24. but there’s an elephant in this room
the topic of marketing budgets
image - LinkedIn

25. Manage the top line like you manage the bottom line
You live in a real world of facts & figures. For too long you’ve been
asked, often even told, that you must ‘invest’ in marketing without a
clear idea of why, or what the return will be. You’ve even been shown
“made up” returns such as “impressions” and “audited subscribers.”
Certainly those are indicators but they’re not a justification. You can’t
repay your credit line with impressions - profits are what matters.
Now is the time to change that discussion. Start managing
your top line with the same rigor as your bottom line!
This is a process of engineered revenue growth. Each step of the
process is measured with incredible granularity, and in a closed loop.
Want to know how many leads AND how many profit dollars resulted
from LinkedIn activity? vs.Twitter? Or maybe you want to know how
a journal ad or trade show specifically drove revenue? You should have
that information within a couple keystrokes. Actual, real figures - not
some extrapolation which seeks to keep you comfortable without really
answering the question.
And what about the choices that get made? The disagreements that
you have to referee so often between marketing and sales when each
insists that you have to talk about XXX vs. XXX? Eventually you make
a decision, but never really know if it was right. What opportunities are
being missed? Fix that with real time A/B testing of nearly every aspect
of your marketing. You’ll stop guessing and start managing - not only
budget, investment and staffing based on real returns, but each element
along the way based on actual results.
Marketing used to be the domain of beret wearing artists. Then the
IT folks tried to muscle in with lots of jargon and complicated website
“code.” Now marketing is squarely in your world. It’s the domain of
engineers. Of course it needs to be aesthetically appealing, and must
be very user friendly. But it’s all about analytics now, from the personas
and key phrases through small incremental improvements in each step.
After all, when you can measure everything, the ability to convert 1/2%
more of 50,000 annual website visitors means an additional 250 leads. If
you are able to nurture those into projects at a rate of 10% and close
30% of your deals, that’s 8 new customers. Campaigns are important,
but so is managing the detail - and the tools are available to enable that.
These tools and strategies allow you to change your management
approach. Traditionally you’ve applied scientific method to operations
but sales has been unwieldy. Aside from managing certain activities
(numbers of cold calls, presentations, demos, proposals, etc.) there
haven’t been any metrics to inform similarly rigorous management of
sales. That’s changed now and you can seize the opportunity to
manage the top line just as you manage the bottom line.
Most importantly that means predictability. Annual planning which as-
sumes revenue growth of 3%, for instance, just because that’s a
sensible number, becomes an embarrassing memory. When each phase
of the sales process can be measured and managed, and your pipeline
is nurtured as an asset, you can correlate specific resources (marketing
spending) to predictable outcomes. You can actually manage revenue
growth!
Sound complicated? Actually it’s complex! Learn the difference
and how to build your strategy in this whitepaper
Download the Whitepaper

26. Customer service? or ongoing engagement
New customers are only part of your revenue calculus. Many
companies measure customer contribution by lifetime value which
considers future orders, parts & service, extension into other product
lines/services, etc.
When you manage revenue growth you can also manage these ele-
ments. Rather than some anecdotal indicator to observe you’ll be able
to drive these revenue components. Customer service and support
should be part of the fabric of the relationship between the buyer and
your company - not an orchestrated handoff! Building the ongoing
relationship into a continuum of education and nurturing supports that
across buyer life-cycle stages.
Of course referrals are an important part of your growth and success
- and they’ll continue to be. But referrals won’t only happen on the tee
box. In fact virtual referrals can and should be cultivated. And key to
that is not only providing great products and service, but making it easy
for folks to refer you….digitally.
Throwing the
baby out with the
bath water

27. What to keep & what to change
This is a pretty substantial change from your traditional approach. But
the improvements which can be made don’t mean that everything
you’ve done is wrong. Far from it. There’s some to keep, some to build
on and some to change. Here’s how it often breaks out.
What to keep:
• Trade shows - these are an important part of the industrial
buying journey. But they’re extraordinarily expensive and
ineffective as stand alone 3 day binges. Keep them, but evolve
them into 4 month campaigns to extract maximum value
• Trade journal advertising - this has value (impressions aside!)
New or old school, walk into most industrial operations and you
see these on people’s’ desks. But you’re going to have to be
creative - Shift your ads from product focused stuff that looks
like everyone else’s to offering whitepapers, case studies or
reports with an easy link to your site to download. You’ll
capture a modern lead through a traditional channel.
• Paid search - depending on your product and target personas
this can be an effective component of your business develop-
ment. Sometimes it’s a waste, and often it is most effectively
redirected - for instance, since 80% of people searching
completely ignore paid results, maybe it’s better directed toward
sponsored LinkedIn posts.
What to build on:
• Social media - this doesn’t mean that you hire a community
manager. But social media is increasingly used by technical
buyers to research solutions. Make sure you’re found there, and
ensure your company is engaged in a dialog not simply broad-
casting.
• Get control of your website - IT and outside designers make
a big deal out of small changes. And if your website is really
going to work as a lead generation engine, it’s going to involve
frequent changes and updates.
• Staffing and budget - this process will challenge the
traditional sales & marketing model.
• Embrace unqualified leads - these are incredibly valuable
since you can shape them
• User experience (UX) - consider every interaction from
customer perspective. This includes not only quality of
information and value of interaction, but even the ease of
navigating your site and finding what they need.
What to change:
• Mobile friendly - ensure that all your thought leadership
content is accessible to users regardless of what platform they’re
using to access it. Phones, tablets and PCs are all commonly
used, and among some groups that aren’t office based (e.g. floor
maintenance teams) mobile is increasingly common
• Step back from products & specs - Become buyer focused
by building on customer challenges and value you create directly
and indirectly
• Stop selling - help buyers buy
image - PeterCook

28. • Adapt your broader strategy as you learn more from buyers
• Marketing to engineers - it’s an important part of what you
do, but often it’s treated as a complete solution. Engineers can
say no, but others say yes. Marketing and selling to engineers
involves a broader business effort
• Demand analytics to support investment decisions and
continuously improve performance. These should be measured
against goals set according to corporate strategy, and be built on
realistic expectations
• growth target
• lifetime value
• rate of close
• rate of conversion
• traffic
“Overestimating internal capabilities -
The shift to managed revenue growth
will demand new technologies,skills
and processes. A realistic assessment
about which capabilities should be
developed in-house and which should
be developed by new partners is
crucial.”
adapted from Harvard Business Review, November ‘14
“Managing the Internet of Things”
Download a Guide for Marketing to Engineers

29. Resources you need to do this
If you had the perspective and technical skills in house you’d already be
doing this. You’re not...and you don’t.
Executing on this is going to require resources to be reallocated and
skills to be identified. Even the early, strategic planning will challenge
traditional assumptions. So what’s required to launch an initiative like
this?
It’s not a DiY project. The combination of art and science, business
savvy and sales & marketing experience require a unique perspective.
You’ll need an advisor with a background in your market and expertise
in these disciplines to guide your effort.
You’ll also need specific journalism (research & writing), design and
technical skills. You may have some of these in house, but you likely
don’t have adequate resources, particularly for writing the volume that
will be required. So at least high level advisory and content creation will
require outside resources.
A program like this requires a very intricately planned and choreo-
graphed execution of many disciplines - sometimes it is inefficient to
shuttle tasks between inside and outside resources. It may be most
efficient to outsource a program in its entirety.
Internally you’ll at least need a coordinator - someone who interfaces
between internal and external resources and who performs an inside
sales function. You’ll also need to commit some staff time to the
project of content creation - often making them available for interviews
by writers and review/editing of what’s been written.
Many companies naturally turn to “marketing agencies” for this sort of
work. They also seek “silo” expertise in areas such as SEO, social media
and web development. That typically results in average results. First it’s
critically important that an initiative be fully integrated - so each
tactic must reinforce and build on the others. Silo focused independent
outside resources invariably fail to satisfy this consideration. Market-
ing agencies tend to consolidate those capabilities, at least on paper,
but they lack perspective and industry experience. You should vet any
outside resource for the following capabilities:
• Experience in your industry (or something parallel which has
similar market characteristics) - they should be comfortable with
the types of buyers and technical fundamentals of your market
• P&L experience - they’ll ask you to make choices which require
balancing priorities. If they haven’t managed those sorts of
choices themselves in an industrial manufacturing environment,
they’ll fail to understand the decisions you must make
• Sales & Marketing experience - this transition in buying behaviors
challenges the traditional sales & marketing model. Your advisor
must be fluent in both to guide your adaptation.
• Technically capable - they need to understand what’s possible, and
what’s feasible.
• Strategic and tactical - too often strength lies exclusively in one
domain or the other. You need both
• Strength to challenge - they need the business background and
comfort to challenge your strongly held assumptions to ensure
optimal engagement
Your internal program coordinator should be:
• technically savvy and engaged
• demonstrate many of the program concepts in their own
activities (personal branding and content)
• great writer and strong research (ideally journalism background)
• basic design capabilities
• very committed to continuing development across disciplines
and student of trends, tools and techniques
what’s the bottom line?

30. Obviously there’s a cost to this sort of initiative. There’s often a linear
relationship between the pace / complexity of the program and the rate
of growth it sparks - so companies can decide the speed and magnitude
of return they require and map required investment against that. For
mid-size manufacturing companies ($5-100MM) the annual investment
in a program of this sort is from $50-250K. However, it’s important to
note that that number doesn’t reflect other changes which can be
netted against it (e.g. reduction in sales staff and reduced paid
advertising) nor does it reflect the fact that with specific reporting and
correlated revenue & ROI, marketing can be comfortably moved from a
cost account to essentially a cost of sales.
How badly do you
want it?
Learn how a capital equipment
manufacturer grew sales 250%
Download a Case Study

31. Conclusion
If someone told you that implementing an ERP system would be easy,
you’d know they were ignorant or lying. Yet you’ve been told by
marketers for years that marketing was easy. That’s part of the reason
you’re skeptical to allocate a budget to marketing beyond what you plan
for trade shows.
So let’s be clear. This won’t be easy. There will be cultural challenges -
you’ll struggle to stop talking about product specifications for instance.
There will be organizational challenges - some of your employees will
resist, sales will feel threatened and your marketing team may not be
able to adapt. There will be resource challenges - you and your team
will have to support the process of creating the thought leadership
content, and your staffing and budgeting will have to be adjusted. And it
will take patience - you’ll see indicators after a quarter and trends after
two but results won’t really be clear for a year.
In short, you’ll likely turnover some staff and endure some dark
moments during which you’ll wonder if it’s really going to work. Expect
it. Marketing, which used to be a series of activities (prep for a trade
show, relaunch the website in 3rd quarter,) will become an everyday
focus just like HR and quality. Your management perspective and
priorities will change.
But if you execute consistently and correctly it will work. The trends
are clear.
The 95% & 70% statistics define the world in which you must grow
revenue. Success and vitality depend on the transition.
But it’s not just a change to make to survive. Adopting a managed
revenue growth approach will enhance your business in additional ways.
You’ll find that quickly global sales opportunities become clear. As
pockets of interest self identify, and then further self select through
nurturing as closeable, manageable, profitable projects, you’ll find export
growth becoming an important part of your business. You’ll skip the
whole tortuous process of struggling to identify the right markets and
preemptively select capable channel partners - instead the markets and
capable partners will identify themselves to you. You’ll even find easily
accessible new global markets to consider for export sales
opportunities.
And it will make your company stronger. Whether you measure
strength in resilience to market fluctuations and consistency of free
cash flow, or in valuation if you’re preparing for a liquidity event /
transition, the fundamental drivers are the same. Industrial
manufacturing companies which manage their revenue growth are
stronger and position themselves for higher valuation.
Finally, you’ll enjoy business more when you’re man-
aging it rather than responding to it!
Wondering when you should consider international
expansion?
Download a Our eBook

32. Contact Us
Todd Hockenberry
Mobile: +1 (407) 406-3959
todd@top-line-results.com
Orlando, FL
Top Line Results, Inc.
Ed Marsh
Mobile: +1 (978) 238-9898
em@cgbadv.com
Boston, MA
Consilium Global Business Advisors, LLC
image - NewGeography