Industrial Marketing Consulting for Manufacturer to Grow Sales in New Markets

The situation prior to our engagement and marketing challenges

The President of Monroe Environmental Corp. (MEC), a Mechanical Engineer and a licensed P.E., contacted us initially because he wanted to increase the company’s sales to the chemical, oil & gas and petrochemical plants along the Texas Gulf Coast region and Louisiana. These were new markets for the client.

MEC was founded in 1970 and is an established manufacturer of Air Pollution Control and Water/Wastewater Treatment Systems. They are headquartered in Monroe, MI and built their early reputation by primarily servicing the automotive industry.

MEC’s growth plans called for putting 90 to 95% of their focus on new industrial customers from Chemical Processing, Oil & Gas, Specialty Plastics and other General Manufacturing industries along the Texas Gulf Coast region. They wanted a 60% to 75% growth in sales over the next three years from these new markets. However, they did not want to exclude their existing customer base in the Automotive industry and municipal projects. They had recently opened an office in the Woodlands, TX to be closer to their new target audience.

This was a 2-phase engagement, Phase I was Industrial marketing assessment and strategy development for lead generation. This involved several online meetings and phone conversations with the client’s sales and marketing team, VP of Operations and in-house Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). We also visited the plant in Michigan, did a walk-through and had several face-to-face meetings with key members.

Internal discovery leads to identifying key issues

We conducted an in-depth assessment of their existing website, email newsletter, trade show plans and other marketing efforts. We developed a Buyer Profile questionnaire for the client to fill out and send back for further discussions. This helped both parties to identify customer challenges based on facts rather than “gut feelings.”

Based on our review, we were able to identify several issues that needed to be corrected to put the company on the right path for their planned growth. These issues had a lot to do with segmenting and messaging and not technical issues with the website.

We also created a baseline Google Analytics report that would be used to track and measure our proposed solutions for improvements to the client’s digital marketing.

Documented industrial marketing strategy and plan of action

The final deliverable for Phase I was a 40-page report with our findings and recommendations that were backed by research data from independent third-party firms.

“I took quite a bit of time, probably a couple of hours reading your report. I was interested when I first glanced through it and didn’t know how detailed you would get. Wow, you’ve really understood our situation and am impressed by your understanding of what we need to do. We need your help to move forward because even though we have knowledgeable people in our company, they just don’t have the time to work on anything else and they don’t have your industrial marketing expertise and experience. I would like you to give me a proposal for Phase II, so we can get going. I have a good feeling about us working together.”

– Gary Pashaian, P.E., President

Phase II – Ongoing industrial content marketing

Before creating any new content, we reviewed some of existing sales presentations to get a good understanding of how the client approached new customers and their messaging. This is a critical step that is often overlooked in industrial content marketing and companies jump straight into creating content.

Based on our findings from Phase I and additional conversations with the client’s team, we prioritized creating new content that was more application oriented and targeting the downstream Oil & Gas industry. We created new content leveraging the client’s past successes with API Separators.

Our copy was reviewed and approved by the client. We then created a mock-up of the new webpage for client review. This was fine-tuned using client’s feedback and launched quickly.

One of our recommendations was to get in-house SMEs involved earlier in the conversation with new leads. To make that happen, we implemented a call to action that said, “Have technical questions about your air pollution or water/wastewater application? Ask a Monroe Expert.”

This was visible on the Home page in the top half of the screen (above the fold) for impatient visitors who do not go beyond the Home page. Similar calls to actions were created that were specific to applications and used throughout the site.

Another priority was revamping the Home page to make it easier for site visitors to get to the relevant content with the minimum number of clicks. Also, a concern was raised during our plant visit that there was some confusion in the market place about MEC being a distributor and not a manufacturer because of the extensive product line.

Our solution was to make it clear right in the headline on the Home page that MEC was an experienced manufacturer, create two distinct pathways based on the two major product categories, highlight the company’s experience in the Oil & Gas industry and add some emphasis to value-added engineering services. Proof of concepts (case studies) and the benefits of partnering with MEC were brought to the forefront. Additional methods of collecting top of the funnel leads and growing the in-house subscription lists were implemented. We also proposed a streamlined layout for the inside pages which was implemented by the client’s marketing team.

Another industry-specific application page that we worked on (new content and layout) was the Aerospace, Automotive, and Machining/Automation Industries page.

Results delivered with measured improvements

Soon after the new Home page was launched, Mr. Pashaian reported receiving a call from a new prospect in Texas. This inquiry led to an in-person meeting to discuss the opportunity. He also mentioned receiving other calls in his Texas office that were new leads.

Highlights from Google Analytics after launching the new Home page and the streamlined site as compared to before launch.

• Traffic to the site increased by 8.96%, Pages/Session increased by 60.71% and Bounce Rate decreased by 66.90%
• Organic Search traffic increased by 18%
• Conversion rates for both the Ask an Expert and Let’s Talk forms outperformed the generic Contact Us form by a wide margin
• Click through rate to API Separators product page improved by 81.25%

“I think there is a lot of value in what [you] have proposed. Needs refining but a nice start. I want to thank you for your efforts on our behalf, and I appreciate the contribution that you made to our company. You certainly helped to set us up for success in the future.”

– Adam Pace, Sales & Marketing Manager