As a medical manufacturer, this company relied on a traditional sales methods: trade shows, in-person events and distribution partners. And while the company found success for more than 100 years, the sales landscape began to change.
Because the manufacturer relied on distribution partners to broker sales, it didn’t know who its customers were and there was no way to foster those relationships. By ramping up digital marketing efforts, the company not only connected directly with buyers, but nurtured those prospects over time and even qualified leads for the sales team to pursue.
Partnering with Kuno Creative helped this manufacturer capitalize on the power of content marketing and the HubSpot Marketing and Sales software. While the consistent creation of content helps attract, convert and nurture leads, the software also allows the sales and marketing teams to track prospects’ interests and engagement levels. This has led to a substantial increase in website traffic, leads and customers year over year, and the company has started forming its own relationships with buyers.
The manufacturer identified several universal challenges it had to overcome to see success with its digital marketing strategy:
To overcome these challenges, the company partnered with Kuno Creative. To nurture relationships still in their infancy, Kuno worked with the company’s internal marketing department to develop a content marketing strategy that would reach buyers at each stage of the sales funnel: awareness, consideration and decision.
While there was initial hesitation from the sales team (who used Excel to track accounts), training for the HubSpot CRM helped team members realize how easy the platform was and how it could aid them in following up and tracking their accounts. They also realized they no longer would waste time chasing unqualified leads, and could better allocate time to build relationships with prospects who were qualified and ready to buy.
By connecting marketing’s efforts with sales’ efforts within HubSpot, the marketing team builds relationships with leads in the awareness and consideration stages of the buying cycle. When they are ready to make a final decision, the sales team comes to the table armed with information, including:
The company also used to do a large quantity of print promotion and ads, which are difficult to track. Now, using the HubSpot Content Optimization System, it can track content performance, which allows for easy adjustments in campaign budgets. Now, only 30 percent of the company’s marketing budget is spent on traditional marketing while 70 percent has been allocated to inbound marketing efforts.
“Having the ability to follow that chain from when someone first becomes a lead to when they hopefully become a customer is invaluable.”
Many manufacturers envision an integrated marketing approach to build product awareness and distribution partners notice. These same channel partners often will introduce and distribute generic, competing products to the market.
The question becomes, how do you elevate your brand and the process of doing business with you, to a level that helps these partners sell to their customers?
Executing sales and marketing methodology that generates leads at different levels of the buyer's journey, and supporting partners by delivering this type of data creates a competitive advantage for both entities.
Learn more about how inbound marketing can help your organization get results.
