Methodology and pricing

Because we’ve been helping B2B companies in the manufacturing ecosystem (OEMs, machine builders, contract manufacturers, robotics systems integrators, industry 4.0 service providers, etc.) for well over a decade, we’ve seen firsthand what works and what doesn’t.

Our methodology was born out of these experiences, and our job is to apply it to your unique business circumstances. Below is how we do it.

Step 1: Road Map

We always start here (and require no further commitment).

The objectives of this project are to:

  • Get all of your key stakeholders into alignment around what outcomes are most important for your business to achieve (examples: revenue growth target, new customer acquisition target, customer diversification, new market penetration, successful product launch, achieving greater visibility, brand image improvement, workforce recruitment)
  • Prioritize those outcomes and decide together where to focus first
  • Agree on a timeline for achieving those outcomes
  • Explore the different possible paths to achieving them (and establish what level of marketing effort will be required)
  • Identify what roadblocks stand in your way and how to navigate around them
  • Bring you a range of options (at different levels of investment) for making it happen, and help you decide which path makes the most sense for you

When this project is complete, your internal stakeholders will be aligned on your marketing strategy. And you’ll have a specific action plan in hand, ready to implement.

Here’s how the project plays out:

Our team will lead you through a four-hour discovery session with the key stakeholders on your team. This typically means your CEO/President/Owner, VP of Sales, Marketing Director (if you have one) and a couple Sales professionals or Account Managers (who interface regularly with your customers and know them well). It’s typically a group of 4-6 people.

We’ll ask lots of questions to help us understand your products, your differentiators, your core audience segments, the key buying process influencers you need to reach and influence inside of those companies, where your opportunities lie and what’s standing in your way.

Then we’ll disappear for about a week to process everything we’ve learned from you, to investigate some of the challenges we’ve heard and to start compiling our strategic recommendations about how to get you from point A to point B.

Finally, we’ll reconvene for a 90-minute session to take you through those recommendations in detail.

Note that we always bring a range of implementation options to the table. On one end of the spectrum, we’ll show you a full-scale plan that’s designed to achieve all of those most important business outcomes you’ve communicated to us. One the other end of the spectrum, we’ll share the simplest first steps you could take to get you moving in the right direction. And we’ll include one or two options in the middle as well.

At this point, regardless of the direction you choose, you’ll be ready to hit the ground running.

Step 2: Program implementation

The previously described Road Map project will establish your path to the outcomes you need to achieve, and also identify the right combination of strategies and tactics to deploy.

In most cases, the programs we design for our manufacturing clients will include some combination of the following:

Foundation:

  • Positioning and messaging (crafting the right north star messaging for the right people to communicate who you help, how you create value and what makes you different)
  • Website (design, development, copywriting)
  • CRM & tech stack (evaluation, selection, implementation)

Content:

  • Written content (product pages, case studies, thought leadership derived from the knowledge of your subject matter experts)
  • Video content (expert explainers featuring your subject matter experts, brand films)

Campaigns & Reporting:

  • Paid search campaigns (to capture demand from those looking to buy right now)
  • Paid social campaigns (to build hyper-targeted awareness and trust at scale in front of the specific job titles from the exact types of companies who make up your audience)
  • Reporting (to not only understand revenue impact, but also the signals along the way that tell us whether we’re on or off course)
  • Strategy calls (to create marketing-sales alignment, establish a consistent two-way dialogue between our teams and share key insights from reports)

Pricing expectations

When we run full-scale marketing programs for our clients, most spend $120-200K/year in agency fees (plus a media budget for ad placements).

But some clients might choose to simply bite off the first few pieces in year one and only spend $50-100K.

For clients who have internal marketing teams, we may simply play a coaching/consulting role. We’ll help you design the strategy and action plan, and then be by your side while you implement it. In these scenarios, because you’ll do the hard work under our guidance, our fees will be lower. Here’s what that might look like.

Regardless, we’ll help you figure out how to put the resources you have (both budget and internal staff) to work in the most effective way. We’ll also be very clear with you about expectations for results (and timing to get to those results) at any given level of investment.

Here are some variables that will affect pricing:

  • What you need this marketing program to help you accomplish (for example, hitting a specific revenue target, capturing market share in a new vertical or product category, successfully launching a new product, diversifying your customer base, etc.)
  • How quickly you need to get to those outcomes
  • What internal resources (marketing staff, existing content, etc.) you have available to support the program
  • How fierce your competitive landscape is
  • Your current position in that competitive landscape (and as a result, how big a hill you have to climb)

Make sense to have a conversation?

If you think there might be a fit, we’d love to talk. You can request a strategy call here.

Our marketing philosophy

In a transformed B2B buying landscape, what got most manufacturers where they are today won’t get them where they want to go in the years ahead. In this article, we offer our perspective and provide some guidance: How to adapt in a changing B2B manufacturing buying landscape

Success stories

Below are are a few case studies that illustrate the impact we’ve created for some of our manufacturing clients:

Case study: driving $9M in pipeline for an industrial oven manufacturer: Learn how we helped this custom-engineered CapEx equipment manufacturer turn their marketing program into a revenue machine. Read/watch case study

Case study: building a marketing program for a cable assembly manufacturer: Learn how we helped this custom contract manufacturer implement their first true, sustainable marketing program, focused on marketing-sourced pipeline. Read/watch case study