What if the biggest barrier to profitability is not the effectiveness of your operation, customer acceptance of your products or even the strength of your management team—but a marketplace misconception instead?
Rumors are as damaging in business as they were on the schoolyard of our youth. And when a strongly held view doesn’t line up with reality, brands can suffer.
That’s why Rodon Group fought one particularly vexing misconception with an integrated marketing campaign—and won. Here’s how.
Embrace the Confusion
A manufacturer of small plastic components, the Rodon Group knew they were losing customers to China-based manufacturers due to cost savings.
“When those manufacturers began competing with Rodon in the U.S. marketplace, armed with the perception U.S. firms couldn’t compete on price, the marketing team knew it needed to cut through the fog of mislaid marketplace perceptions,” according to David Kirkpatrick, a senior reporter with MarketingSherpa.
U.S. customers began to believe that sourcing small components from Chinese manufacturers was cheaper than sourcing through U.S.-based companies, such as Rodon Group.
The manufacturer combated the perception by first deploying innovation and automation throughout its operations. Then Rodon Group created a campaign to communicate this shift to customers, many of whom believed cost efficiencies were not possible with U.S. manufacturers.
Don’t Mince Words
Rodon Group was in a fight for its future, so the marketing team committed to an aggressive defense. The result was a marketing campaign unscored by the tagline, “Cheaper than China,” which involved a variety of marketing channels and drove the company’s integrated marketing strategy.
“The perception out there was if you wanted low-cost parts, you had to go to China. We knew that we had to become more aggressive getting that message [that Rodon also was a low-cost supplier] out there,” said Kevin McGrath, vice president of sales and marketing, The Rodon Group.
McGrath and his team carried out a six-step campaign, which you could replicate for your own integrated marketing strategy:
Step 1: Make the marketing message clear and concise. Rodon Group talked with customers at trade shows and conducted other informal research to uncover their perceptions, which influenced Rodon Group’s decision to educate the marketplace with very direct messaging.
Step 2: Retool the website strategy. To revamp its online presence, Rodon Group evolved its own website and boosted its influence on a prominent online industry marketplace that served as a prime lead-generation vehicle.
Step 3: Perform keyword optimization. “There is a lot of science behind identifying these keywords,” McGrath said. “Then, depending on how aggressive we want to be, we can decide how much money we want to throw at owning those keywords.”
Step 4: Generate leads through landing page registration forms. Rodon Group devised website landing pages to draw in customers using keyword optimization. Key to this strategy: the landing pages included an incentive in the form of PDF content or an offer gated behind a registration form, McGrath explained.
Step 5: Place non-qualified leads into a nurturing program. Rodon Group considered all leads generated by the landing pages to be viable, and passed each contact to a sales manager, who gave a personal touch with a phone call or email. With this high-touch approach, Rodon Group shared the advantages of its products and services, and learned if the prospect was close to making a purchase. If not, the prospect was entered into a lead-nurturing email program and received approximately eight emails over 90 days. This email series included videos, links to the company’s capability webpages and special offers.
Step 6: Include social media in the overall strategy. The Rodon Group marketing team dominated Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and YouTube.
“Twitter has been a great social media outlet for us,” explained Jill Worth, web communication and marketing specialist, Rodon Group. “It’s allowed us to reach out to other B2B companies in our industry in a very targeted way.”
Remember to Measure Results
Did the controversial “Cheaper than China” pay off? In spades. Over two years, Rodon Group enjoyed spectacular results:
- Sales rose by 33 percent
- Website visits increased by 120 percent
- Organic traffic grew a dramatic 450 percent
Plus, the company’s community of Twitter followers swelled by 48 percent during the campaign’s first three months.
For a different look at another brand tackling a marketplace fraught with misconceptions, read “Can United Airlines Make the Skies Friendly Again?”
