Against the Grain: Manufacturing

Most manufacturing companies operate using some sort of distributed sales force and dealer/distributor network — a situation that creates as many problems as it solves. One issue that arrives all too often is when customer data exists solely on the laptops and BlackBerry smartphones of the sales team. Dozens of individuals with dozens of databases… not a single one of them complete.

And if a sales person leaves or their laptop crashes… that data is gone.

By storing all your sales and marketing contacts in a single, web-accessible database, you ensure that this most valuable of resources can’t go missing. You also allow for sharing of ideas, tracking of company-wide initiatives, measurement of marketing efforts and more accurate sales projections. It’s amazing what a little sharing can do.

Trilix is a full-service advertising agency headquartered in the Midwest with expertise in helping manufacturers market effectively and drive sales success. Learn more at www.trilixgroup.com or email Todd Senne at tsenne@trilixgroup.com.

They’re talking about you. You may not know it, but your company, its products and employees are being talked about every day online. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook… all are dotted with mentions that can affect how your company, brand and industry are perceived.

They’re talking about your competitors too.

The question is, are you listening? Are you monitoring those sites to gain insight into customer wants and needs? Are you using it to gain a competitive advantage? Are you using the same services to participate in, and drive, the conversation? It’s not conventional marketing. But then, these are conventional times.

Trilix is a full-service advertising agency headquartered in the Midwest with expertise in helping manufacturers market effectively and drive sales success. Learn more at www.trilixgroup.com or email Todd Senne at tsenne@trilixgroup.com.

Your dealers and distributors are one of the most valuable sales and marketing resources you have. They are on the front line of customer interaction and can absolutely make or break a new initiative or product line. Having a dealer/distributor network that is jazzed about your products and enthusiastically recommends them to customers is a huge competitive advantage.

But if left unchecked, it can get out of hand.

A dealer’s main motivation is closing the deal and moving product. And if that means sacrificing your brand and positioning to do it, it will happen. And that’s a recipe for long-term disaster. Keep your dealers on message and operating within appropriate boundaries not only by providing them with marketing and sales tools, but by incentivizing them to use them (and punishing them when they don’t.) Because if left to their own devices, they’re bound to come up with something that misses the mark.

Trilix is a full-service advertising agency headquartered in the Midwest with expertise in helping manufacturers market effectively and drive sales success. Learn more at www.trilixgroup.com or email Todd Senne at tsenne@trilixgroup.com.

Most companies have had a website for 10 years or more. They’ve probably completely revamped it two or three times. And They’ve probably never really found the pot of gold at the end of the cyber rainbow.

That’s because they built an online brochure or a reference shelf, not a sales or lead generation tool.

But like all other marketing tools (and it is a marketing tool, regardless of what IT says), a site’s primary goal should be converting cold prospects into warm leads. Can it have other uses and be a deep resource of content about a company and its products? Certainly. But don’t let that get in the way of closing business.

Trilix is a full-service advertising agency headquartered in the Midwest with expertise in helping manufacturers market effectively and drive sales success. Learn more at www.trilixgroup.com or email Todd Senne at tsenne@trilixgroup.com. 

When your sales team has a marketing challenge or opportunity, who are they calling? If you’re like many of today’s companies, there’s likely no one to call on, so your sales people end up doing the work themselves. Unfortunately, this is all too commonplace in today’s environment.

Left with no clear marketing leader, it’s every (sales)man for himself.

When marketing responsibilities are distributed across your entire sales force — with dozens of individuals creating their own ads, presentations, literature and more — your brand, message, best practices and value proposition can become frayed and inconsistent. And without a consistent message and position, you may be better off doing no marketing at all.