RECAP: Marketing For Manufacturers

On October 11th and 12th, we brought together a group manufacturers who were interested in obtaining more quality leads using digital and inbound marketing and sales tactics in order to grow their businesses. Between the two days, more than 70 local manufacturers came together to learn and network with industry experts.

Incept and The Bonanno Group teamed up to present this conference – Marketing for Manufacturers – to manufacturing companies located in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas.  Hubspot and Google were also invited to speak about the changing digital landscape and what impact that has for manufacturers in the future. 

Below is a short summary of each session at Marketing for Manufacturers:

The Bonanno Group

Gene Bonanno, Owner of The Bonanno Group, shared the importance of defining business goals and how to best leverage the internet to achieve them. The session hit of the 5 important components to a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy, including:

1. Identify Your Business Goals
2. Know Your Audience
3. Benchmark 
4. Set In Stone
5. Analyze Your Results

Hubspot

Dan Vivian, Principal Account Executive at Hubspot, shared the importance of 'smarketing,' a strong sales and marketing relationship, and how Hubspot's software tool can aid in improving that relationship. Dan shared a live demonstration of the Hubspot software with attendees and showed them a few of the best tools manufacturing companies should be using to grow their businesses.

Incept

Sam Falletta, CEO of Incept, hosted two different sessions - a panel discussion in Cleveland and a workshop in Pittsburgh. Both sessions were geared towards helping manufacturers determine where they are on the outbound to inbound spectrum and how to make incremental improvements in the sales and marketing on that spectrum.  

Panelists from several local manufacturing companies joined Sam on stage in Cleveland and had a lot of great personal anecdotes to share. Panelists included:

• Jack Moore, President/CEO of West Roofing Systems, Inc.
• Allison Grealis, Vice President Membership & Association Services of Precision Metalforming Association
• Tony Mazzella, CEO of Mazzella Companies

Google

Richard Rondon, Account Development Manager, and PJ Vilsaint, Account Strategist at Google, shared some of the coolest Google tools that can help manufacturers engage their target audience. From micro-moments to Youtube, and changing search trends to GDN, there are so many ways that manufacturers can be using these digital tools to grow their business.

While every company struggles with developing and implementing a successful marketing strategy, it can be especially hard for manufacturers, and we heard a lot of that over the two days in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. We hope that this group of resources (session speakers and attendees) will help improve the overall growth of manufacturing businesses in the rust belt.

Want to stay in the loop and get updates for upcoming Marketing for Manufacturer events? Stay connected with us at https://www.marketingformanufacturers.us/. 

Why A Variable Cost Monthly Subscription Makes The Most Sense For Your Lead Generation Partner

Are you among the dozens of companies that have been burned by pay-per-lead lead generation companies?  Here are a few reasons to consider asking your next inside sales partner for a fractional subscription based inside sales representative: 

Higher quality leads 

Fractional inside sales representatives are generally compensated to some degree or another based on client retention. What this means for you is that they ultimately are responsible for making sure you are thrilled with the quality of leads being sent over. Unlike most lead-generation firms, a fractional inside sales representative is more concerned about meeting your business growth objectives, not just your monthly maximum budget. 

Since they want you to be thrilled, the sales rep ends up sending over only the highest quality leads, and doesn't send over garbage for the sake of billing for an extra lead. Higher quality leads mean higher revenue opportunity for you. 

Direct access 

You have direct access to your fractional inside sales representative. No need to go through an account manager, to a call center supervisor, to the lead-gen team; you can call or email your sales rep directly, as often as needed, in order to follow-up on lead status, make course corrections, script adjustments, or just to say "Hello!" 

Fractional monthly flexibility 

One of the reasons pay-per-lead doesn't work is that you often end up with more leads than your sales team can manage, coupled with the fact that they're not as high of quality as you'd prefer, which means they take more time and energy to close. 

With a fractional inside sales representative, you have the flexibility to adjust your monthly dedicated time to match your current business needs. If you and your team are swamped nurturing, closing, and support last month's leads, you can back you 1/2 FTE fractional sales rep down to a 1/4 FTE for a month until those new customers stabilize.  

No overhead 

Another pitfall of pay-per-lead pricing is that it usually culminates with firing the lead generation partner and hiring internally anyway, meaning you spent money on bad leads, and still ended up having to invest in the overhead of hiring. 

With a fractional inside sales representative, you get all the advantages of having a great employee without having to cover any benefits, equipment costs, or payroll. The overhead and management costs add up pretty quickly with an internal hire, but with a fractional sales rep, you know exactly what your monthly cost will be. You get predictability without having to sacrifice quality or lower your standards. 

Should You Outsource Lead Generation Or Do It Internally?

Before making the decision to completely outsource your lead generation or to hire an inside sales representative internally, consider a mixed approach - something we like to call co-sourcing.

Co-sourcing is a partner approach to lead generation that provides the cost savings and flexibility that come from outsourcing while integrating with your in-house staff to guarantee every prospect is supported according to your brand and values.

There are absolutely high-impact responsibilities that should only be handled by your most trusted experts internally: 

• Price-quoting 

• Contract-writing 

• New customer on-boarding 

But there are also low-risk responsibilities that you should consider sending out to a trusted partner: 

• List building 

• Prospecting phone calls 

• Inbound lead qualification 

• Appointment setting 

• Social media 

Trying to hire an inside sales representative comes with a lot of hard and soft costs. Finding a trusted co-sourced partner is the 21st-century way to keep your heavy-hitters in play and maximize their efficiency without incurring a ton of additional overhead.

Manufacturing Sales & Marketing Summit

We're headed to Milwaukee this week for the Manufacturing Sales & Marketing Summit! The Precision Metalforming Association (PMA) is hosting a conference dedicated to sales and marketing for manufacturers in order to help their organizations grow.  This popular event attracts more than 100 sales and marketing leaders each year. 

The PMA is promising that attendees will:

• Gain insight on how to increase sales and grow your business.
• Learn from top-notch speakers on hot topics related to sales and marketing.
• Discuss solutions that will help you to overcome your toughest sales and marketing obstacles.
• Stay up-to-date with the latest developments in your field.
• Network with your industry peers to share best practices.
• Feel inspired.

Will you be attending this event? We'd love to get together and chat about your growth goals for 2018! You can find us on the conference floor at the Incept booth.

How Much Does It Cost To Hire An Inside Sales Representative?

Time to hire again? Last inside sales guy didn't work out? Before you tell HR to go find you another inside sales rep, let's take a look at the costs you'll actually incur. 

Assuming that you're looking for an inside sales rep who will follow-up on all inbound leads, and place outbound phone calls every day in order to generate leads for your business, let's say the sales rep you hire will make $40,000/year + commission.

Hiring Costs 

• Posting the job = $50-$500 

• Reviewing and screening applications - 10 hours of labor = $200  

• Phone interviews + scheduling interviews - 10 hours of labor = $200 

• Conducting interviews - 10 hours of labor = $200 

• Job offer, paperwork, orientation - 6 hours of labor (3 for HR, 3 for new hire) = $120 

Training Costs 

• One week of training (no production) = $800 

• One week of lost production from trainer = $800+ 

Overhead 

• Healthcare = $7,500 

• Other benefits = $3,500 

• Equipment costs = $500-$1000 

Conservative total without commission: $53,870

That's just math; don't forget about the management aspects that are harder to quantify: 

• Time invested in management/support = ??? 

• Energy spent = ??? 

• Opportunity cost = ??? 

All these time and resources get invested into a sales rep that may or may not work out. 

What if they don't work out? 

How long do you continue to invest before you sever the relationship? 6 months? A year?  

After that, what happens? You're back to the beginning, starting over with the HR costs and spending energy looking for yet another sales rep. 

What if they exceed all of your expectations? 

Hiring a phone-based inside sales rep may work out really well. If you find that diamond in the rough, they'll set you up for some good sales opportunities. But eventually they'll get wise and either want to get bigger at-bats with higher pay-out potential, or they'll start seeking new opportunities. So you end up promoting them to a customer-facing sales role, or you lose them to someone who will. 

Now what? You're once again back at the beginning, starting over, trying to staff that phone-based role once again. 

Before you make the decision to hire an inside sales rep, consider the benefits of co-sourcing your sales process.