The US construction industry remains a highly competitive market, creating challenges for competing firms to differentiate themselves. Meanwhile, many of these companies don’t have the internal capacity to learn modern marketing well because of understaffing, lack of knowledge, and complex marketing jargon. On the bright side, over the past year, &Marketing has been able to support the acceleration of a rapidly growing construction firm through a combination of marketing strategy & execution by overcoming these challenges.

Business Challenge Summary

&Marketing’s client partner is a manufacturer that supplies capital equipment to the US construction industry. The client had seen swift growth in the past two years based on the internal team’s industry experience and network, but was concerned about plateauing. The organization wanted to ensure they were standing out in a sea of competitors to continue this growth at a steady pace, so they turned to &Marketing for help with an outsourced solution.

&Marketing’s Solution

&Marketing started work by developing a fundamental understanding of the complexities during the purchasing process in the construction industry. The & team interviewed client team members to gather a greater understanding of ins and outs of the construction business and followed it with a structured market study of current and potential decision-makers (procurement, construction managers, company leadership). &Marketing mapped each decision maker, their selection and purchase criteria (beyond competitive price), and where each gathered information about new products, services, and vendors. Based on this, &Marketing developed a playbook which linked their strategy to a set of execution tactics and aligned the internal leadership team to it.

The &Marketing team focused initial activation efforts on the firm’s website by updating the company’s basic information, adding a dedicated section to display completed projects, recent company events, and employee profiles. This information provided the foundation for a content strategy (including a cohesive executional calendar) to keep the website content fresh. A social media plan (including scheduling software and a campaign to improve internal LinkedIn profiles) distributed this content to reach these key B2B decision makers. Concurrently, &Marketing analyzed data on each post to determine the most effective content pieces.

Finally, &Marketing implemented a Google PPC (pay-per-click) campaign centered around the client’s core services. The campaign focused on generating website leads from individuals searching the web to find similar services.

Results

The client partner’s outsourced digital marketing execution team was able to quickly and affordably complete these marketing tasks, which generated an average of 5+ leads per month, all trackable through website activity. As a result, the client’s website traffic more than tripled, the website bounce rate was less than half, and search volume increased on all major search engines: Google, Yahoo, and Bing. For a firm that didn’t have an existing marketing department, &Marketing’s outsourced solution helped them build a solid case for continued effort and future investment.

About &Marketing:

&Marketing provides the robust outsourced marketing department growing companies need without the high overhead costs of big agencies or full-time employees. Our variable model empowers businesses to reach their growth goals through access to the guidance and expertise of senior level strategists and a flexible execution team.

Business Challenge Summary

Our client is an engineering consultancy with a vast portfolio of services that range from temporary contractor placement and recruitment to process implementation and one-off engineering projects.

A manager and coordinator comprised the existing marketing team prior to the engagement of &Marketing. They were experienced in public relations and content generation; however, the growing company needed help with other areas of marketing including strategy, productization, web development, marketing automation, graphic design, social media, and analytics.

When the marketing manager resigned unexpectedly, their increasing marketing needs were beyond what one person could reasonably provide, so they turned to &Marketing.

&Marketing’s Solution

&Marketing brought in a team of professionals coordinated by a single point of contact. We took on several roles for this client:

• Senior level strategy advice
• Product marketing
• Web development
• Marketing automation
• PR support
• Trade show and event planning
• Marketing and sales collateral
• Regular weekly and monthly reporting
• Graphic design
• Content development (such as blogs and news articles)
• Email marketing and drip campaigns

Most importantly, the existing marketing coordinator was integrated into the &Marketing team throughout our relationship. We provided her with the resources and support she needed to elevate her efforts and achieve their marketing goals.

About &Marketing:

&Marketing provides the robust outsourced marketing department growing companies need without the high overhead costs of big agencies or full-time employees. Our variable model empowers businesses to reach their growth goals through access to the guidance and expertise of senior level strategists and a flexible execution team.

Business Challenge Summary

Joe’s Next Door (https://joesnextdoor.com/) is a gourmet sandwich restaurant located in downtown Carmel, IN. Their delicious, award-winning sandwiches drew the crowds in but they were losing business due to the delay in prep time, which turned off midday patrons who need to grab lunch in a hurry. To overcome this issue of speed, they needed an easy system for customers to order ahead online so they can “pick-up and go.” They turned to &Marketing to help design their eCommerce site and integrate it with their kitchen to create a seamless lunchtime experience for both the hardworking staff and their hungry customers.

eCommerce Site Development

&Marketing designed, developed, and launched a custom eCommerce extension to Joe’s Next Door. With WordPress and WooCommerce, we were able to deliver an online store that functioned fully on both desktop and mobile devices with a simple two-step order and checkout process.

Backend/Kitchen Integration

To make sure that Joe’s ordering system integrated cohesively with their current business process, &Marketing also developed a custom backend system to coordinate with the kitchen crew. The backend system runs on a mounted iPad that notifies the crew of orders, prints out the orders for the line cook, and allows the crew to contact the customer via text message once their order is ready to pick-up. The program also allows the kitchen to open and close the ordering system on a timer that coincides with store hours.

Results

Although this system was only recently implemented, early orders have indicated an improvement in synchronization and accuracy, and there have been no technical issues between the ordering, communication with the kitchen, and financial systems. Joe’s Next Door is beginning the new year with confidence, and the management team is anticipating a 20% boost in lunchtime revenue order volume in 2019.

About &Marketing:

&Marketing provides the robust outsourced marketing department growing companies need without the high overhead costs of big agencies or full-time employees. Our variable model empowers businesses to reach their growth goals through access to the guidance and expertise of senior level strategists and a flexible execution team.

Business Challenge Summary

With digital retail markets becoming increasingly prevalent, bad actors in these online spaces are rising in number. Many organizations don’t realize their products are being resold through online markets like Amazon, or that their brands are being associated with knock-off items and sold without their consent. Even those who do recognize this issue often struggle with effective retaliation.

&Marketing’s client partner, Gray Falkon (www.grayfalkon.com) is an expert in combating these third-party sellers and has a mission to share their expertise with companies that would most benefit from learning about gray market anti-counterfeiting best practices. Gray Falkon’s approach helps brands of all sizes reduce unauthorized resellers on platforms like Amazon by as much as 50% in just a couple of weeks. They focus on targeting gray market products and unauthorized third-party sellers.

Gray Falkon needed to build awareness to drive awareness and leads, so they turned to &Marketing to assist with the creation and distribution of new branded content to get their services known by the decision makers who matter.

What We Did:

The &Marketing team worked with Gray Falkon to create an inside sales program that would build brand awareness and sales opportunities, based on a five-step action plan:

• Create a digital counterfeiting-focused eBook, centered around actual industry best practices for preventing gray market activity.
• Plan an inside sales program to market Gray Falkon directly to 1000 target prospects (decision makers in brand marketing, e-commerce sales, and legal departments) by using the eBook as a free initial offering. This program consisted of a mix of phone calls and emails over a 2-3 week period preceding Thanksgiving, a crucial time for brand owners on Amazon given the proximity to the holiday season.
• Conduct an outreach initiative to potential Gray Falkon clients, aiming to create consultation opportunities and additional sales leads.
• Accumulate data and provide regular reports on lead development and sales program progress.

About &Marketing:

&Marketing provides the robust outsourced marketing department growing companies need without the high overhead costs of big agencies or full-time employees. Our variable model empowers businesses to reach their growth goals through access to the guidance and expertise of senior level strategists and a flexible execution team.