Premier Sealant Systems Ltd is a nationwide manufacturer of profiled foam fillers and a supplier of core sealing products for the roofing, cladding, glazing, coldstore and maintenance sectors.
The company was established in 1994 and recently undertook a complete brand overhaul under their new brand name Premseal.
Premseal came to Studiowide for a brand strategy and implementation programme. At the same time, we introduced the Premseal team to a strategy-first holistic approach to their marketing. Based on the rebrand’s success, subsequently, we were commissioned to assist the company with its digital transformation programme. We helped the company move from a traditional sales-led organisation to a leading brand, embracing digital marketing strategies across various channels.
The company also wanted to explore the possibility of introducing automated promotional conversational and transactional emails. This was to support the sales teams in their prospecting endeavours whilst also providing a steady stream of new business opportunities – filling up the pipeline ready for the sales personnel to take over.
Before commissioning Studiowide, the company had previously managed all of their marketing in house. The routes to market at the time were mainly via field sales reps and tradeshows. This was a suitable strategy for the company and reflected the sector in which they operated. The company directors felt that the time was now right to look at even more ways to differentiate itself from its competitors.
Challenges
It is a challenge that we see for many businesses, particularly b2b manufacturing organisations. There is a desire to start embracing “new marketing”, but some organisations feel that they do not have the necessary infrastructure to support the hiring of their first dedicated digital marketing person. These companies tend to rely on their field sales team and the strength of their product, plus the goodwill within their current customer base, to maintain market share.
Doing this can be a risky strategy. New competitors are emerging every day. Generation Z employees typically staff these new companies and bring with them a range of innovative ideas and digital know-how that quickly disrupts the market.
We worked with the senior leadership team at Premseal and the newly appointed Managing Director to create the new strategy. Working closely with our clients in this way – knowing that they trust us to help move their organisation forward is extremely rewarding. We view this as a recognition of our expertise.
A common theme with many companies at this stage of their marketing journey is to spread themselves too thinly and try to communicate to the whole market.
Solution
The first stage in any strategy development work before we move into any implementation is to understand the business problems. By diagnosing these quickly, we can provide solutions that address the current gaps within the company. We do this in collaboration with the client via a series of Q&A sessions. The goal is to establish a benchmark that will enable us to use as a platform for success going forward.
The biggest strength in our approach to the marketing diagnostic is our expertise. Having the ability to read between the lines and bring an external perspective to a problem is critical. We support this critical thinking with our established frameworks that allow us to map out a well-trodden path. One that repeatedly delivers successful results.
Premseal is an organisation like many others, where articulating their value proposition is not something that is thought about too often. We guided the team to pinpoint why customers buy from them and what they perceive as valuable.
Understanding your value proposition is extremely important, especially when battling for attention in a crowded space. Once we know the value that customers seek, our job is to communicate this value through multiple channels and numerous touchpoints, reinforcing why customers should buy.
The marketing strategy work that we do here is used to refer back to numerous times in the campaign to ensure that we are hitting the right message to the right people at the right time.
We initially planned our first campaign around the most prominent target market segment and called this persona 1. This was the group that we would target first, to establish the initial automation and processes that would lay the foundation for future targeting of other segments.
A common theme with many companies at this stage of their marketing journey is to spread themselves too thinly and try to communicate to the whole market. In our experience, this is the fastest way to burn through a budget and see minimal results.
Results
We guided Premseal with a strategy of targeted communications and built the systems and processes along the way. Once we had done this and begun to see the success, we then duplicated the same approach across other identified target markets.
Using our expertise and experience, coupled with the product and market knowledge of Premseal, we were able to create a strategic plan of direction and a range of tactical activities required to deliver against the project. As soon as we understood the path that we were going, we set about creating the content and the messaging and all of the other campaign assets.
At this stage, our strategic team work closely with our creative team to provide a seamless service to the client. We are now providing a suite of digital marketing services that they can call upon anytime. All of which are built on the foundations of a solid marketing strategy.
