Winning with an Integrated Marketing Approach

We’re so proud of CBD Marketing’s Public Relations (PR) & Social Media team for winning a Tower Award from the Business Marketing Association. Tower Awards are all about getting quantifiable results—the positive ROI we strive for. The client for whom we did the work – International Food Network – is a new product development firm with global CPG food and beverage company customers.

I mention this “win” only because the year-long initiative is a classic case study in leveraging high-level, “thought leadership” content across every appropriate channel to maximize its impact and the company’s investment. In other words, it’s a great example of taking an integrated approach.

Here’s what we set out to do, what worked and how you can use these same techniques to win for your company. Perhaps you’ll recognize some of your challenges in this story.

The situation: When we started working with this client, they were definitely an “under the radar” organization in terms of broadly-based recognition of their capabilities and strengths. Yes, they had great clients and some great relationships at select organizations. But from an industry standpoint, they needed to amp up their visibility with three main audiences: senior-level R&D leadership at larger food and beverage companies, brand management at the same companies and other consultancies and service providers who might act as intermediaries and recommenders. This organization has great “assets” and intellectual property—top-level scientists and a unique organizational approach.

Our objectives: We wanted to leverage those terrific assets to position the firm as a premier organization in their category and use multiple channels to tell their story—the integrated approach. We knew this would raise their awareness with our targeted audiences. Ideally, we wanted prospects to engage with them directly—i.e. become a sales lead.

What worked: First, we did a little bit of brand identity magic and gave them a design look that reflected the innate creativity of their work and played out in new materials and trade booth graphics. The bright, new branding was a huge hit—internally and for all of our external communications work.

We also had enthusiastic cooperation from this company’s R&D team, who authored technical articles and made themselves available as subject matter experts to a wide variety of food science and nutritionals media. Many articles, including cover stories, resulted. That content was also used for webinars and speeches and presentations. It also drove a new, quarterly e-newsletter that was linked to these articles, stories and presentations, further cementing a leadership position. Lastly, social media platforms were set up to begin engaging with clients and prospects who were beginning to use that channel.

The results: In just one year, scores of media placements resulted, including many bylined articles and a couple of cover stories in their top media. The newspaper in their HQ city featured the company in a large article about their work. Their representatives had speaking engagements at prestigious industry conferences. Their newsletter had a 32 percent open rate its first issue out of the box—an outstanding result. Social media platforms gave them the opportunity to engage in conversation in a channel. In total, over a half million media impressions resulted directly to their target audiences. All this with no paid advertising.

Every company can be a winning thought leader because every company has great people doing unique and important work. Look around, take stock and identify how you can tell your story to the people who can influence your business success using an integrated approach in multiple communications channels.