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Tim’s Take on the Industry

From time to time…

After 43 years in the agency business, always as a copywriter, I’ve seen many “evolutions” in the agency business.  I started in a world of print, when direct mail was the sizzle product and bingo cards were the “proof of performance” metric…a word we never used, as we said yardstick.  Funny.  New ads and PR took 30-45 days to appear, now we have our PR online in 30 minutes or less.

Today, the emergence of the internet and social media have radically altered the face of industrial marcom, which remains a lap behind the consumer world, but not because our business lacks the talent or foresight to implement the changes in technology.

Rather, the fundamental driver in our business…and yours, as captains of industry…is one that hasn’t changed a bit, over time.  It’s the fact that all 33 of our clients sell to only a small slice of the viewing public.  We have several clients with less than 1000 prospects in all North America, including one who sells tiremaking machinery.  Talk about a limited head count.  At the opposite end, we have a client who sells every market you can name with a piece of discretionary capital equipment, as I call it.  Requires a very different approach.

It is precisely this scenario which makes us evaluate all marcom tactics today…print, direct mail, blast email, trade shows, podcasts, webinars, blogs, social media, retargeting and more…in ways our consumer brethren do not and should not.

The tactics we use for each client vary, sometimes radically, but always for the same reason.  It is the nature, size and scope of the client’s audience, not the size of their budget or the personal inclinations of management that determines the best course of action in industrial marketing.

Here’s my offer…one hour of your time to discuss where your market is, how you address it currently and how we might be able to help bring a few more guns to the battle.  We can do this because we’re exactly what we’ve always been, namely, a full-service, strictly industrial marcom agency that lives in YOUR world, every day.  We use every tactic available to impact our clients’ target markets and we validate our work with proof of performance, using various tools.  To be honest, high tech has yet to match that old bingo card, which required a reader to spend several minutes completing the information and returning it to the publication for forwarding to the advertiser.  Yes, it took 30 days for a catalog to reach that interested party, whereas today’s engineer wants the information in 30 seconds or less and can get it, IF the proper mechanisms of delivery and the critical back-end follow-up as well as the tracking are in place.  Are yours?  We can help, as we’ve done since 1976.  Give me a call at 847-934-4500.

Smart marketing…it’s not a cost, it’s an investment.

Thanks for reading,
Tim Daro
President