In 2011, Roger Peck, Director of Sales & Marketing at Ferriot, Inc., (Akron, OH), was looking at declining sales in the firm’s core business. Ferriot, a custom injection molder, had successfully entered into a joint venture with a new customer in a new market – but, as that business was growing, its traditional business was continuing to decline.

Many of Ferriot’s current accounts have aging product lines and the company needed to focus its marketing efforts to win profitable new core business. There was a need for market intelligence that would then be used to build an updated image to attract new customers.

Marketing Research — Project 1

Through the assistance of GLTAAC, Ferriot was able to develop the specifications to quote, award, and execute a Market Research Project that was an important building block in developing future direction for its core business. This project was key to defining how existing customers saw Ferriot and where they looked to develop new suppliers. The project also identified a large group of companies in target markets within Ferriot’s primary geographical business area.

The 8-month long marketing research project was completed in July 2012. The results were so compelling and far-reaching that Roger asked the marketing research firm to present its findings in person to Ferriot’s Board of Directors.

Web Development — Project 2

Armed with market information to guide the website effort, Ferriot now needed the right website development company. Roger creatively adapted GLTAAC’s bidding process to pare down the field of prospective web developers, in two stages, from 16 to the best 3 final bidders. The final selection was made with a firm that Ferriot felt had the most experience working with industrial B2B clients and had the best writers to provide the needed content copy. Further, Ferriot was impressed with their reference websites, which were requested in the bidding process.

Building the new website was another critical building block in Ferriot’s overall marketing strategy. The customer and market intelligence gathered in the Market Research Project was all necessary for the Website Development Project. The detailed information guided Ferriot through the design and content that went into the new website. Knowing how their customers saw them was instrumental in defining how Ferriot needed to adjust their image to accurately portray their company in the future.

The new website was up and running on schedule in August 2013. Web traffic has increased dramatically since the site launched. Ferriot is now in a position to press forward with additional marketing efforts knowing that any potential customer visiting their website has better information to evaluate.Looking back at the projects and the GLTAAC process, Roger Peck states that: “The real benefit of working with GLTAAC is several fold. First, you will move forward with some needed projects to support your business’s future. Having a professional bench to facilitate you addressing your needs instead of thinking about them some more is very big. They will help you ensure forward movement. Second, GLTAAC is there to support business improvement. Where else can you get this type of support to drive your company forward without paying for a consultant? Ferriot has been able to accomplish some important building blocks for its future growth with the benefit of GLTAAC guidance, which clearly streamlined our efforts in moving forward as a company.”

 

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