Trelleborg Marine Systems, by IAS B2B Marketing

Summary

Trelleborg Marine Systems is the world’s leading manufacturer of fender systems, docking and mooring systems and marine protection structures for ports, harbours and civil engineering infrastructure projects.

Trelleborg needed to raise awareness and generate sales leads for their range of pneumatic fenders. It was a product that had been in their portfolio for a while but sales were sluggish.  It was strategically important to generate orders for a newly opened factory in China and new orders we needed fast.

A fully integrated email campaign strategy was developed to:

• Raise awareness and position the range of pneumatic fenders

• Reach new potential prospects and generate project opportunities

• Provide a relevant, creative and engaging experience

• Develop a clearly segmented and compelling message

• Provide a trackable and measurable programme integrated with the sales force

The email campaign was delivered to nearly 10,000 individuals, opened by 40 per cent of the recipients and generated an incredible eight per cent (768 people) click through rate to the landing zone. Of these 80 per cent were new prospects who had never done business with Trelleborg. Through sales nurturing activity and follow-up, 10 per cent of all leads were identified as project opportunities. In addition, real sales of over $500k have been generated.

The client company

 Trelleborg Marine Systems is the world’s leading manufacturer of fenders and docking and mooring systems for large commercial ports and harbours. Their products are used globally, ensuring safe berthing for vessels, crews and cargo.

Strategy

Trelleborg had grown through acquisition before undergoing integration of products, technical services, production and employees across five global regions. As a result of this re-structuring they opened a factory in China and developed a new range of pneumatic fenders.

Trelleborg needed to raise awareness and generate sales leads for their range of pneumatic fenders. It was a product that had been in their portfolio for a while but sales were sluggish. It was strategically important to generate orders for a newly opened factory in China and for the factory to ramp up production to achieve economies of scale.

Objectives

As a result, a number of objectives were developed to address the difficult position the company found itself in:

• Raise awareness and position of the range of pneumatic fenders

• Reach new potential prospects and generate project opportunities

• Provide a relevant, creative and engaging experience

• Develop a clearly segmented and compelling message

• Provide a trackable and measurable programme integrated with the sales force

A sales of target of 40 fender units in three months was set.

The Target Audience

• Trelleborg senior management and employees

• Port owners and operators

• Oil terminal operators (on/off shore)

• Engineering consultants and contractors

Research highlighted a number of underlying issues/wants and needs of the target audience. These included product quality and durability, maintenance costs and unforeseen downtime, technical design, engineering support, supply chain issues, health and safety.

Media, Channels, techniques

IAS developed a segmented email campaign with integrated landing zones that would target port operators, engineering consultants and contractors. A product brochure was produced but also a ‘Guide To Fenders’ was developed as IAS knew that offering ‘value-added’ collateral would generate significantly more responses. IAS developed a new and unique digital communications platform. This technology recognised if initial emails had been opened, and if not it sent it again a week later. If the user had opened but not clicked through, it would send another email two-three days later. If the user had clicked through, a ‘thank you’ e-mail was automatically sent with relevant sales contact details by geographic region. The whole process allowed a highly targeted follow-up to take place, with each email helping to convert prospects to customers.

All responses were emailed daily to the sales force. A follow-up process was set up with the sales force to ensure a consistent and integrated approach took place to maximise the opportunities generated. This included webex and face-to-face presentations and provision of technical data to assist the specification.

Timescale

January – March 2011

Results

The email campaign was delivered to nearly 10,000 individuals, opened by 40 per cent of the recipients and generated an incredible eight per cent (768 people) click through rate to the landing zone, of these 80 per cent were new prospects who had never done business with Trelleborg. Through sales activity follow-up, 10 per cent of all leads were identified as project opportunities.

Sales in the three months after the campaign were 50 units equating to $500k sales value and a happy factory manager in China

Client Testimonial:

“Our challenge was to create awareness of and positioning of our pneumatic fenders range and generate real business opportunities for the sales force to convert to quick sales. The campaign generated some significant opportunities worth over $500k as a direct result of the campaign.”

Richard Hepworth, managing director Trelleborg Marine Systems

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