Like many other manufacturing industries in the US, the down economy had a significant impact on the agriculture sector, particularly the farm supply market. Queen Wood Products was one of many manufacturers who needed to expand its reach and vamp up its overall sales. The Allendale, SC-based equestrian and poultry farm wood shavings provider needed a fresh idea, updated marketing messaging, and a new sales strategy. With 10 employees on the books and a potential sharp decline in sales and profit looming, Queen turned to the SMI for sales assistance.
SMI assists manufacturers by providing strategies and solutions to strengthen leadership, sales force effectiveness, and growth. With SMI’s help, Queen was able to retain all 10 employees, hire a new sales representative, and increase its peak season sales by over 10%. “SMI has helped us tremendously. Our sales continue to grow, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome of the sales project,” says Queen Wood owner Michael Mathis.
Founded over 10 years ago, Queen Wood Products has been the premier source of affordable wood shavings used as horse and poultry bedding around the Southeastern United States. Skip Queen, well-renowned cutting horse rider and founder of Queen Wood Products, researched and developed Queen’s line of wood shavings based on his experience of the demands of cutting horse riders, breeders, and ranchers. Only the finest wood is used to make the three distinct products offered, all of which significantly reduce stable odor and last longer than any other similar product on the market. Queen Wood’s products are sold in feed stores, sold in bulk to ranches and equestrian event locations, and sold direct to consumers. The product line covers budget, comfort, and durability and is fit for all horse and poultry bedding needs.
The challenge faced by Queen Wood was not a unique one: awareness and sales needed to be increased at a noticeable rate. Queen Wood needed to tighten its marketing messages including identifying and projecting the overt benefit, dramatic difference, and real reason to believe in Queen Wood Products across its brand and all marketing efforts. The company needed an online presence including a functioning website that was conducive to lead generation, product knowledge, and search engine optimization to ensure that searchers could find Queen Wood quickly and easily and also determine that the product line was a fit.
SMI helped Queen Wood identify and define its brand, its target market, and effective marketing messages by working with the staff and owner Mike Mathis during several brainstorming and targeted information gathering sessions. Next, SMI helped Queen Wood determine the most useful online strategy including building a user friendly website optimized for search effectiveness.
A sales process was introduced and implemented to organize and manage the lead generation produced by the online efforts. Incoming leads from the website, from online sales promotions, and from pay per click advertising campaigns were effectively managed for maximum sales.
By utilizing SMI’s sales and operations expertise, Queen Wood Products continues to use the sales process and online strategy implemented by SMI and continues to see sales increases across the board. Queen Wood has picked up several large clients and referrals since the launch of the new website. “Thanks to SMI’s assistance, we have gained new clients and continue to receive leads from our website. SMI really helped us expand our business,” says Mike Mathis.
To learn more about Queen Wood Products, visit their website at www.queenwoodproducts.com. To learn more about how SMI can help your business generate more website traffic and sales, contact us today!
As a technology-driven company, UEC Electronics was keenly aware that its marketing campaigns should incorporate online strategies aimed at driving traffic to its website. Having parlayed its reputation for innovative engineering and quality manufacturing into lucrative work with clients in the government, entrepreneur and commercial fields, UEC gained selection to the impressive Raytheon Mentor-Protégé Program, where the company received guidance, coaching and funding to remain competitive on a global scale.
Such support allowed UEC to take advantage of the marketing expertise offered by SMI, who fully outfitted its website and launched a promotional campaign in just four weeks, increasing monthly website traffic by a whopping 300 percent. SMI helped identify target audiences, fine tune the marketing messages, and assess the needs of existing
and prospective customers. Methodology focused on associating powerful marketing
messages with imagery to best convey UEC’s capabilities and advantages over its competitors. The new website design increased organic search rankings, and the new marketing messages continue to produce web inquiries (conversions).
To learn more about UEC Electronics, visit their website at http://www.uec-electronics.com/. To learn more about how SMI can help your business generate more website traffic and sales, contact us today.
Lifeguard Fire Protection needed help adapting to the uncertain market conditions derived from the economic downfalls of late. SMI’s solution: a new strategic marketing plan with a good online strategy to best position its organization in 2011. SMI lead the Lifeguard ownership team through a market development process and the conception the 2011 marketing plan. SMI unearthed several new ideas for promotional messages tailored to help the company increase market penetration and expand its line of services and products, most importantly finding a way to differentiate its product offering from the competition.
Implementation centered on the launch of an online campaign that included a sleek, new website, search engine optimization (SEO) and the industry’s only customer access
area where customers can view account statements and set service reminders. Now, the new website ranks as the first entry in Google-optimized searches for several target
keyword phrases. Lifeguard’s Facebook and Linked-In pages also rank at the top of Google’s results. Several leads have arrived because of the website and implementation of new conversion tactics. Lifeguard is able to bid on more new projects and bank on
new customers in several new markets, including Charleston, SC. Most remarkably, the 2011 target sales are expected to increase by 73%.
To learn more about Lifeguard Fire Protection Systems, visit their website at http://www.lifeguardsc.com/. To learn more about how SMI can help your company increase sales through online leads, contact us today.
With the downturn in the automotive industry, Columbia Tool & Die’s customer base was shrinking rapidly, and the company was close to laying off several employees. SMI helped Columbia Tool and Die grow its customer base, develop new industries, increase monthly sales from $30,000 to $100,000 and save jobs.
SMI helped to recruit, hire, and train a new sales manager, acquired leads and set-up a lead and customer relationship management (CRM) software. To further optimize its business performance, SMI set about creating new marketing messages and promotion for Columbia Tool & Die through a website overhaul and high-definition video production. SMI also performed industry research to identify and pursue new target customers and provided new, crafted presentations for target customers. Website traffic quickly climbed through search marketing campaigns, such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising, and social media.
To learn more about Columbia Tool & Die and to view their HD video, visit their website at http://www.columbiatoolanddie.com/. To learn more about how SMI can help your business expand into new markets, hire and train new sales staff, and acquire leads via online strategies, contact us.
