A case study of Brand Lenox

1. SEPTEMBER 2019
CASE STUDY
B2B Marketing: Content strategy
results in 50% of qualified leads
being inbound
Prepared by: AYLIN GLOBAL LLP
www.aylinglobal.in
OF BRAND LENOX

2. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
SUMMARY:
MATTHEW LACROIX, DIRECTOR OF BRAND
MARKETING, NEWELL RUBBERMAID (LENOX)
"Without good content, you
don't get anybody in the
hopper."
The LENOX team faced a challenge many B2B's
have — too much of Sales' time was being spent
finding and chasing leads. To remedy the
situation, the marketing team launched a
content-fueled strategy that allowed Marketing
to track the effectiveness of its content.
Learn how this effort increased Marketing's
contribution to the Sales' pipeline and resulted in
50% of qualified leads being traced to inbound.
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3. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
LENOX, a division of Newell
Rubbermaid, is a B2B that
manufactures industrial saw blades,
power tool accessories and hand
tools to companies that have metal
cutting needs.
CUSTOMER:
Founded in 1915 with just 10 employees, LENOX has
grown to employing over 900 people and serves more
than 70 countries. Its parent company, Newell
Rubbermaid, has grown to over $5.7 billion in
revenue.
For this particular campaign, the LENOX team was
targeting metal cutting operations, Matthew Lacroix,
Director of Brand Marketing, Newell Rubbermaid
(LENOX), said. These are businesses that cut metal
for a living."It can be a steel service center, it can be
a forge, it can be a fabricator, it can be a machine
shop, it can be somebody who is actually
manufacturing metal," he explained.Because LENOX
offers many high-end metal cutting options that tend
to be expensive, the typical customer is looking for a
high-powered and long-lasting sawing solution."The
[customers] that make the most sense for us are
those that really care about productivity, and they
want to find ways to optimize their business," Lacroix
said. "So when people want to get better, they want
to increase the productivity, they want to save costs.
For us, that's our ticket in because we have the
largest sales and service network in our industry.".
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4. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
CHALLENGE
Before this campaign, lead generation and
qualification were tasks that fell more on Sales
than Lacroix preferred. The LENOX team wanted
to alleviate this tension, making these two tasks
more of a Marketing effort than a Sales one.
"Ultimately, what we were trying to do was to
take the burden of lead generation and lead
qualification off of our sales force, so effectively
Marketing [is] taking a larger role in demand
generation so that our sales team can go out and
focus on what moves the needle for our
business," Lacroix said."
So we want [salespeople] talking to end users,
running trials and ultimately helping them
achieve their goals, which is going to translate
into business for LENOX," he said.
This shift in lead management would serve two
purposes. First, it would free up the sales team's
time, allowing them to talk to more end users
who are ready for a sales call. Secondly, taking a
more marketing-centric approach would allow
LENOX to track its lead generation and
qualification investments better."We did not have
that tracking in place years ago and the system
has helped us to get our own business to that
next level so now we can start making smarter
strategic choices about where to place our bets,"
he said.
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5. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
CAMPAIGN
To transform its approach to lead generation and qualification, LENOX and
its vendor developed a content marketing campaign, which would allow
Marketing and Sales to connect with customers in new and more personal
ways.This approach served to give the customer a better experience
through the buyer's journey, alleviated the stress of prospecting from
Sales and provided Marketing with insights into what content strategies
worked best.Learn how this content marketing effort lifted Marketing's
contribution to the Sales pipeline from single digits to almost 10% of its
revenue growth.
STEP #1. BUILD OUT SPECIALIZED PERSONAS
Because the LENOX team knew exactly who they wanted to reach through this
campaign, the first thing they had to do was gather information about these
personas.The company gathered this information by asking its targeted customers
specialized questions with the intent of building out a persona for that specific
customer type.
According to Lacroix, these questions focused on:What role these employees had in
their companyWhat their company didHow the company could apply LENOX's
blades"We had to develop a system of questions that would help qualify
[customers] and identify whether or not they're hot or warm leads," Lacroix said.The
system was later designed so that as customers move through it, they accumulated
points on the Marketing side.
After a customer had achieved a certain number of points, they were qualified to
talk to Sales and passed on as a hot lead."So depending on that persona, they'll get
certain content. So we track the leads, track the hot leads and ultimately we track
to the point where we can flip something to our sales team and say, 'Okay. This is
an opportunity for you to go set up a trial,'" he said.
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6. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
STEP #2. DEVELOP CONTENT
After these personas were constructed, the team had a better idea of what
content would be valuable to their target customers. LENOX built several
pieces of content, including:
Case studies
Whitepapers
Benchmark reports
Blog posts
Testimonials
Specifically LENOX's blog, the Industrial Metal Cutting Blog, has been a
great entryway tool for getting customers into the lead generation funnel.
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This blog is updated fairly regularly, and each post covers a pain point or
challenge in the metal cutting and metal-working industry.
www.aylinglobal.in

7. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
Another key piece of content is the site's case studies. Case studies are
located in the LENOX Solutions part of the Resource Center and chronicle
success stories from LENOX's customers. These case studies are designed
to teach potential customers about the benefits of the company's products
by showing another customer's success.
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"You're delivering case studies that are interesting but also help them and
are ultimately going to help [customers] in their business to lower their
costs some way and increase productivity in some way," Lacroix said.
"Once they're in the system, we're trying to work with them to deliver
other relevant content," he said.
www.aylinglobal.in

8. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
STEP #3. DEVELOP THE SITE ON THE BACKEND
After this specialized content was developed, it needed a place to live on
LENOX's site. The Industrial Metal Cutting Resource Center was developed
and placed on LENOX's homepage.
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This easy-to-navigate resource center divides LENOX's content based on
what customers are looking for. At the time of publication, the top of the
page is divided into four categories:
Metal Cutting Operations (includes benchmark surveys and managing
cost)
Improving Performance (includes resources on finding the right blade and
managing the human variable)
LENOX Solutions (includes case studies from LENOX's customers and
whitepapers)
LENOX Blade Trial (includes an option to request a blade test)
www.aylinglobal.in

9. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
This resource center also includes LENOX's blog, which focuses on
specialized topics such as:
Fabricators
Metal service centers
Machine shops
Forges
General metals industry
Having this system of specialized content in place allowed the marketing
team to track prospects as they were moving through the funnel.
Marketing was able to assign prospects scores based on where they were,
allowing them to hand leads to Sales at the right time.This also had the
added bonus of, over time, showing Marketing which pieces of content
were more successful to lead generation and qualification than others.
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10. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
STEP #4. HAND OFF LEADS TO SALES
Determining whether or not a prospect was ready to be handed off to Sales
did not only involve inbound efforts, however. According to Lacroix, there
were several outbound efforts that were also utilized.
"Once you had the system, you had to figure out how you are going to fill
it. How do you fill the hopper with potential leads that can work their way
through the system and consume that content as they worked their way
through?" he said.
"So we've done a mix of inbound and outbound activity to try to fill that
hopper."As a prospect goes through these marketing efforts, they
accumulate points on the Marketing side, which are used to sort out the
hot leads.
"We track the number of engaged leads that we get, and then as they move
through the pieces of the content hopefully they're picking up points and
showing us they're interested.
Eventually, they work their way down to a warm or hot lead," he said.Once
hot leads are identified, those prospects are then moved on to a
salesperson, who can help them find the LENOX solution that best suits
their needs.
"Some of them will even raise their hand and say, 'Okay. I need somebody
to talk to me live,' at which point we'll have a person contact them just to
say, 'Okay. Is all the information you've provided valid? Are you
understanding the material? Do you have any questions? Are you ready for
one of our technical salespeople to talk to you and understand your
operation?'" Lacroix said.
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11. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
STEP #5. CONTINUE CONTENT AND TRACK METRICS
Lacroix emphasized that LENOX's content strategy, and any effective
content strategy requires a constant stream of content. He and his team
are always finding ways to better and refine the company's content to
make it effective as possible."I'd say content is king.
You've heard that before. You have to keep working on content and making
sure that you're delivering important information to [customers]," he said.
The team utilizes a mix of inbound and outbound content, including email
blasts, list rentals, paid advertising, search engine optimization, trade
shows and its blog."We do a mix of that stuff every month regularly to
continue to deliver content to users and try to be a valuable thought
leader," he said.
"That's really going to help them because, as they are devouring this
content, it still doesn't mean that they're ready to start talking shop
yet."The team also takes care to track the effectiveness of all pieces of
content and campaigns when it comes to lead generation and
qualification.
"What we've found it really is an evolving process. We have to go back and
look at the content we're delivering. Is it effective, are people reading it,
are people following it all the way through, downloading it and sharing
it?" he said.
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12. SEPTEMBER 2019CASE STUDY //
RESULT
As a result of this content marketing strategy, LENOX has seen an
improvement in its lead generation and qualification efforts. Through this
campaign, Marketing's contribution to the Sale's pipeline grew from single
digits to nearly 10% of its revenue growth.
The company has also seen that:
29% of LENOX's engaged-state leads are inbound
50% of qualified leads are inbound
LENOX's Industrial Metal Cutting Resource Center and landing page
regularly earned top 1-3 search positions through targeted content
This campaign has allowed the LENOX team to see what was really
working when it came to lead generation. "Not having that answer has
held us back to say maybe we shouldn't be investing here because we
don't know what the returns are going to be," Lacroix said.
"But now that the system is in place, we can start testing some of those
things and rolling out campaigns to try to [determine] whether or not it is
effective for us."He also credits the relationship between LENOX's
Marketing and Sales as a key factor in the strategy's success.
Now, due to Marketing's efforts, the team can confidently pass on a lead
that "is truly a hot lead and somebody that we want to pursue."When asked
what advice he'd give other B2B marketers thinking of implementing a
content marketing strategy, Lacroix focused on the importance of content
quality and growth."You can do as much email blasting as you want or
blogging as you want or advertising, but if you don't have the content to
support it, you're not going to get people consuming it.""Like most things,
you are going to work on it and there's continuous improvement, so I
would say you probably need a solid system that can help you organize the
information and organize the spend and track," he concluded.
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