B2B Case Study
Phase 1 Technology: Content Marketing Strategy

Phase 1 Technology Uses Content Marketing to Position for Future Market Growth

Amplify Helps Develop a Content Marketing Strategy to Capitalize on the Expected Growth of the Vision Integration Market

Phase 1 Technology (P1T) has been a client of Amplify since 1996. They are now a leading distributor of vision and machine vision components in North America and, recently, they identified an emerging market they knew was important to break into early in its development. Together, we sat down to determine a digital-first strategy that would generate the right leads, position them as a valuable distributor in this vertical, and differentiate our client from their competition.

Challenges

There was no roadmap for breaking into the emerging market of vision integrators. As small companies with huge growth potential, it was difficult to determine which of their many competing interests were most important to them. Typically, distribution was an afterthought too – it wasn’t seen as a way to provide more value to their customers. Essentially, the problem came down to understanding how to reach, educate and motivate vision integrators to use our client as their distributor.

Solutions

We sat down with leadership from our long-time client’s sales, marketing and executive teams to develop vision integrator buyer personas. These personas were detailed models of ideal buyers based on historical data and internal surveys. The development of buyer personas uncovered two things: first, that there were actually multiple submarkets that our client was trying to break into, and second, these submarkets had unique, identifiable needs that could be leveraged in content marketing initiatives.

Based on the intelligence gathered through buyer persona development, custom content for a new website section, including gated downloadable content, was developed to illustrate how our client alleviates pain points in the various submarkets. This multi-channel content was created to educate integrators on the value of extensive product knowledge and top-notch supply chain support from a distributor. The content also aimed to motivate them to take the next steps to realize these benefits.

Marketing automation was integrated with content for lead capture, which enabled ongoing engagement to move potential buyers through the marketing and sales funnel. Further, the integration of marketing automation platforms added behavioral site tracking to inform future decisions. With detailed analytics, we could work together to constantly optimize content across all channels for quality lead generation.

Results

Our client received a new website section, downloadable content, and other content across multiple channels that effectively blazed a trail for their entrance into the vision integrator market. All content, informed by buyer persona development, demonstrated their deep understanding of the expectations integrators face on a daily basis and how distribution services can ease those burdens in each submarket.

By demonstrating their industry knowledge and commitment to serving these specific submarkets, our client was effectively positioned as the most valuable distributor for integrators, and in this way differentiated themselves from their competition.

New content fast-tracked quality lead generation – and continues to do so on an ongoing basis – while detailed behavioral metrics were leveraged to optimize content for higher rates of lead generation.

P1T has been able to capture quality leads while the vision integrator market, in all its submarkets, is still young, with the goal of growing this part of their business in step with the expected growth of vision integration services.