We are mainly an engineering company, full of left-brained technical types. Even our sales team has more than a few engineering grads. Not marketing folks. So, figuring out how to market ourselves without being obnoxious and filling your voicemail and email with SPAM is a tricky balance. Particularly these days when marketing is all digital and using social media.
Compounding these challenges is the fact that we are a solutions-based company. We do not focus on products, but rather customer problems and the best solutions to solve them. Sure, we have our go-to products that we use routinely to help customers, but that is just the beginning. The software, configuration, integration, and customization needed to get these products to work in your environment is the magic to what we do. It is easier to market products than solutions, so how do we best convey our abilities to solve your problems?
Our website, and this newsletter are the legacy answers. Just a platform for you to come and see what we are all about. Focused mainly on solutions to your needs and occasionally a product, if it is an exceptional one. But more and more, we are starting to use LinkedIn and various marketing platforms. The marketing platforms get us in front of you. The LinkedIn builds your trust and brand awareness, so if you’ve seen more LinkedIn activity recently you know why. It’s trying to build our audience, so when you need us, you think about us.
Another way we are trying to get the word out is with YouTube. What a great way to show you some of the work that we are doing for other customers. Also, what a great way to showcase some of the incredible people that we have here, and their depth of knowledge. The trouble is, we must stop working on these projects for a while to document them. When there is a tight deadline, like there frequently is, taking this time can be a challenge. But we are trying to get more video content on our website, and in our newsletters, so that is helping to drive new habits, like pictures and videos.
We can’t overlook the original way that we market ourselves, and that is through our vendor partners like Zebra, BarTender and others. We receive hundreds of leads a year from these sources. They occur when you reach out to the manufacturer directly, looking for a partner to help you with your automation projects. The vendor partner then puts you in good hands, with a local partner like EMP.
But we prefer to control our own destiny, and have you find us through our marketing efforts. Rather than hope that our vendor partners have the good sense to send you our way, and not to our competitors. To see more of our marketing in action, check us out below:
