Score Group plc operates globally in over 30 countries employing over 1700 people. They provide engineering services across five con...
Score Group plc operates globally in over 30 countries employing over 1700 people. They provide engineering services across five continents, within a range of sectors which include oil & gas, nuclear and marine. The Score Group of companies primarily provide services related to valves and industrial gas turbines, however, they also provide a range of specialist services including training, specialist coatings and cell disruptors. Score was founded in 1982 by Charles Buchan Ritchie in Peterhead, North-East Scotland, providing valve repair and supply services for the UK oil & gas industry. Since the 1980’s Score has been expanding internationally and now the group of companies have a turn over of almost £200 Million per annum.
Earlier last month I, Anand Radhakrishnan had the opportunity to chat with Mr.David Anderson, Director-Sales & Marketing of The Score group of companies. While Score group is a leader in the Valve industry, they have truly emerged as early adopters and a role model for other Engineering companies to build a B2B Content marketing strategy as part of their Sales & Marketing efforts. David was kind enough to share his experiences with me as narrated below.
1. Why did you decide on a B2B Content strategy? We chose to participate in B2B Content Marketing because we wanted to connect our products and solutions to a global market of end users who could derive big benefits from deploying our equipment and systems. Our initial problems were that a) we were invisible in the global market to our potential customers and b) our technology products and the value they can add to customers' operations are not easily understood without relatively detailed explanations. The on-line channels available to spread our message were a good way of connecting quickly and easily with large numbers of known target customers without racking up the air miles, telephone bills and time costs, but more importantly it also had the potential to connect us with possible new customers that we did not know even existed and had no contact details for.
2. What were the initial challenges you faced? and how did you overcome the same? The biggest challenge we faced in the beginning was that we had no idea how or what we should be doing to engage with our global audience online. A lot of research into all available systems and channels showed us the most common and valuable on-line places and this included Linked-In. Once we knew where we needed to be visible, we then proceeded to work out how to set up our channel and profiles, engaged in training, and then just got our best marketing people involved in posting our customer orientated high value content. Another challenge we faced in our early days was world time zone management (see “immediacy” point raised in 3 below).
3. How did you go about leveraging social media? The key things for me are reaction time and response. I have found the on-line marketplace to be an “immediate” environment where there is a demand for rapid feedback, whether it be an answer to a challenging question or a formal quotation for our products or services. I have also noted that the quality of response is important. The transfer or exchange of valuable knowledge is a clear differentiator in our marketplace. My experience is that if you have knowledge, you can very quickly build an attentive audience. Converting on-line interest in products and services into tangible orders remains the key target, but it is also a considerable challenge in a market that is really only just waking up to this potential.
4. What were the end results? As you will have seen from our on-line presence, we now have a reasonable footprint that is continuously evolving and improving. Our inbound enquiries volume and subsequent conversion rates are also continuing to improve due to the follow-up mechanisms we have now put in place and our on-line business is growing as we would expect. We have high expectations for this online B2B marketing approach.
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