How a B2B Company Experienced a Profitable Rebirth During an Industry Downturn

Hermary Case Study

The Company

Hermary is a leading innovator in 3D machine vision for system integrators, machine builders, and equipment manufacturers who create automation solutions for end-users. These technologies help reduce waste, increase production speed, and improve safety. Hermary’s products allow for industrial automation solutions to enable efficiency and productivity beyond what is humanly possible.

The Challenge

Hermary’s primary clients were from the forestry industry. However, in 2019, due to softening lumber prices, the pine beetle crisis, and international trade disputes, mills in British Columbia closed – a significant loss in sales for Hermary. Hermary needed to adapt its business in order to prevail.  Acting fast, Hermary’s CEO identified several target industries with similar automation needs as the lumber industry (e.g. meat processing and bakeries) that he could diversify his clientele with.

The Goal

Hermary needed immediate help to:

  • Identify and assess new target industries with similar automation needs
  • Create a go-to-market strategy
  • Develop a realistic plan to deploy go-to-market strategy within budget, time and resource constraints
  • Increase inbound leads
  • Meet sales target for new target industries
  • Recruit and build an internal marketing team.

The Results

Hermary earned a functioning B2B marketing system in under a year with various new industries. The core wins during the first 9-months:

New lead acquisition channels boosting inbound leads +600%.

New product soft-launch with cross-industry brand appeal.

New team member recruited, trained, and fully-integrated.

Terry Hermary

"Able & Howe’s process helped us scale our marketing operations from virtually nothing to an effective marketing machine."

~ Terry Hermary, CEO, Hermary

How it Happened

What we did:

  • Conducted Marketing Stack Audit
  • Created marketing strategy and route-to-market channel partner program
  • Developed marketing plan
  • Had our Marketing Director & Strategist lead the overall and day-to-day Marketing department for Hermary
  • Had our Fractional Marketing Execution teamwork against the high-priority initiatives to create immediate momentum towards completion of the marketing plan
  • Established a fully integrated marketing system
  • Assisted in the recruitment of an in-house marketing manager
  • Onboarding & training of newly hired marketing manager
  • Provide ongoing strategic advice, department leadership, and oversight
  • Ongoing upskilling and employee development of in-house marketing staff

Ongoing Engagement:

  • Provide strategy to identify and potential new channel partners
  • Oversight, upskilling and employee development of in-house marketing staff

How it Happened

Leveraging the in-source marketing model™, and our expertise in B2B industrial marketing, Hermary was able to immediately execute on marketing operations while simultaneously building their internal capabilities for future deployment.

Evaluate

Our team conducted an expansive and detailed audit of the B2B company’s current marketing stack to expose strengths, weaknesses, and function gaps. 

Strengths

Hermary’s name has always been a respected leader in 3D machine vision, with products recognized for reliability, durability and high-level of performance. Their sales process is strong as the CEO, and primary salesperson, is a fountain of knowledge.

Weaknesses

Hermary lacked marketing leadership and expertise as well as the execution resources to build and carry out a marketing strategy and plan. Without a customer relationship management (CRM) system, they also couldn’t track or engage with leads or existing and new channel partners. It didn’t help the business that the website and other marketing assets were outdated.

Function Gaps

The main function gap was a lack of internal marketing team. Hermary needed to hire marketing staff in order to scale up. 

Create

  • Able & Howe both developed the marketing strategy and executed on it by focusing on the identified strengths, weaknesses and current priorities found in the audit.
  • We developed a time-sensitive plan of execution based on time sensitivity, impact, and available resources. 
  • We created a new look for the tradeshow assets and developed a tradeshow protocol to set meetings with prospects, promote the new product line and generate quality leads.

Evolve

  • Hermary was quickly set up with a CRM. 
  • Initiated email automation and targeted e-blasts. 
    • Email marketing was complete with content creation for valuable communications.
  • Able & Howe consolidated all the different lists of prospects and partners into one system to allow for unified communication and nurture.

Activate

  • We implemented analytics tracking and measurement to track campaign performance.
  • We integrated marketing and sales efforts to effectively activate leads and improve the size and speed of the sales funnel.
  • We lead the design and structure of the new site to better highlight the value propositions of Hermary and align with our target market.

Enable

  • Able & Howe helped hire and onboard a marketing coordinator as an internal team member at Hermary. The marketing coordinator became responsible for the daily tasks, which enabled Able & Howe to reduce their billing to remove the execution component.
  • Able & Howe trained the marketing coordinator on the CRM software implemented and the day to day marketing responsibilities. 
    • We also scheduled training sessions to continue her professional development. 
  • As responsibilities moved in-house, Able & Howe was able to successfully reduce our involvement in day-to-day operations, providing higher-level strategy and marketing support. 
  • Each year, we create the Annual Marketing Plan to provide overarching strategy and direction to the marketing coordinator. 
  • We also meet regularly with key stakeholders to discuss progress, finetune strategy, and provide marketing team leadership and upskilling.