Manufacturer's Growth Manifesto - 4th edition

The Manufacturer’s Growth Manifesto 4th Edition
For Chief Executives, Owners, VP Sales, VP Marketing in the Manufacturing Industries
8/1/2017 MANUFACTURING MARKETING INSTITUTE ©2014 - 2017 @MMIMATTERS WEBSITE: WWW.MMMATTERS.COM

Who is this
Fellow?
Who is this fellow you ask. Well
that could be you; the
unflinching, levelheaded, low risk
and product focused type of CEO
struggling to get even 5% organic
growth this year and hoping (or
even praying) the next new
product will finally be the big one
that propels your company into
double digit growth over the next
decade. Nah, probably not you –
or is it?

New Way Marketing = Double Digit Growth
You’re under pressure from owners, the board of directors,
shareholders, Wall Street and others to grow your
manufacturing business. You’ve tried increasing spend on
R&D, commissioning market research studies, customer
satisfaction surveys, changed out business unit leadership,
and any number of other schemes to push your products in
order to increase revenue. Nothing seems to work. Your
shareholders demand double digit growth, but you only eek out
5% to 6% growth year-on-year. What is a manufacturing CEO
to do? There is a way to get back to those glorious double
digit growth days.
The answer is in the New Way to Market for
Manufacturing!
Read on to learn how marketing can boost your manufacturing
business back into double digit growth territory.

Times Have Changed, but You Haven’t.
Times have changed. At one time your products were unmatched in the marketplace and business was great. But now, due to
massive globalization in all markets, your product has become commoditized and easily available from any number of
competitors around the globe. Shipping costs are down and everyone wants a piece of what once were your markets.
Your customers have changed their buying habits but your go-to-market model remains steadfast in sales feet on the street,
tradeshows and the annual Christmas gift. You’re thinking, “Hey, it worked in the 1970s, why shouldn’t it work today?” It doesn’t
work anymore. The only reason you’re able to eek out your 6% growth is because your manufacturing competitors haven’t
caught on to this new way to gain market share through New Way Marketing.
This book is about how to match your go-to-market model to your customer’s buying habits enabling growth and taking
market share from your competitors with a marketing framework I call ‘The New Way to Market’.

Get the Book – The New Way to Market for Manufacturing
Get your Free PDF Copy
Buy the Printed Copy at Amazon
Get 40% off with coupon code: WEPUX7P4

Good News & Bad News
FIRST – THE BAD NEWS

The bad news is…
Economies around the world are stagnant, albeit improving
over the same period last year. With the exception of China,
the data shows the manufacturing industries in these major
markets creeping along at less than 3%.
How can you grow your business at a double digit rate if the
overall manufacturing industry is growing at less than 3%?
Read on to learn how it can be done with New Way
Marketing.
Country Rank % Change*
China 26 of 202 +6.1%
United States 102 of 202 +2.1%
United Kingdom 169 of 202 +0.3%
Japan 164 of 202 +0.5%
Germany 133 of 202 +1.5%
European Union 127 of 202 +1.5%
Brazil 189 of 202 -3.0%
Industrial production growth rate compares the annual percentage increase (2016 est.) in industrial production
(includes manufacturing, mining, and construction). Source: CIA World Factbook - see the entire list at
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2089rank.html

Bad news = Opportunity
Note: The bad news is actually improving over last year.
World Manufacturing Production – Q1 2017 - UNIDO
World manufacturing gained further strength in the ﬁrst
quarter of 2017, building on a sluggish, but already improving
performance throughout 2016. Both industrialized economies
and developing and emerging industrial economies indicated
the onset of healthy dynamics in manufacturing production
and entered the new production year 2017 with upward
growth trends.
Manufacturing output increased to 1.9 per cent in the ﬁrst
quarter of 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. The
pace of growth remained rather moderate in the North
American and European regions, where a 1.1 and 1.4 per
cent expansion was recorded, respectively, in a year-by-year
comparison.
United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)

Try this excuse
at your next
board meeting.
If you think that will work, I’ve got a bridge for sale (see below). You had better
have some other answers. Here’s a clue:
 The answer is not new products
 The answer is not more sales people
 The answer is New Way Marketing – read on to find out the ‘what’ and
‘how’.
“Hey Mr. Chairman and
Shareholders, we didn’t hit our
numbers last quarter, but there was
nothing we could do about it.
These charts (show the last slide)
prove that we’re only able to grow
at about a 3% rate no matter what
we do.”
Sale Today only $2.8 million

You Can’t Rely
on a Growing
Global Economy
to Grow your
Business
Chances of manufacturing output
to increase significantly any time
in the near future are somewhere
between slim and none.
This means the pie is not going
to get bigger or the tide isn’t
going to rise (choose your
metaphor) any time soon.
The message is clear; the only
way to grow your business in the
double digit range is to outsmart
the competition with the New
Way to Market.

But Wait! Maybe
it’s only bad
news for certain
industries (i.e.
not yours).
If you’re in the Computer,
Electronics and Optical Products,
Motor Vehicles or Machinery
sectors, you’re in better shape
than the other sectors.
Growth of manufacturing output
will be meager at best in the
Industrialized Economies in all
other sectors. Developing
Economies are faring much
better than the IE in all sectors.

What’s a Manufacturing CEO to do?
The pie is definitely not growing enough to support
everyone taking a 10%+ growth piece.
The CIA Factbook says the manufacturing sector is
growing at around 2%. The UNIDO statistics show
growth of manufacturing output in North America at a
meager 0.5%.
If you want to grow your business by double digits
you have 3 options:
1. Purchase growth through acquisitions.
2. Sell more product in developing markets.
3. Take market share from your competitors

Finally, the Good News
Your manufacturing company could be
the one to take the market share.
Adopting a New Way Marketing strategy, tactics,
teams and technology is key to growth rates of 10%,
20% or even 30%. Gains in market share are
possible and will go to the firm in your competitive
market able to quickly take advantage of New Way
Marketing and adapt to the new buyer’s habits.

Opportunity is Knocking! Will you
answer?
Most executives in the manufacturing industry are
laggards with respect to marketing.
The progressive, savvy and bold manufacturing CEO willing to
take a look at new ways of engaging with their target market
will have a huge advantage over competitors.
The window of opportunity is open for those modern, bold
executives willing to change the way they interact with their
target audience.
Don’t wait too long. First movers into New Way Marketing
will win, hands down.
Once your competitors catch on, they’ll try to copy your
success. You can be the one to take advantage of the those
laggardly CEOs.

Excited about the New Way?
Learn more about it with a free consultation phone call with Bruce.
Book an appointment on Bruce’s calendar.

The New Marketing Normal

Revelation #1 - The Buyer is in Charge!
“The Digital Disruption is a fundamental challenge caused by
the Internet and digital channels to traditional ways of doing
business. The Internet has become the leading source for
information throughout society and the industrial sector is no
different. Engineers and other industrial professionals are
spending more time online and using a variety of digital
resources to perform work-related tasks, which has
transformed their buy cycle and disrupted the marketing and
sales process for suppliers and manufacturers.
And because engineers and related professionals have so
many digital information resources available to them, they rely
less on contact with vendors in making purchasing decisions
and often don’t contact a vendor until they are ready to buy. ”
- IHS GlobalSpec Benchmark Report
“Empowered customers are disrupting every industry;
competitive barriers like manufacturing strength, distribution
power, and information mastery no longer create competitive
advantage. In this age of the customer, the only sustainable
competitive advantage is knowledge of and engagement with
customers.”
- Forrester Report
“Buying 2.0 is a better metaphor for the buying/selling
interactions of today’s selling environment as the hunter has
become the hunted. Buyers are more informed and seek
information independent of sales. Buyers have access to
overwhelming amounts of information, but seek intelligence
they can trust to support their decision making process.”
- Sirius Decisions

Revelation #2 - Nobody Cares about
Your Product
Your customers, prospective customers
and nearly everyone else in your target
market audience just doesn’t care about
your product, you (the CEO) or your
company.
Sorry, it’s true, but they won’t tell you to
your face, they only tell you with their
decision to purchase or not purchase from
your firm.
What do they care about?
They care about what it
means to them.
What’s In It For Me

Revelation #3 - New Products Don’t Grow
Market Share
Your products; new, upgraded or old, will not grow
your business.
Why? Because your product is perceived by your
target audience as a commodity. Your messaging
sounds just like your competitors messaging. You all
sound alike and look alike with me-too products.
Be the one in your market place to use New Way
Marketing to really understand what your audience
wants or needs. Get to know their pain or passion
and you win!

Revelation #4 - You No Longer Control the
Information
You may be thinking, holy crap! If don’t
even control the critical information how
can I gain advantage over my customers
and prospective customers? You can’t.
Embrace the realization that your
technology, solution, service and even
pricing is widely available to anyone at any
time any place with a quick Google search.
New Way Marketing Hint: The manufacturing companies who help the people in the target audience by sharing expertise freely will win.

Revelation #5
By the Time You Get the Call Their Choice is 80% Made
The manufacturing company that is able to engage
with the potential buyers during their self-education
phase will get the business.
Unless your helpful and useful information is found
during the buyer’s self education phase, you and your
competitors are left to fight over price after the 60%
point. Do you really want to be the lowest price
product just to get the business?
You don’t have to be the lowest price. You have to be
the most helpful before they make the purchase.
Note: Latest data shows the figure is now closer to 70% complete
before they contact your sales team or request specific information
about price or specifications.

How it Works
OK, YOU’VE DECIDED TO GIVE IT A TRY, GREAT! THIS IS HOW IT
WORKS.

Summary – Before we Get to the ‘How to’
 Global manufacturing output is flat. Best case projection for industrialized economies is 2% to
3% increase.
 You can’t grow your business (organically) by double digits without doing something different.
We suggest New Way Marketing.
 The only way to get double digit organic growth is to take market share from your competitor.
New Way Marketing is how you will achieve it.
 Only the top 2 firms in any one market will be able to grow. The rest will stagnate or be
swallowed up by the winners. We’ll proceed based on the assumption that you want to be the
one taking market share not giving it up.
 The secret to being #1 or #2 is to engage with your target audience early in their buying
process (before the 60% point) well before you even know they might be interested in your (or
your competition’s) product.

You Must Understand Your Target Audience
If you’re doing a good job choosing your target
audience, it is likely they will need or want what you
have to sell at some point in the future.
When that day comes around, your brand and your
offering are lodged in their brain with strong feelings of
credibility and a desire to reciprocate for all the great
information you have provided over the past months or
years.
These feelings, emotions and perceptions will give you
a huge leg up on the competition who are still pitching
their products.
These feelings could be so strong, that even your
price won’t matter that much any more.
Knowing and really understanding the
people in your target audience is critically
important. Don’t rely on common or tribal
knowledge. Do some real market research
through an independent source to learn
about the challenges, issues and problems
they face on a daily basis.

Step 1 – Stop Pitching Products
If you’re a typical manufacturing firm, chances are your
success has always come from your product innovations.
Your entire culture is built around the product. You must
flip the group thinking and the product focused culture.
Instead of talking about the products, talk about your
expertise. Educate your target audience about issues
they face. (this does not mean to try educating them
about your products)
This will be hard for you to do:
Acknowledge that your product is perceived as a
commodity in the eyes of your target audience.
To repeat what I said earlier, “Buyers don’t care about you, your firm or
your products. They care about WIIFM.”

Step 2 – Share your expertise freely
 Help the people in your target audience to be
better at something that matters to them.
 Share your expertise to help relieve their pain or
enhance their passion.
 When you help the people in your target audience
to improve their situation by sharing your
expertise, you are giving them a gift. They want to
reciprocate. This is the beginning of meaningful
engagement and a subsequent customer
relationship.
 As the consumers of your expertise and
information learn that you are helping them to
improve their daily lives by showing them how to
solve a problem, for example, they build a
perception of credibility around your brand and
your offering.
“Up to 95% of qualified prospects on
your website are there to research
and not ready to buy or talk to a
sales person, but as much as 70%
will eventually buy a product from
you – or your competitor.”
- Brian Carroll, CEO InTouch
Hint: The company that gets the business will be the one that shares
their expertise. Whether that is your firm or your competitor’s firm is up to
you.

Step 3 – Build a Marketing Strategy Around
Education and Knowledge
1. Stop pitching products and start helping people (in your
target audience) to be better in their daily lives.
2. Start educating your audience utilizing your particular
experts and expertise for FREE.
3. Stop advertising product features and benefits of a
product.
4. Start promoting your useful, helpful papers, webinars,
seminars, videos, etc. (not product information) to foster
meaningful engagement.
5. Admit to yourself and your team that your products are
perceived as a commodity and it will take more than
product revisions, releases and enhancements to gain
the attention of your target audience.
6. Without making these changes, you’re reduced to
fighting for business by lowering your price.
Here’s what you get in return:
1. Credibility and trust in the minds of the people in your
target audience.
2. Top-of-Mind Awareness (T.O.M.A.) in the minds of your
prospective customers.
3. Reciprocity – they want to give back by purchasing from
you.
4. Higher prices, more sales, more market share, higher
growth rates.

You may now be thinking, WTF?
You want me to give away my expertise for free?
How the hell will that help me grow?
My competition will steal all my good stuff!
This is the secret to New Way Marketing; RECIPROCITY.
It’s a well documented fact that humans feel a very strong
need to reciprocate. If I give you a gift, you feel the need to
give me a gift. If you give away your expertise to your target
audience through education, they will want to give something
back to you such as credibility, trust, a place top of mind, a
position on the short list or they might just place the order.

If you make these changes:
1. Stop pitching products and start helping people (in your target audience) doing better
in their daily lives.
2. Start educating your audience utilizing your particular experts and expertise for
FREE.
3. Stop advertising product features and benefits of a product.
4. Start promoting your useful, helpful papers, webinars, seminars, videos, etc. (not
product information)
5. Admit your products are perceived as a commodity.
(Without making these changes, you’re reduced to fighting for business by lowering your price.)

You’ll get these benefits:
1. Reciprocity, credibility and trust in the minds of the
people in your target audience.
2. Top-of-Mind Awareness (T.O.M.A.) in the minds of your
prospective customers so they remember your firm
first when the day comes around and they need to buy.
3. Higher prices, more sales, more market share, higher
growth rates.

Important
Message for
the CEO
• You’re (probably) not a
professional marketer.
• Your leadership team probably
does not include a marketer.
• Do yourself a favor, get a
professional marketer on your
leadership team who knows
about modern marketing
technology, content marketing
for engagement and has a
strong business background.

Your current marketing function probably looks
like this:
• A cost to the business
• A group of people in the back cubicles who manage the brand, create brochures, set
up tradeshows, send some emails, and do what the product and sales people tell them
to do.
• No idea about effectiveness of generating revenue, leads or opportunities. Your head
marketer tells you about clicks, views, likes, exposures, cost per this and cost per that.
All useless information for the executive team.
• A crappy, dirty database with more holes than a hunk of good Swiss cheese resulting
in generic, intrusive, useless outbound messaging.
• Maintains a one-way website hosting nothing more than digital brochures and an e-
store that sucks up more revenue than it brings in.
• Prepares messages about product features without any real knowledge of the
positioning, value proposition or perceptions of the marketplace.
• Does whatever the sales or product people tell them to do without any thought,
question, planned strategy or tactics. We call this ‘seat-of-the-pants’ or ‘ad-hoc’
marketing.
• No wonder you’re only growing 3-5% this year!

Your new marketing function looks like this:
• A revenue generator. A revenue engine for the business. Gets you back to double digit
growth!
• A written, current marketing plan.
• A strategic partner providing high value in aligning New Way Marketing strategy, tools and teams
to the business goals.
• Metrics obsessed to ensure it is known what works great, what works OK, what does not work
and what has failed in order to optimize and iterate for optimum spend and absolute growth.
• A high value, clean and comprehensive database from which to market, cross sell, up sell and
analyze via relevant and timely messaging.
• Maintains a website designed to have a conversation with visitors by delivering relevant dynamic
content tailored to the visitor.
• Strategic positioning, value propositions that resonate, messaging about the customer’s needs.
• Tactics that funnel large numbers of qualified leads who are ready, willing and able to buy.
• Producing high value, useful, helpful marketing material, events and activities engaging early in
the purchasing process.
• Understands technology and fully leveraging technology for efficient and scalable marketing
teams and activities.

One thing to keep in mind, the
firm that gets there first wins in
their market space!
First Movers
Win!
Let me say one more time, this type of marketing works for
manufacturing companies. I’ve used these strategies, tactics and tools
to grow a boring electronics manufacturing business in the range of 10
and 20 percentage growth rates.

Ready, Set, Go!
The 5 Big Questions to Ask and Answer Before You Get Started:
1. Is my organization ready to admit our products are perceived as a commodity in the
marketplace? (not talking about the brand, just the products)
2. Do I have specific expertise within my organization with potential to help the people in
my target audience do better in their daily lives? Am I willing to give it away in
exchange for TOMA and credibility?
3. Do I have the people within my organization willing and able to implement and execute
on a knowledge based strategy?
4. Am I ready, willing and able to support what may be a drastic change in our corporate
culture?
5. Am I ready to support a 10%, 20% or 30% growth rate?
If you answer ‘no’ to any of these questions, are you comfortable
with your competition answering ‘yes’ taking your market share?

New Way Marketing is Not Easy!
You’ll need to devote or divert resources, time and money and it could be a rough culture shock.

New Way Marketing is a BIG CHANGE for a
manufacturing company!
Your leadership team and managers will struggle and resist at first. This should be expected. They will need to see
results. Your staunch support, persistence and perseverance will be critical to success.

Be ready to share amazing success stories!
You will have success with New Way Marketing. The more you share the success, the better it will work. The better it
works, the higher your growth rate. If you’re the VP Marketing, you might be running the company before too long!

Sounds interesting?
How do you learn more and investigate the New
Way Marketing concept for yourself?
You could buy my book. The book contains
everything you need to get started.
Or, you could do one of the following…
In appreciation for reading through the
Manifesto, use this code for 40% off the cover
price: WEPUX7P4

You could try one of these…
• Investigate for yourself. There are tons of whitepapers, webinars, etc. in the webosphere.
– Some good search terms are ‘New Way Marketing’, ‘content marketing’, ‘B2B marketing’ or ‘modern marketing’
• Check out these progressive websites:
– ‘Marketing Matters for Manufacturers’ (MMI podcast) https://www.mmmatters.com
– ‘Industrial Marketing Today’ http://www.thereppgroup.com/
– ‘Content Marketing Institute’ http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/
– ‘Industrial Marketing Today’ http://industrialmarketingtoday.com/
• Bring in a consultant.
– There are a lot of consultants out there. Some are great, some are poor and there are many in between. As with any
vendor, there are pros and cons to consultants. If you do bring in a consultant, I’d be careful to assess if they have
actually been on your side of the desk as a sales and/or marketing leader. Otherwise, you get a lot of theory, but not
much that has been tested and proven by their own actions in a corporate manufacturing business environment.
– At the Manufacturing Marketing Group (MMG) we offer manufacturing marketing strategy & planning, digital marketing
and useful resources.

Or try this out for size…
• Hire a new head of marketing with experience in implementation and execution of New Way
Marketing, one who has done it already in a manufacturing organization.
– The danger here is that you’ll no doubt want someone with years of experience in your industry because that’s what
you’ve always done. Or you’ll want someone from a similar manufacturing industry who has run a marketing team in the
past. This is a BIG MISTAKE!
– There are a lot of senior marketers like this out there. They know about branding, marketing communications, public
relations and running a reactive marketing team designed to serve, not designed to think about the new age of marketing.
– You’ll need a tech savvy marketing pro who not only understands modern technology and a knowledge based strategy,
but also understands business, finance, leadership and management on a global scale.
• Turn it over to your VP Marketing/CMO
– This is a tricky one and depends much on your relationship and the position of the senior marketer.
– My experience is that if you were to ask your CMO about New Way Marketing or any ideas or concepts from this
presentation, there will be one of two reactions; one is to defend the status quo and claim they are already doing these
things. It may be true or it may not be true. If your top line is growing at a healthy rate, pleasing most stakeholders, you
might conclude, ‘yes’ she is doing a fine job. If you are not growing at the rate you desire and your CMO claims to be
executing on these principles, strategies and tactics, I suggest skepticism. The second reaction might be to embrace the
fact that he is operating in the Old Style Marketing 1.0 mode and wants to learn about modern, knowledge based
marketing. Second reaction is better and it would be up to you if you think he can pull it off or not.

Still not sure?
“Insanity is defined as doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting different
results”
-Albert Einstein
New Way Marketing is not the same thing and you will get different results!

Who the hell is this guy and why did he
write this Manifesto?
For more information:
Bruce McDuffee
Manufacturing Marketing Group (MMG)
bruce@mmmatters.com
tel. 303-953-4361
Website: www.mmmatters.com
Podcast: www.mmmatters.com/podcast
Blog: www.mmmatters.com/blog
Hello, my name is Bruce McDuffee. I’m the Director at the Manufacturing
Marketing Group (MMG). At MMG, we help manufacturing companies
increase their organic growth rates by creating and implementing a
marketing strategy built around the New Way Marketing framework.
I'm passionate about New Way Marketing simply because I know it works.
It's an amazing way to go to market and I want to share my expertise and
knowledge with your team. Together we can advance the practice of
marketing in manufacturing and grow the entire sector!
How do I know it works? As the Marketing Director of a global electronics
manufacturing company, I increased the AMER growth rate from 6% to 24%
with this New Way Marketing framework. I was able to work out most of the
kinks, problems and issues over a 5 year period in this test bed. Now I'm
ready to help you realize extraordinary growth in your manufacturing
business.
Are you ready? Book your free consultation call now!

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