Ten or so years ago, you could get away with subpar marketing in warehouse automation and still do pretty well.
The reason? Most of the companies providing warehouse automation were doing just that — subpar marketing. And they had no real motivation to do anything else, because their sales relationships had been doing the heavy lifting for years.
So when it came to marketing, they hired mid-level managers to perform marketing-like activities that were typically tactical in nature and executed on a budget that didn’t give them enough resources to make any real difference.
It was the industry accepted approach to marketing at the time.
And one that, if I’m being honest, enabled much of the success I had during my early years in the industry, because were it not for a general lack of marketing sophistication in the warehouse automation industry, I wouldn’t have had as much success in marketing as I did for the last ten years.
It wasn’t that my marketing was subpar. Actually, it was quite good. But I was marketing a new company in a crowded space on a shoestring budget, while competing with dozens of established companies, 10 to 100 times our size, that were providing the same essential services to the market that we were.
Simply put, I shouldn’t have succeeded. But I did.
I did so well, in fact, that my company, Invata Intralogistics (which had fewer than 50 employees, a terrible website, and no brand identity when I started) was, within my first year or so, enjoying page-1 SEO ranking for 63 keyword phrases (65% in top 5 results, 41% in top 3 results, 25% in #1 position at peak) and competing toe-to-toe with — and winning contracts against — the long-established industry behemoths.
For about 8 years, in fact, if you Googled the word “intralogistics,” my copy came back as the definition.
Had the competition been more sophisticated, that never would have happened.
Back to the Future
Today, the game has changed. Completely.
For starters, we’re looking at a totally different warehouse automation marketplace than we were ten years ago.
In the last few years, there has been:
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- A massive influx of private equity and venture capital invested in the market.
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- A slew of mergers and consolidations, with industry behemoths gobbling up smaller companies to enhance their offerings or kill off the competition.
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- A plethora of new company entries touting technological breakthroughs that have profoundly disrupted long-standing approaches to warehouse automation.
Those changes alone dramatically raise the bar for warehouse automation providers as big money brings big marketing budgets, big marketing budgets bring pricey, sophisticated agencies, and disruption raises the ante for all involved.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because in addition to all the changes within the industry, the ubiquity of the internet, compounded by our reliance on it during the pandemic, brought radical change to the process through which buyers educate themselves and make buying decisions today.
Simply put, the balance of power warehouse automation sales teams once enjoyed as the sought-after gatekeepers of industry knowledge has shifted to the internet where buyers can learn almost all they need to know without ever letting anyone know they’re even looking.
That means buyers are connecting more with brands these days than they are with people and that a supersized percentage of your company’s sales effort is being spent long before its sales team ever gets involved.
Warehouse Automation Marketing: What’s Needed Now
The bottom line today is that what worked in the past, will not work in the present warehouse automation market.
Not only is the market more sophisticated than it was ten years ago, but your company’s digital presence is taking on the role that used to be the responsibility of your sales team.
Your brand is now the thing that matters most, not your sales relationships.
And the price of admission in this environment? Serious, sophisticated marketing. Not subpar.
A-one, not AI.
Warehouse automation companies looking to grow revenue , need to rethink their approach to marketing.
They need to hire experienced marketing talent that can bring a combination of industry knowledge and market strategy to bear for their brand. Talent that can use creativity to define your brand, differentiate it, and articulate it to your potential buyers in memorable ways.
They need marketers who can develop communication strategies that not only reach the 3 – 5% of the market that’s looking to buy in the short-term, but the 95 – 97% of the market that’s being missed by companies focusing on lead generation strategies instead of demand generation strategies.
Opportunity Awaits
The benefits of savvy marketing are numerous. They not only save companies money by not wasting it on activities that don’t net the desired results, but they set-up smart companies for future success.
Marketing that creates demand influences prospects long before they’re in market, providing a leg-up by familiarizing prospects with a company’s brand and by educating them on the kind of information that empowers future buying decisions.
Companies that build strong brands enjoy perks other companies do not. Self-perpetuating perks that grow businesses year over year.
Too many companies in the warehouse automation marketplace are still embracing the subpar marketing that has become the industry status quo.
Be the company that doesn’t. And enjoy the benefits of investing in your brand.
Walter High has built a career from his proclivity for using marketing creativity as a tool for business growth. He is a multi-disciplined marketing expert with deep experience in conceptualizing and executing successful strategic branding, product marketing, and demand-gen/capture initiatives in B2B and B2C arenas. Contact him here.