Pulp and paper ABM – a personal message to a Europe-wide industry.
Pulp and paper ABM – a personal message to a Europe-wide industry.
Services
Website developmentWorldwide, the pulp and paper industry puts out more than 390 million tonnes of product every year. By 2023, the global pulp and paper market is expected to be worth nearly 80 billion US dollars.
So what has that to do with PETRONAS and oil? Primarily it’s because pulp and paper plants demand a lot of specialist machinery to keep turning over – often 24 hours a day – and constantly require high quality lubrication. For PETRONAS Lubricants International (PLI), this meant a market with huge potential. But with plant managers and owners sticking to well-known suppliers like Shell and Mobil, this was a tough market to tap into, but perfect for an ABM approach.
As with any Account Based Marketing, delivering a creative message that talks directly to a market of one demanded a huge joint effort between Torpedo and PLI. Working together, however, we carefully compiled a list of key European pulp and paper firms, then delved deep into the business challenges they each held in common.
First, we examined key industry challenges. These included rising energy prices (pulp and paper is very energy intensive), cheap competition from China, the need to innovate and embrace new production techniques [like circular production], innovation in packaging materials and, of course sustainability – while Europe has the world’s best recycling rates of around 85%, paper manufacturing produces high levels of CO2 and waste.
The next step was for our strategy team to identify the key stakeholders and the various pain points that regularly occur in their buying journey. Seven journey stages were identified, with Torpedo needing to produce messaging and assets for the first four. We also delved into the ambitions of each of the target businesses so the DM letter, leave-behind brochure, video and PPT presentations, could each be finely tailored to the needs of that business.
From maintenance managers, through procurement to the company owners themselves, we produced a detailed briefing for each persona for our creative teams to digest and work from.
Finding any efficiency improvement, no matter how small, was a key factor for our targets. All stakeholders were also under pressure to improve their sustainability credentials. Through the ability of PLI products to increase efficiency and reduce energy, extend the life of machinery, lengthen oil drain intervals (reducing downtime and waste oil), our campaign around ‘taking efficiency to the next level’ provided a compelling argument for each target.
Each asset would need to contain visual content for each individual prospect with carefully nuanced copy, written as though from the target’s local contact. Yet, with enough common elements for the campaign assets to be economically viable to produce.
For Phase One of the campaign, and as our initial contact with each individual, Torpedo produced a premium-quality direct mail piece addressed to our chosen stakeholders. This contained a DM letter, video mailer, a link to a personalised landing page – and a test tube. This dramatised the fact that just from one small sample PLI could identify and help with huge improvements.
Phase Two involved a made-to-measure business overview presentation and a high-quality printed leave-behind brochure. This specified which lubricant was most applicable to each piece of machinery and where in the process it would be of most benefit, instantly illustrating PLI’s expertise and technical understanding.
All assets were tailored to each business. The video, for example, featured the recipient’s logo and opened with wording relevant to their ambitions.
Phase Three is where we handed back over to PLI’s technical team for them to offer to test, and report on, lube samples taken from the recipient’s plant machinery.
We are now awaiting results and looking forward to hearing how the sales pipeline is progressing.