Background
Panasonic Logiscend is the premier Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) smart material flow management solution for manufacturing. But when you offer a customized, transformational solution that will digitize the manufacturing process to get the right component parts to the right place on the manufacturing line at the right time, the sales process take time. Educating the prospect on how the plant can benefit from new levels of accuracy and efficiency is the first step along the buyer’s continuum that takes 12-18 months for the sales cycle and solution implementation to be realized.

With success to leverage in the automotive vertical Panasonic Logiscend turned to The Verdi Group to design and debut its first-ever Account-based Marketing effort in early 2021.

Nailing Down the Basics
A major investment of time was spent on the two key drivers of success: the List and the Offers. The list strategy was multi-fold:

• Select a manageable number of key companies in the targeted verticals
• Identify key job roles/titles for targeted offers and messaging
• Expand within the organizations where the ABM Program developed engagement by researching and targeting in the corporate family tree above the level of our contact and enacting a separate communications strategy to those newly identified contacts

The offer strategy was tailored to the contact’s persona, with strategic content for C-level titles that addressed their vision for their company 10-15 years out, board accountability for adoption of IIoT and consumer demand for mass customization. For plant level personas who have a more localized focus, we offered content that explained exactly how the Panasonic Logiscend system would work for the five potential applications within their plant. eBooks, videos, case studies and sell sheets were content formats we tested in our ABM pilot, with many of the assets created by The Verdi Group.

Communications tactics include one-to-one digital banner ads, a series of six emails, landing pages, and outbound telemarketing, all enabled by or integrated with a marketing automation system.

Results
This ABM pilot surpassed its 12-month goal of 60 Marketing Qualified Leads after just six months! It is now 170% to goal with nearly a dozen of the leads progressing into mid-funnel with the sales team. Several site visits have taken place (necessary for scoping this customized solution and formulating a proposal), and opportunity values (which can easily be six figures) are beginning to come into view.