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With the help of Sales Communications, Toyota Material Handling shifted the focus of their marketing into inbound marketing, marketing automation, and content marketing. Within little more than a year, the company gathered plenty of learning experience and many new ideas, as well as many warm leads for sales.
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Toyota Material Handling is a market leader in material handling both globally and in Finland. In Finland, the company employs around 140 professionals in material handling. Toyota Material Handling supplies its customers with material handling equipment such as forklifts, automated forklifts and warehouse tracking solutions, helps customers to automate their warehouse operations, and offers fleet management services.
Little more than a year ago, Toyota Material Handling´s marketing was gathering leads for sales mainly through offline channels, such as professional events and sales fairs. This traditional way of gathering leads was, however, expensive and inefficient; lead data was imported manually to CRM system, and there was not much preliminary information available for sales before contacting the prospect. The company website did not gather much leads either, and new contacts were mainly obtained through queries and other requests.
“There were various digital tools in use in our marketing, but the main challenge was data. It was spread around and had to be gathered manually, which also made analysing the marketing actions very laborious, with no clear picture of the expenses in relation to the results.” – Karolina Romakkaniemi, Marketing Coordinator, Toyota Material Handling Finland
Having the focus on the products instead of the customer was identified as the biggest problem in the company’s digital contents. In the reform of Toyota Material Handling marketing the main target was set to create meaningful and interesting content to the company website for the potential customer. It was also decided that digital marketing channels, such as social media, would be utilized more effectively.
“We wanted to make our website a more active part of our marketing efforts, and to start to produce more meaningful content for our customers. The goal was set to send useful warm leads to sales, which was previously only possible through professional sales events and fairs.” – Karolina Romakkaniemi, Marketing Coordinator, Toyota Material Handling Finland
The other goal was to collect all required digital marketing tools, functions, and data into one platform, within reach for everyone in marketing and sales. The limited resources in marketing were a practical reason for improving the use of marketing automation tools.
Toyota Material Handling´s HubSpot, blogging tool
Toyota Material Handling chose HubSpot as their tool due to its easy workflow and logic. Introduction and initialisation of the system was lean and simple, and Toyota Material Handling marketing quickly adapted the inbound marketing methods. Sales Communications acted as a partner and consultant in the initialisation of HubSpot and in the in the Toyota Material Handling marketing reform.
“They act as they preach at Sales Communications – I downloaded an e-book, and was immediately contacted. When we met the first time, I knew right away that they understood our current problems and challenges in marketing. They have an excellent team, and things happen as agreed. Im very happy that I get the help right away when I need it. Whatever challenges we have had, I have always gotten a solution quickly.” – Karolina Romakkaniemi, Marketing Coordinator, Toyota Material Handling Finland
As it is very easy to set up blogs and landing pages in HubSpot, the content production for Toyota Material Handling website started quickly. The method for generating leads was also renewed in a short schedule to make it run smoothly. At the same time the use of the social media channels was boosted with the tools HubSpot provides.
“Like many companies, also Toyota had a challenges in generating digital leads from their website. We started by increasing such content on the website that really actually interests Toyota Material Handling's customers, also on that phase of the customer journey where the prospect does not yet necessarily even know that they might need a new forklift, for example.” – Noora Salminen, Inbound Strategist, Sales Communications
Toyota Material Handling´s material bank
The meaning of publishing interesting quality content on the website was immediately clear for Toyota Material Handling’s marketing in the beginning of their journey in inbound marketing. Sales Communications assisted in the content production and acted as an expert guide throughout the process. With the support of a helpful and competent partner it was possible for Toyota Material Handling to optimize and develop their methods of marketing very quickly.
“We noticed the importance of having quality content on your website. Our understanding of our clients’ customer journeys has increased during this past year. With meaningful content available, website visitors really do download it and leave their contact information to us. We have been positively surprised about the amazing results, and especially the part the social media plays in it.” – Karolina Romakkaniemi, Marketing Coordinator, Toyota Material Handling Finland
The role of lead data is significant in marketing efforts. Thus, transforming the focus of the web content from products to customers’ interests and shifting the emphasis into inbound marketing and HubSpot has ensured the consistency and quality of the data gathered.
HubSpot offers tools for follow-up and analysis on website visitors’ interaction and browsing paths, and on the results of the different marketing actions. With these tools the website visitors get the right content at the right time, making it possible to warm the leads into making their buying decision. The increase of conversion points and quality content on the website results in sales getting quality warm leads from the website regularly.
“Data is now flowing into one system and there is no need to gather and combine data manually from different tools anymore. This saves in the expenses, as well as in the working hours. Data is gathered into one place, and thus it is easier to use and analyse.” – Jukka Heinonen, Sales Director, Toyota Material Handling
Due to these changes in marketing, Toyota Material Handling has gained remarkable financial savings, and the marketing efforts can be now targeted more efficiently.
Toyota Material Handling´s HubSpot, landing pages tool
Financial benefits include alsol more efficient ROI for leads than prior to implementation of HubSpot and inbound marketing. Gathering of sporadic offline leads is more costly than generating quality digital leads.
Sales contacts now only those leads that have already expressed their interest in the company and the products on the website. The work of the sales is now easier, as before making the initial contact, the sales personnel already have prior information about the lead, about their special interests and challenges.
“In my opinion, the best results from the changes we have made, are the deals we have made through inbound marketing.” – Jukka Heinonen, Sales Director, Toyota Material Handling
The results soon started showing in the numbers of Toyota Material Handling marketing and sales data. The conversion rates are higher than normal benchmark numbers, and some landing pages gather even over 40 percent conversion rates. The numbers tell about successful inbound marketing, and about website content that is truly is meaningful and interesting for the customers.
The more efficient use of social media channels has also brought desired results; currently, social media is the most important channel to bring visitors and interested prospects to Toyota Material Handling website. Also, the automated workflow e-mails regularly bring new contacts to Toyota Material Handling’s database.
Toyota Material Handling´s HubSpot, social reports
“Toyota Material Handling took inbound marketing truly to their heart, and they have fully adopted the principle of making meaningful content for the customer. They use HubSpot very actively, which shows in the excellent results.” – Noora Salminen, Inbound Strategist, Sales Communications
“There is remarkable growth to be seen in our marketing. I myself could not imagine a life without HubSpot anymore. We know and see that the results will be even greater in the upcoming years.” – Karolina Romakkaniemi, Marketing Coordinator, Toyota Material Handling Finland
Kirjoittaja on sisällöntuottaja ja sanataiteen moniosaaja, joka uskoo merkityksellisten, älykkäiden ja laadukkaiden sisältöjen voimaan markkinoinnissa.
