The Power Tool Influencers

Milwaukee tools is one of the most widely recognised power-tool brands in the industry. Providing high-performance tools to contractors, the company’s product range includes equipment for niche markets and specialised uses. Historically the company’s promotion had featured face-to-face roadtrips, exhibitions and merchant visits: all halted in spring 2020.

Campaign Overview

Services included:

Market Research | Social Media | Influencer Marketing

Results

Sales increase

0 %

Margin on the additional sales

£ 0 k

Cost of running the influencer programme

£ 0 k

The challenge

We were asked for a cost-effective way to reach some very targeted users in niche sectors for four specific tools. The campaign needed to be very measurable and demonstrate an immediate link between promotional activity and sales.

The solution

We suggested an influencer marketing programme. Already widely used in B2C campaigns, influencers in the B2B market are a less recognised resource. However, we monitor YouTube for relevant content, and we realised just how targeted we could be. It isn’t too much of a leap of faith to suggest that an engaged audience watching demonstrations of advanced carpentry techniques might just be the right audience for a table saw. Finding potential influencers was relatively straightforward (if time consuming). Defining a process to establish their potential value was the tricky part.

Developing an in-house tracking system

Ridgemount’s digital team developed a set of criteria to profile potential influencers, ensuring they would support the client’s brand values. Then we went further and developed a “value tracker” system to estimate potential results and enable us to suggest a level of investment likely to produce a good ROI.

The delivery

Once agreed we wrote contracts and engaged with four influencers in the landscaping, agriculture, carpentry and brickwork sectors. We developed the commercial relationships and supported the broadcasts, ensuring we had robust measurement tools in place to understand the impact of the campaigns.

In the end, measurement proved to be straightforward. We monitored video views, engagement and website clicks, but the result the client was most interested in was sales. And this campaign delivered – in spades.

Within the three-month campaign period all four products saw increases in sales of at least 40%, compared with the same period in 2019. Given that the influencer campaign was the only promotional activity focused on these niche products during this time, we reckon that’s a compelling case.