Interesting Diversity

One of the most interesting things about this business is the diversity of businesses we learn about along the way. Just last week I met with a referral from an existing client.

The referring business and the business they referred are worlds apart in terms of the type of business, their products, and the markets they serve. The business owners just happen to be personal friends, and our client was talking about his experience working with Milestone.

We had recently completed our strategic marketing planning process, which gave our client a fresh perspective on his target audience and renewed enthusiasm for promoting his business. He was talking about the experience with his friend, and she said it sounded like something that might help her business. Our client facilitated the introduction, and the referral was born!

Our client is Sarasota Sports Medicine. Dr. Ken Kaufman used to have a “run-of-the-mill” family chiropractic office with a larger staff, and a broader base of patients – everything from young people to old people from all walks of life.

Now Dr. Kaufman runs a smaller, more profitable business. He developed a unique approach to helping his patients by combining different techniques, and he carved out a niche market by focusing on patients with sports-related injuries. Ken is a savvy marketer who did all of this on his own.

A few years ago Milestone built a website for Sarasota Sports Medicine that greatly improved his web presence. To this day he still receives several new patients each month that found his business online.

Going through our strategic planning process helped Ken redefine the positioning for his brand. We came up with a new tagline – Compete with Confidence – and developed a comprehensive annual marketing plan for the business.

Here’s the interesting diversity part. Ken’s friend is Donna Quick. She and her family own a business called Poly Coatings. Coincidentally her business is located across the street from Ken’s office, and her building is right next door to another Milestone client called Sparta Pewter.

However, that is where the similarities end. Poly Coatings is in the nickel-plating business. Their primary product is called Poly-Ond which is an electroless nickel impregnated with Teflon throughout the entire coating. It’s used is many different industries. One example they gave is packaging machinery. Even they described what they do as a niche of a niche of a niche!

Poly Coatings is a mature business. Family owned and operated for 30 years, they have more than a thousand customers located all over the world with a heavy concentration in the southeastern US.

Marketing has never been a priority for Poly Coatings because all of their business comes from word-of-mouth. Their website is very basic and outdated. The last time they updated their collateral materials was 15 years ago.

In that same time period the business has started to feel the pressures of globalization and consolidating markets. Their number of customers has declined as companies who employ the engineers who spec their products go through mergers and acquisitions.

Lately they’ve been thinking about making some effort to reconnect with their customers and trying to grow the business. But with little experience in marketing and advertising they weren't sure what to do.

I think my initial meeting with them went well. I enjoyed learning about their business and they seem like very nice people. We talked about our strategic planning process and the types of projects that typically follow that engagement. And when I tried to tell them more about Milestone, they just smiled and said, “Any friend of Ken's…”

Until next week,

Matthew Anderson, President
Milestone Marketing Associates, Inc.