Fabtech 2023 kicks off the season with one of the earliest major tradeshows for manufacturers. This 45,000-attendee show alternates cities each year and offers B2B technology companies an early preview of what works and what doesn’t in time for their booth planning for major 1Q 2024 shows like CES and Photonics West.

Most B2B technology companies have no shortage of demand but lack a robust sales and marketing presence to seize the opportunity for growth. Engineering-driven companies have a healthy skepticism about marketing and often lack the core competency internally.

Automation and digital transformation are the next revolution in productivity. This is driven by a severe shortage of skilled labor and supply chain disruption is capping growth for advanced manufacturing across the sectors we serve. Automation has the potential to improve output, introduce new capabilities, improve margin, and grow revenue—but the skilled labor gap is making this change an imperative.

Integrating renewables into energy frameworks. Outdated energy infrastructures with increasing energy demands. Ever-changing regulations and political pressures. It's no wonder people who work in the energy industry are exhausted.

Change fatigue is a real thing and it's costing your company. Organizational restructuring, new technologies, process improvements, upskilling...employees are experiencing anxiety and may show resistance borne from fear. Here are some strategies for helping employees manage change.

For many, it’s budgeting season as companies work through their strategic plans for the coming year. This means something different in every B2B industrial company we surveyed:

What to expect in 2023? After the last two years, we are prepared for anything! There are ongoing changes to privacy regulation and management that will impact what you can measure, and what you should expect in the year to come.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation have become buzzwords in recent years, and for a valid reason. These advanced technologies are revolutionizing the way businesses approach their marketing strategies by enabling high levels of efficiency, increased personalization, and improved customer experiences. The marketing industry is now leveraging AI and Automation. We’ll explore the top 5 AI and Automation techniques that every marketer should be aware of.

Appropriate change management and internal communications are critical to the success of your change plan, whether that’s driven by:

• Digital transformation
• M&A integration
• Reorganization or business model change

Lessons Learned from Students, Candidates, Employees & Employers 

Introduction:

I was proud to be asked to lead this roundtable discussion on a topic that is critical to the growing field of photonics. That in no way makes me an expert in DEI. As a business owner who works with many of the market leaders in photonics, I am simply committed to doing the work.

I’m pleased to share the highlights from our active discussion on topics including:

• What’s the state of the industry today?
• What are some actions you can take to improve diversity in photonics, whether you’re a student, candidate, employee, or employer? 

Supply chain disruption, workforce shortages, market volatility, margin pressure—what else is ahead for advanced manufacturing in the US for 2023?  In this video, Michele Nichols, President of Launch Team, shares growth rates, opportunities, and trends, including winning strategies on how to create a competitive advantage in light of market forces.  She also covers what advanced manufacturers can expect in the coming months and years.

We're headed to FABTECH 2022, November 8-10 in Atlanta, Georgia.

The HubSpot INBOUND conference is always a great opportunity for marketers to learn about the latest trends and strategies from fellow marketing professionals and leaders. This year's conference was no exception and as a HubSpot Platinum partner, we came away with new approaches to try, current best practices, and good reminders for us and our clients.

How are your peers in the industry reacting to the market conditions this year? We recently conducted a survey on sales and marketing mid-year results and their approach to budgeting and planning for the coming year.

There is no new normal. Every company we work with is experimenting with work modes, fully back in office, remote, and hybrid work environments. A recent Accenture survey revealed that 83% of workers say a hybrid model would be optimal for them. Given the competition for top talent, high-growth organizations are enabling productivity anywhere workforce models.

The pandemic forced most organizations to adapt and add additional sales, marketing, and service tactics to meet the needs of a remote world. Coming out of the pandemic, we are operating in a hybrid environment where employees and customers expect “all of the above”—all the digital, remote, and in-person options available in highly personalized combinations. The customer drives these combinations, and it is important to remember that omnichannel is customer-centric, not business-centric.

New York’s Climate Act, the nation's most ambitious clean energy initiative to date, challenges industries and communities to reach 100% zero-emission electricity by 2040, 70% renewable energy generation by 2030, and economy-wide carbon neutrality.

Experts predict cleantech will increase jobs, drive the development of new technologies, and strengthen both the regional and state economies. Already, investments in cleantech have created approximately 158,000 jobs in New York’s clean energy sector, just in the year 2020.

With workforce shortages hampering many companies’ growth and changing customer expectations, culture and brand are more important than ever. Strong brands ring true internally and externally, so you can’t effectively address brand without addressing culture.

Michele Nichols, President of Launch Team, sat down with the AZO Network to bring insights from the latest research on company culture, brand building, and creating an authentic competitive advantage. During the webinar, Michele discussed actionable ways to attract and retain employees and customers and answered audience questions. You can also watch the full recorded webinar here.

In a world of ever-shorter attention spans and the scarcity of labor, gamification can offer a way to attract, engage, and motivate your team. Gamification uses game elements in a non-gaming context, a concept that has been helping companies to improve employee engagement and outcomes.

“Change is coming”--it's a bit of a troupe. After the world-changing experience of the COVID pandemic, frequent, rapid change in business has become universal and continual. [Check out our blog on important lessons learned.] Some of the biggest changes are common across all businesses:

The organizational culture that you establish may be your most valuable asset and the key to your growth. Although culture and brand are both thought of as hard to define, measure, and manage, it’s important to understand the impact of brand equity on profit margin, customer acquisition, and customer retention. Being able to measure the value of your business culture will ultimately drive authenticity within your organization.

Is your culture a true competitive advantage? In today's market, with little opportunity for face-to-face relationship building, your business culture matters more than ever to ensure a positive customer experience and win the war for talent. Brand development based on a strong culture supports connection, growth, and sustainability within the working environment. Take a look at 9 ways you can leverage culture in your company to help strengthen your brand and promote a positive company.

Another successful year at Photonics West is in the books! With the show being back in person again since it last was in 2020, we wanted to share some main themes that we observed after attending in person at this year's event.

We have missed seeing our photonics clients face to face and hope to see many of you at Photonics West January 23-27. We’ll be sharing market insights and marketing best practices and catching up with old friends. Watch for Launch Team at: 

We are proud to have been among all the finalists at the 2022 ATHENA awards ceremony, sponsored by the Women’s Council of the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce. Many congratulations to this year's winners! 

The ATHENA Organizational Award honors women leaders who demonstrate excellence in their field, create dynamic, supportive company cultures, and give back to their communities. We’re so excited to be a finalist for this award – joining the ranks of other women in Rochester who embody these values every day.

Here we are, entering another year where the only certainty is uncertainty. Take a deep breath and recognize all the growth you’ve achieved and the stability you’ve provided in spite of rapid change. You’re helping to build a culture of resilience and action in the face of ambiguity. 

This year’s MD&M East, an expo that spans medtech, packaging, automation, plastics, design, and quality for the largest design and manufacturing event in the East, was a low-attendance, high-quality show that formed the backdrop for interesting conversations. What’s next for medtech? What are the implications for product development, product launch, suppliers, and consumers?

With a year full of new challenges, the ups and downs of the Pandemic, and managing hybrid work we wanted to take a moment to share some of our client wins from this year. Dive into the 2021 success stories of our clients.

Digital transformation today is taking place at a pace that is 20-25x faster than pre-2020. Changing at unprecedented speed comes with inherent risk, and in this case, digital transformation is largely treated by leadership and operations teams as a series of independent IT projects instead of realizing its full potential as a driver of competitive advantage.

Mergers and acquisitions present challenges to even the most seasoned leadership teams. Executing a strong and organized communications plan—one that delivers the right messages to the right constituents at the right time—can help a merger or acquisition go smoothly and establish unity and profitability. Yet, despite the best-laid plans, change management is always hard and you’re sure to encounter challenges along the way.

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is a place for businesses to collect data that can help increase productivity, internal communication, and training support within your sales team. It can also help to create a bridge of information for marketing to use for optimizing campaigns. But, your CRM can reach beyond these two teams, providing valuable information for many other departments at your company that can help your executive team make decisions.

The online world can be a scary place, and more and more companies are cracking down on privacy protections for users. However, with those rollouts of changes happening, it ultimately will affect the marketers, advertisers, and web developers on the other side. So, what exactly is happening and how might it affect you?

After a year of off-site and hybrid accommodations, we've all come to miss each others' faces. And as we approach 2022 and reflect on the changes these past years have brought to our clients and industries, our team took the chance to bring everyone back together in person and organize an insightful retreat on the shore of Canandaigua Lake. This team-building experience gave us the opportunity to reflect on market trends, growth, and how we can best support and improve on our external and internal communications. 

Tradeshows are back, but the best in class aren't back to 'business as usual'--conference organizers and exhibitors are rethinking tradeshow goals and approach post-pandemic. FABTECH was one of the first big industrial conferences to return. What was it like? Who did it well? In-person attendance, by casual observation, felt slightly lighter, but exhibitors were pleased with the booth traffic and quality of leads. FABTECH organizers were committed to a safe, inclusive experience, with hybrid streaming content and pre-recorded educational sessions. As much of the show is capital equipment, exhibitors were faced with a costly decision: live equipment demo or video? 

After last year's cancellation, FABTECH 2021 is back live and coming at full speed on September 13-16 in Chicago, Illinois! A lot has happened since FABTECH 2019 — from a dramatic shift to an all-remote environment for over a year, to now a period of re-opening and navigating hybrid workforces and employee engagement. One thing is for sure, we are happy to be back and present at live events. 

Employee engagement is important all the time, but we are in a period where its importance has
become paramount. COVID-driven location dispersion, general anxiety, and employee dissatisfaction have made engagement even more challenging. 77% of US employees are currently reporting burnout and 52% of employees intend to look for a new job. In addition, nearly two-thirds of US-based employees that McKinsey surveyed said that COVID-19 has caused them to reflect on their purpose in life. And nearly half said that they are reconsidering the kind of work they do because of the pandemic.

With the dramatic shift to an all-remote environment for over a year, and now a period of re-opening, Launch Team President, Michele Nichols, and Red Argyle CGO, Ron Wille, catch up on changing customer behaviors and the future of sales and marketing.  

In a high-growth economy and tight labor market, understanding your company’s core competencies can help you quickly and effectively seize opportunities and improve financial performance. These are the foundation for:

Organizations in every industry are undergoing change initiatives, whether market-driven, customer-driven, or operational. To succeed, you’ll need employee engagement and support for well-defined, measurable goals. That’s where dashboards come in.

Employee engagement has been top of mind for business leaders for years and has only grown in importance after a year of most workers operating remotely. The topic made headlines with the WeWork CEO’s controversial comments recently at the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival, stating that more engaged employees want to come back to the office. “Those who are least engaged are very comfortable working from home,” Sandeep Mathrani said. The debate about his comments shows how strongly many feel about the concept of engagement.

Utilizing all of the resources in your existing toolset is imperative for your company’s day-to-day success and growth. In the Lunch and Learn, Maximizing Your Toolset Series, Launch Team’s Account Manager Alex Ormond talks about how you can align your team and processes in a remote work environment. Alex walks through the best ways to get the most out of your existing toolset while arming you with actionable next steps to apply these best practices. 

What’s next for the markets your technologies serve? It’s hard to get a clear read. There’s a dichotomy right now that is challenging for C-level leadership to interpret and declare a clear direction. With a broad perspective on markets like biotech, biopharma, diagnostics, instrumentation, medical device, aerospace, manufacturing, and industrial, we notice:

Years ago, we worked with an entrepreneur to help him prepare his company for an exit. He did all the right things: built and developed a talented team, grew his bench of successors, and partnered with us early to build a scalable sales and marketing competency that increased his valuation. He anticipated that it would take three years to complete a successful transaction. Instead, it was done in just 18 months.

In the medical device, optics and photonics, consumer electronics, and many other industries, a single first-quarter trade show can generate a significant portion of the year’s leads. Well, 1Q 2021 has come and gone, and many are finding that the virtual events have not been a sufficient replacement.

Michele Nichols, President of Launch Team, and Ron Wille, Chief Growth Officer for Red Argyle, which specializes in Salesforce development, consulting and administration, sit down to trade stories and best practices in digital transformation. Let's listen in.

Although many people are waiting to get back to the real trade show floor, virtual events are here for a while longer. In fact, many shows may even maintain hybrid or virtual formats even after floors open back up given the significant cost difference. However, we are repeatedly hearing about the difficulty associated with virtual events. Common challenges include:

We know that change is good, that's why we are expanding our change management support! Like you, we recognize how critical this is to the success of your organization's initiatives. In the companies we work with, the pace of change, employee fatigue, and the need for our support has grown over the last year. We are proud to announce that we are expanding:

Michele Nichols, President of Launch Team, joined the AZO Network podcast to discuss current engineering marketing trends and challenges, as the industry makes shifts to virtual event marketing and adapts to digital transformation.

Personalized marketing messages add value. According to McKinsey, marketing’s holy grail is digital personalization at scale because “personalization can reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50%, lift revenues by 5-15%, and increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10-30%.”

Gamification has some proven benefits to increasing customer engagement, but what can it do for your sales team? In many industries, risk aversion and market volatility mean slower sales cycles, lack of clarity on how to sell in a changing environment, and general sales malaise. Adding an element of fun and competition might be the answer to jumpstarting your sales team’s activities and helping them hit sales quotas.

Michele Nichols, President of Launch Team, reflects on the company's growth and success on its 35th Anniversary while looking forward to future achievements. 

With so many product launch timelines tied to trade shows, it’s a good time to step back and consider how to add an element of excitement, unveiling, and engagement without a live event.

Whether planned or a last-minute call, the vast majority of 2021 tradeshows will be virtual events. With a variety of offerings, platforms, and formats, it’s hard to know if this is a good investment or if you’re better off diverting the funds to your own marketing and events. Here, we break down one event, Photonics West, but our recommendations and ideas may be worth considering regardless of event or industry.

I hope you have taken the time to recognize and reflect with pride on what you accomplished last year. The team you built showed resilience and grit in adapting to challenging circumstances. The hard news: your team members are now in danger of burnout. As leaders, it is our job to provide the structure and tools to help them prioritize and focus on the year ahead.

Traditional thinking dictates that a venture capitalist’s first step after investment is to strip out overhead cost and create efficiencies. But in recent years, we’ve noticed a shift in the conversation  - new leadership is now focused on leveraging and positioning the existing brand. We are working with investors and CEOs to:

Welcome to 2021! We’re rested, recharged, and ready for a fresh start. While last year didn’t go quite as planned, as we look back, by and large, clients we work with met or outperformed their targets. We can’t help but notice some standout successes. Let’s take a closer look at how some of our clients managed to thrive despite less-than-ideal conditions.

Well, 2020 didn’t go quite as planned. Even for those in essential businesses with products and services in high demand, some basic assumptions changed. WHAT you do may be a constant, but consider if the HOW, WHO, WHERE and WHY are now new variables.

HubSpot, while quietly rolling out beta functionality all year, saves the big announcements for its annual Inbound conference. Even with the shift to virtual, there were over 250 sessions from global thought-leaders and big-name speakers, insightful case studies, and an awful lot of rah rah to help your marketing team embrace an inbound strategy. Whether you use HubSpot’s CRM, Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, or the full HubSpot growth suite, here’s a summary of the product updates:

Launch Team, Inc. is now a Platinum Tier HubSpot partner! Since the early days of HubSpot, we have been helping customers in advanced B2B technical industries get their marketing and sales teams aligned, and streamline their inbound marketing processes through HubSpot integrations.

Rochester, N.Y. (October 13, 2020) – Launch Team Inc., a Rochester-based marketing firm, is offering pro bono digital marketing services to local mission-driven non-profit organizations.

It's hard to imagine that we will be missing FABTECH 2020 this year, among many other cancelled trade shows. Last year, leading up to FABTECH 2019, we covered the market drivers, upcoming trends, and widespread changes in the advanced manufacturing markets. This year, despite the cancellation, sales and market growth continues.

For a company who hires for ability to deal with ambiguity, 2020 has really put us to the test. I am incredibly grateful to work with clients and colleagues who put people first and move forward despite such unusual times.

Now that we’ve entered the second half of a challenging and unpredictable year, it’s time to re-look at 2020 goals, and begin the planning and budget cycles for 2021. But how? Maybe it’s the unknowns, maybe it’s concern for the impact goals can have on your team’s morale and motivation—this feels particularly hard this time.

Whether you’ve been storing data in a CRM for years or your brand new to the tool, there are common challenges companies face that make their tool less effective. These challenges can impact your team’s efficiency, as well as your bottom line.

According to McKinsey, marketing’s holy grail is digital personalization at scale because “personalization can reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50%, lift revenues by 5-15%, and increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10-30%.”

Can your company relate to one or many of these scenarios? If so, read on!

• We have a tool, but no one uses it.
• We have tools that seem to be working, but no measurement of ROI.
• We have 5 tools, but I think we could consolidate.
• We want to do more, but we haven’t committed to spending the money on a tool to help.

Effective product launches and rebrands are thoroughly planned out according to specific timelines – the best time to announce the name, events with the biggest audiences, tactics that get the most traffic. It's rare that product launch planning has a contingency plan for a global pandemic.

As augmented reality and virtual reality tools continue to edge into health care, it’s easy to see the advantages. Color overlays and 3D renderings help surgeons make more informed decisions during a sensitive operation. Medical students practice procedures in a safe, immersive setting. An ultrasound technician conducts a hands-free examination at the patient’s bedside with a lightweight, portable display. In the end, digital realities such as these are aimed at improving patient outcomes. AR and VR will become more commonplace in the health care industry and it’s up to the medical device manufacturers to help push innovations into this sector.

As marketing experts and Marketing Automation (MA) consultants, we’ve noticed a vicious cycle that many companies fall into with their software toolset: companies buy a tool, hate it, and purge, buy a tool, hate it, and purge, buy a tool, hate it, and purge, and continue to wonder why there aren’t technology options available for their needs. This is obviously bad for efficiency, but what about the unnecessary costs? For example, the average cost of a full-scale Salesforce implementation can run an organization anywhere between $5,000 and $100,000! And for companies shopping for their first marketing automation (or marketing drip) platform, we continue to hear that all the options and the work involved in planning for a successful implementation is extremely overwhelming.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), is a $2.2 trillion package to address the coronavirus crisis. There are many programs available to help small and medium sized businesses (SMB) adjust and survive during this time. The U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship has put together a guide to the CARES act, which you can download here. Some of the resources available for small businesses include:

In the best of times, employees report “better communications” as their top suggestion for improvement on nearly every leader’s 360° survey. It has become a trope…and the scourge of every leader.

Extended reality is the umbrella term for all real-and-virtual combined environments and human-machine interactions generated by computer technology. Over the last 20 years, augmented, virtual, and mixed reality technologies have seen mass adoption for consumer use due to new innovations in the semiconductor and photonics industries. While these extended reality (XR) technologies are heavily implemented in a creative economy, it’s predicted that ER technology will spread into more diverse industries with extensive near-term growth potential. As worldwide spending on XR products and services is predicted to be $18.8 billion in 2020, it is useful to understand this complicated market to better position your brand in the market.

This February, I was honored to present at SPIE Photonics West with other photonics industry experts. With business development (BD) and marketing tied up on the exhibition floor, sessions like our AR/VR Market Outlook, Photonics Outlook, and LFW’s Laser Marketplace, tended to attract C-level thinkers. Their strategies, experiences, and questions revealed some trends:

Another year at Photonics West, the leading event for photonics and laser companies, is in the books! With over 5,000 presentations and 1,300 exhibiting companies, the consensus so far is that traffic was down and quality was up. After months preparing client booths, websites, collateral pieces, and campaigns, we're excited to share a few favorites!

The CCPA was created with the goal of enhancing the privacy rights of California residents. Going into effect on January 2020, the CCPA requires businesses to take several steps to be compliant. The law is comparable to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) but takes certain measures even further, like having a broader definition of what constitutes private data.

In our planning and strategy sessions we always center the conversation around data-driven decision making. So, we decided to dig up 20 sales stats to help you build your sales plan in 2020. Want to talk to an expert about hitting your sales goals in the new year? Contact us for a free consultation.

Sandy Sloane | Solutions by Sloane

For this post we talked with Sandy Sloane, the President of Solutions by Sloane. Her business serves as an extension of her clients’ existing internal training, employee engagement, special events, and public relations teams, complementing and enhancing what they are already doing or what they simply don’t have time to do. Sandy works closely with Nextcorps Luminate, a 6-month intensive accelerator program located in Rochester, NY, the imaging capital of the world.

As we gear up for FABTECH 2019, we'd like to take a step back and look at the market drivers, upcoming trends, and widespread changes in the advanced manufacturing market. Our experience last year told us that we would see growth in additive manufacturing, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI). The jury is still out on the numbers for specific growth in these areas, but we have certainly seen some market indicators over the past twelve months.

The New Sales Process & The End of the Test Drive

Sales, at its worst, is exemplified by the stereotypical used car sales process. The high pressure, lack of pricing transparency, the awkward test drive, peering under the hood pretending you know what you’re looking for, and the hand-offs from department to department... it’s a game no one seems to enjoy.

Chatbots and live chat technologies are transforming the customer service model and sales processes. Slowly but surely, chat systems have gone from the pesky little pop-up that interrupts your browsing experience (okay, there are still a lot of those ones) to the fast, 24-hour support we expect from brands in today’s digital world. By 2020, it’s expected that 80% of businesses will be using chatbots, and recent stats show that consumers support the move toward AI (artificial intelligence):

Whether you’re a startup working through a product launch, or a large enterprise operating a small division, there will probably come a point where find yourself in the catch 22 of business growth: You need more accounts to fund a sales team, but you need more sales from your current team to get there. It’s through these growing pains that efficiency is paramount in your sales process. We’ve been helping companies overcome challenges like this for over 30 years, and we’ve got some tips to share from this experience.

In a vast sea of marketing automation (MA) platforms, it’s hard to pick the right tool – let alone fully understand what you’re even getting from your tool. And let’s be honest, every tool has email marketing and at the right paid level some type of automation, so what else should you be looking for when evaluating MA platforms? While our team is platform agnostic and works in powerful tools like HubSpot, Pardot, and Marketing Cloud, this blog post will dig into a few key features SharpSpring has to offer and why we feel they are valuable!

With more than half of 2019 behind us, we wanted to take pause and perform a status check on the markets we serve. It's important to understand the state of the market before we begin to plan for 2020 internally and for our clients. Here's a summary at a glance.

This year HubSpot improved the Google Ads integration by allowing users to upload contact lists for targeting, monitor the performance of ads, see improved reporting, and edit various ad settings, all directly in the HubSpot user interface. With this new level of integration comes a whole new level of questions about setting it up and making it run smoothly. See below for a basic overview of getting started or send us an email with questions. We’re always happy to help.

Not sure if you should be using Google Ads at your company? Check out our other post, Is Google Ads the right fit for your B2B Marketing Plan?

Product Launches with a Bang, not a Trickle

There are a lot of moving pieces to an effective product launch. Whether you're new to it or a veteran of product launch planning, there are a lot of moving pieces and business ramifications. As the launch date approaches, the activity increases, making it easy to overlook something or cut corners. Keeping track of who is responsible for what and when it must be done challenges even the most organized professionals. Many business leaders find it is in their best interest to seek external support to help organize and execute key activities.

Developing a marketing plan that sustains steady, consistent growth is imperative for your organization's success. Building a strategy that yields double digit revenue growth every year requires putting the customer first, and building around their specific needs. In the webinar Marketing and Sales Models for Sustainable Growth, Launch Team’s President Michele Nichols talks about how a company can achieve this goal by focusing on the customer first, with a data driven, educational mindset at the core of their marketing efforts. Michele also touches upon how customer behavior is changing and how companies should be adapting to support them.

Launch Team has recently expanded our team with two new valuable members to better serve our growing customer base and services. Additionally, to account for our new growth, we will be moving to a new location just down the road from our current location. Meet our new team members and our new home below!

Whether you are in a start-up or second stage growth, taking your current size into consideration is important in evaluating and prioritizing marketing tactics and spend. In a recent webinar, Launch Team’s President Michele Nichols discussed the many approaches to developing your marketing mix and how companies in the technology space can help find leads and connect with potential customers. She also elaborated on:

• Specific types of tactics that are working for customers
• How to identify what tactics are advantageous and what are outdated.

By now, you know that Salesforce is gearing up for its Summer ’19 release, which will arrive in North American orgs on June 15. As usual, the release notes for this update are very long, but they do include a number of exciting new features to explore. If you get a chance, we encourage you to go read them in full—but for those of you who simply don’t have time, we’re providing some especially notable highlights here.

The following blog post is a client alert created by Mike Snarr, a Partner, and Casey Holder, an Associate, at Baker & Hostetler LLP. You can find the original posting here, and you can contact Mike or contact Casey with any regulatory concerns or questions. It is recommended that you view the following primers prior to reading this article:

• Substantial transformation
• Duty drawback
• FTZ and bonded warehouse

FIX ISSUED: Update as of 12:00pm EST, 5/21/2019:

Salesforce is now stating that a fix has been implemented and the incident is being declared over for users outside of NA53, 57 and 59. Anyone still experiencing issues should submit a support ticket if there are any left-over permission issues discovered.

Talk of a full-scale trade war between the US and China may sound dramatic, but the latest tariff applied to Chinese goods will have a major impact on the costs of materials coming to the US. The full list of affected goods, available here, includes fresh food and dry goods, consumer goods like hats and handbags, as well as a large list of manufacturing materials such as glass, aluminum, gold, electrical parts, and machinery.

Several of today's popular CRMs offer a variety of services all within the cloud. Cloud computing can do wonders for efficiency, allowing for more data storage, faster data retrieval, and ultimately higher satisfaction for end users and customers. But, with more companies across all industries moving sensitive information into the cloud, data security is becoming a greater concern.

Imagine a salesperson—what comes to mind? We all likely picture the cliché car salesman who is pushy, "all-knowing", always closing, and solely commission driven. We may even suspect that this is appropriate behavior for a salesperson. Now consider the last time you purchased a car. How much research did you do before interacting with sales? What did you want from that salesperson? Did you care most about the expertise to answer your questions or the willingness to move at your pace?

Although expertise is necessary for a salesperson's success, the strongest next gen salespeople understand where the customer is in the buyer's journey and how to help them continue on that journey. Customers have changed and it is important that your organization keeps up with new buyer needs—whether that means engaging the help of a sales consultant, integrating new sales technologies, or revamping the sales process all together. 

Whether virtual or in person, we’re spending our work lives in meetings that aren’t working. Research shows that 67% of meetings are ‘failures’, and have lost their primary reason–getting things done.

Where have our meetings gone wrong? Over time, the amount of time spent in meetings and number of meetings held has increased significantly. Daily, upwards of 11 million meetings are held in American businesses, averaging a time frame of 31-60 minutes. These longer meetings have led to a 10% increase in the time employees spend in meetings since 2000.

It's safe to say that in 2019 we are exposed to thousands of ads per day. Because of this, many Americans implement an ad blocker into their browser, causing an estimated $9.1 billion in missed revenue in 2019 alone. Getting inundated with intrusive advertisements is bad enough for consumer trust and attention, but when you add on annoying marketing tactics, it's clear why 72% of people dislike online popup ads, and 43% dislike native ads.

You kicked off 2019 with a well-developed and detailed marketing plan, but now that Q1 is over and revenue numbers are in, it's time to take a look at performance. Your first quarter marketing metrics are essential to answering the questions that will help you have a successful Q2. Key questions to ask include:

Follow our 3-step process to make the switch to salesforce lightning.

Here’s a few of our long-standing commitments, and what’s new for 2019:

The Spring ’19 release of Salesforce is less than a month away. For those of you who haven’t had a chance to browse through the official release notes, here’s a quick rundown of the most important new items for this first update of 2019.

Whether you’re choosing your first CRM or transitioning to a new one, it’s a big decision — one that will lead to even bigger impacts on your team. Training your team to use a CRM efficiently is as important as the data that will be kept in it. If they don’t know how to use it comfortably, the transition into a new CRM tool can be a difficult one.

Corporate positioning is one of the most important ingredients in establishing a company’s position in the marketplace. However, it’s often overlooked because most organizations believe they know what their target audience needs and wants. Strong positioning starts from the beginning and creates a clear path highlighting your product or service in the market.

Client relationships are an incredibly valuable resource for businesses of any size, and the holidays are a perfect time to reach out with warm wishes to all of your contacts. But wrangling a huge mailing list can get overwhelming during a hectic yearend. So what’s the best way to check off your holiday “nice” list? Channel your inner St. Nick and get it all done in a wink using a full-featured CRM like Salesforce!

Returning from 2018 FABETCH, which spanned 3 exhibit halls and attracted over 30,000 attendees, we’ve had the opportunity to see and hear the concerns and market drivers US advanced manufacturers are facing. FABTECH was an excellent opportunity to take a step back from our work with advanced manufacturing clients throughout the US, for a broader, forward-thinking perspective.

FABTECH 2018, which spanned 3 exhibit halls and attracted over 30,000 attendees, is North America’s largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event—and offered a fascinating and forward-looking view at advanced manufacturing.

Your company is small but growing. When should your team consider implementing a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM)? A better question may be, how far do you want to go?

Google recently renamed one of its more powerful marketing tools (AdWords, now Google Ads). As with anything like this, we saw a spike in conversation over the new name and how old habits die hard. However, for many small to medium businesses in the science and technology space, the tool itself is still a mystery, regardless of the name.

As the digital landscape expands, more and more small to medium-sized businesses are utilizing marketing automation tools to take their sales process to the next level. Most often it seems that companies this size narrow their choices down to competitors HubSpot and Salesforce’s Pardot. We had two of our team members compare and contrast the two tools. Sarah Campagna and Sarah Holland break down both tools’ offerings and share tips to consider for integrating marketing automation into your sales process for 2018 and beyond.

As the bull market continues and proposed defense budgets are growing, most optics and photonics companies are reporting strong sales and a general sense of optimism. With that comes a new challenge, though: when your revenue base becomes too concentrated on a single industry or customer, your risk of market pull-back or decreased demand increases.

Quick Wins for the Last Quarter

Welcome to 4Q, where we’re planning for 2019 while trying to close out 2018 strong. Especially in sales and marketing for manufacturing, where we’re balancing capacity, booked revenue and shipped revenue targets, it’s a challenging time. For better sales and marketing alignment and a stronger close to the year, here are some key questions to ask your team:

A launch plan that takes a product from concept to commercialization almost always involves acquiring external funding. Pitching your business is a specialized form of B2B brand positioning, as the product is yourself and your ideas. Giving a good pitch is a combination of research, preparation, and presentation.

For the first time in over 100 years, there are four generations in the workforce. Differences in communication styles among these groups can have real implications for your marketing.

Josh Cobb, Senior Optical Engineer with Corning (Tropel), has spent years in the optics industry learning, teaching, and learning more. We sat down with him to hear more about his work in the classroom and in the field with the Advanced Optics division of Corning.

Launch Team, Inc. has been granted status as a Women Business Enterprise (WBE) by the New York State Department of Economic Development, Division of Minority and Women’s Business Development (DMWBD).

Madi Jacobs  | Graphic Designer 

While at work, you will most likely find Madi working through every last detail of a project in Photoshop. When she's not at work, Madi is most likely off adventuring with her dogs.

Considering all the decisions you have to make in setting up a CRM, closely aligning your sales process with your stages should be at the top of your priority list. In a healthy pipeline, the two will work together to help your entire team communicate effectively. Alignment also helps sales managers efficiently oversee the sales process, pipeline and staff.

Regardless of which CRM application you use, some denotation of deal status will exist. You may just need to dig your way through the jargon to get there. For example, Hubspot CRM calls this “Deal Stage,” while Salesforce.com just calls it “Stage”. Either way, it's important not only to understanding the role of a stage, but also to make sure it's clearly defined.

Lumetrics: A Case Study in Content Success

Not too long ago, Lumetrics, a Rochester N.Y. based company who makes high-precision thickness measurement and gauging systems, was spending around $3,000 per month on Google AdWords. The clicks were there but the leads weren’t. With only 2-3 new leads per week, Lumetrics’ leadership knew that their marketing strategy had to change. At the advice of Launch Team, Lumetrics began using the HubSpot Marketing Platform for an inbound rather than outbound marketing approach. Lumetrics’ engineering team began developing technical application notes meant to drive not just web visits but new leads as well.

With the rapid advancements in head up display (HUD) technology in the automotive industry, the futuristic Hollywood depictions of holographic windshield screens are quickly becoming reality. Augmented reality (AR) windshield HUDs are becoming a large focus for mainstream automakers and suppliers to the point where it is expected that the market for HUD components market is expected to grow more than $5 billion in the next four years, becoming an $8 billion industry.

Whether you’re launching your first product or expanding internationally, a strong marketing plan is essential. Ensuring continued growth requires new perspectives and new strategies in many areas of the business. We’ve created a guide with sales and marketing best practices for five different stages of growth. Here are some highlights:

Join us on Demo Day during the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival.

Though it would be ideal to have a full six months to prepare for a product launch, this is not always a reality. Delays in funding, licensing, or product development challenges can put a product manager into a challenging situation where the window between product viability and revenue expectations is extremely narrow.

Report from XPONENTIAL 2018

With more than 8500 attendees, the AUVSI XPONENTIAL show is the largest event worldwide for drones, robotics, and unmanned systems spanning over 20 different industries. In our second year of attendance at the show, we noticed significant shifts in the market makeup, exhibitor’s strategy, and the unmanned industry as a whole.

Customer Experience Sells

We’ve spent over 30 years helping tech companies create marketing and sales strategies that reach new customers. Although the word “sales” typically conjures images of overzealous, comb-over-sporting used car salesmen, sales are a necessary part of your business’s profitability and growth. Sales funds innovation, which in turn fuels more sales.

Though Launch Team has been presenting at Photonics West for the past five years on the topics of sales and marketing, the questions that we are asked are a bit different each year. Many of these questions relate back to the topic of inbound marketing. This concept addresses the tremendous increase in online research that is done by the buyer before they engage with your company on an individual level. In order to be found by or attract leads who are searching for technical information, and to nurture these leads to a point of readiness and beat out the competition for the sale, technical content has become almost essential to success.

Paul Tolley, founder of Stretford End Solutions, a technology and business development consultancy, and former CEO of ITC MEMS and VP/GM of Syntec Optics, sat down with us to talk commercialization strategy.

Alison Arnold | Program Manager

While at work, Alison is most likely collaborating with colleagues to identify how to best bring value to our clients. Outside the office, Alison can be found at a little league game or other sporting event cheering her kids on.

Though I was enjoying LFW's Laser Marketplace at Photonics West, furiously taking notes while Allen Nogee revealed the 2018 market forecast and geeking out over photobiomodulation as Praveen Arany shared his research, the final session of the day was a marketer's dream. A panel of highly respected individuals in the industry had been asked the question—"What do bioinstrumentation developers need to know from the photonics industry?"

At a trade show that features the latest in the fast-developing field of unmanned technology, there is a lot of interest and noise. It’s the Wild West, and market leadership is up for grabs. So how do you make sure your company’s booth draws attention and traffic? Effective demos are key. Unique approaches to booth advertisement will get you noticed, too.

We noticed a number of powerful tactics at XPONENTIAL 2017. The following tactics are just a few your team could apply to any large trade show strategy.

We all have our favorite pair of shoes. They might be the ones that look great but don’t feel as great, the shoes that match everything, or the shoes that are surprisingly comfortable. We have favorites for work, going out—any number of occasions. But what about trade shows?

Michele Nichols | President

While at work, Michele is most likely encouraging innovative and creative thinking among employees. While at home, she is likely doing the same for her children—setting the table for new ideas and conversation.

Scenario: You’ve spent the past three days at a trade show. You were really good about not answering emails on your phone while on the exhibition floor. You ran a lead generation promotion that brought in double the leads over last year.

But now it’s Monday. You’re back in the office and your inbox is overflowing. You’ve downloaded the lead list, but there isn’t possibly enough time to do lead qualification research on all of them—and certainly not enough time to make calls. How will you ensure consistent lead follow-up?

Sometimes changing your brand demands real change internally. Your customer’s perception is reality, and a true brand can be seen and felt in every part of the organization.

CES, Photonics West, and other industry trade shows are just around the corner. Deciding how you will collect and manage leads is an important part of trade show planning, but the methods of lead capture vary. The most foolproof method of lead collection is using the official scanner provided at the event; however, due to the cost, many professionals are now relying on their phones to collect leads. Just be sure to test out any app you plan on using to work out any technical issues and make sure it will serve your needs.

Here are smartphone apps to try at your next trade show:

Launch Team Inc. is pleased to announce that we’ll once again be offering a free marketing class at the 2018 SPIE Photonics West conference.

Sarah Holland | Account Manager

At the moment, Sarah is settling into her new role as Account Manager, but outside of work you’ll likely find her at one of her children’s sporting events.

You may have seen our recent announcement that Launch Team has acquired One Down Consulting Group. It has come together fast, but was a long time in the making.

As we approach the year’s end and begin helping our clients map out next year’s marketing activities, one aspect we consider is their presence at trade shows. Trade shows and conferences are expensive, so it is important to make the most of the time and dollars that you spend there. Here are some common questions emerge from these discussions, and some tips that can help you maximize trade show ROI:

We are pleased to announce that Launch Team Inc. has acquired One Down Consulting Group to strengthen customers’ sales channels.

Recent research predicts that R&D expenditure for medical devices will grow to $34 billion by 2022, but top line growth is slowing. And while this increase in R&D investment is a positive sign, uncertainty in healthcare reform is causing some paralysis in the market. How can companies overcome this risk aversion and really sell?

As we do each year, Launch Team has paired up with Novatek to take a close look at the current trends, changes and technologies that are impacting the medical device industry. From product launches to new sales models, we're examining the 2018 outlook and sharing our insights.

Is the blog dead? Marketing gurus have predicted the death of blogging on and off since 2009. In niche industries like optics and photonics, advanced manufacturing, and medical devices, many companies were slow to adopt a content-driven strategy because they believed their customers didn’t read blogs. Now that they’ve seen the ROI of blogging, we question how long it will remain viable. Let’s explore.

FABTECH in Chicago represents some of the fastest growing segments in U.S. manufacturing today, including laser marking and automation. Attendees are the ultimate users of many of the technologies we work in: laser diodes, optical assemblies, laser steering systems, coating technology, and capital equipment. Yet many of these companies know little about the end application and the users’ needs.

It's the fourth quarter, and everyone is under pressure to close the year strong. For most companies, that means a mandate to cut spending and close more deals. However, one of those instructions often undermines the other. Marketing budgets are often the first to experience cuts, and these cuts can feel self-defeating. Marketing creates sales, and a healthy marketing and sales pipeline is key to sustainable growth.

Making this argument may not change your Q4 reality, though. Instead, we offer some practical suggestions of marketing and sales activities to stop, and some to start, to meet your budget and sales targets. 

I often hear from companies that their marketing team collects data for data's sake—that they are mired in the minutia of marketing analytics, which have little to no impact on the sales team. The marketing team in turn complains that the sales team doesn't take the time to put the data into the CRM, nor do they learn to use the CRM well enough to make use of the available data. The finger pointing is cyclical and can leave leadership in a quandary. In this case, I believe it is up to the marketer to prove the value of the data to the sales team.

Lessons from Upstate Social Sessions 2017

Last month I attended Upstate Social Sessions, a day-long conference in Rochester, NY focused on social media. The event, now in its third year, included presentations by national and local professionals who have used social media successfully in their fields. A favorite session among attendees was “Don’t @ Me: Navigate Controversy, Conversation and Comments.” 

Aimee Schenck | Program Manager

While at work, you are most likely to find Aimee bouncing between projects, organizing different client activities, or writing content―all while listening to music so loudly it takes 5 minutes to get her attention. When she's not at work, Aimee might be doing a DIY project, hiking, or playing basketball. She also plays the role of #1 Aunt to her niece.

One of the main decisions an Executive has to make regarding Salesforce.com is who is going to implement and support your solution. I have been in this space since 2001 and, in general, I see two different types of implementation partners: firms that lead with tech and firms that lead with consulting. The question is, which is right for you?

Salesforce.com has been talking about Lightning for over a year. It is on the way, and now is the time to start planning for it. 

Members of the Launch team trekked to Boston recently for INBOUND 2017, HubSpot's annual conference on inbound marketing best practices. It was a few team members’ first time attending, but it was a learning experience for all, as well as a chance to visit local Boston clients.

When Salesforce began in a San Francisco apartment 18 years ago, who would have imagined that today more than 150,000 customers would trust Salesforce to drive sales, service, marketing, and more every single day? In fact, every month, our customers facilitate more than 50 billion interactions powered by Salesforce.

Earlier this month I attended the Light and Sound Interactive (LSI) conference and expo, co-sponsored by Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the University of Rochester. The conference highlighted light and sound-based technologies and their applications in emerging fields such as virtual and augmented reality, gaming, cinema, and music.

We have an immediate opening for a full-time Business Development / Project Manager.

3+ years business development and project management experience required. Experience in the B2B / technology sector is preferred.

Work with prospective customers to explore solutions for product launch or market growth, and plan and oversee execution of marketing activities.

Join a strong, collaborative team that's focused on client results. We offer flexibility and great benefits. 

While virtual reality promised and failed to hit 2016 expectations, market projections still show that augmented reality and virtual reality will reach $108B by 2021. Consumer electronics are a high-volume opportunity for U.S. optical manufacturers, but they often remain elusive due to cost constraints. Does augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) offer some optics and photonics companies a stronghold? Let’s break it down.

Your end user is changing, and so is the way they access information. Today's customers want easy, quick access to content such as product documentation, application notes, and white papers. The design of your website (mobile-first, clear navigation) as well as your content (visual, customer-focused) can help keep customers and prospects engaged with your company. 

Trade Show Planning for Introverts

Industry events such as trade shows and conferences are a great place to build sales opportunities and learn from fellow professionals. If you're a bold personality, it's easy to excel in these situations. However, if you’re a more introverted person, major events can feel daunting—speaking from personal experience.

More than a Product Manager

The role of the product manager is increasingly important in industries like medical devices, where time to market is accelerating, and optics and photonics, where emerging markets are driving demand for product innovation.  

In growing small and mid-sized companies, the CEO is often the company’s best salesperson. As the company grows, so does the sales team, but the CEO seldom is able to totally abdicate a role in sales.

John Martin is the CTO and cofounder of Martin Materials Solutions, a U.S. company that manufactures innovative glass products for the aerospace market. Martin, whose goal is to drive the technology necessary to support this unique industry, has coined the term “spaceglass”, a reference to this truly unique type of glass.

I like to start each day by opening up the HubSpot marketing dashboards for each of my client accounts. I take a look at the numbers, the most honest assessment of how an account’s inbound marketing activities are performing.

Whether you’re starting a new company, establishing a spinoff, or considering a total rebrand, your company name is an important decision that will drive a lot of other aspects of your business.

The medical device market continues its slow and steady growth—projected at 2.8% annually for the next five years—making it an attractive and sustainable space for optics companies positioned to fill emerging needs. But where exactly does your company fit?

Successful entrepreneur Brian Pitre became fascinated with the UAV market in 2012. With a business partner and enough capital to cover a discovery phase of six months, Pitre traveled the country flying drones, meeting other early adopters of this new technology, and looking for the right opportunity to invest in this new high-tech market. Six months turned into 18 as Pitre saw the tremendous growth potential of the UAV market.

There's a lot more to budget planning than deciding how much to spend where. For some, it's setting a right-sized investment in marketing to match their growth goals. For others, it's optimizing their marketing budgets by shifting resources to what's working best today—namely, online channels. This shift involves a broadened focus on bringing in leads through websites, targeted social media, regular blogging, opt-in email subscribers, etc.

There’s no doubt that inbound marketing strategies are critical to the success of today’s businesses. However, traditional outbound strategies can still play a role in capturing your audience’s attention.

B2B companies can drive buyer awareness and action with print advertising in highly targeted industry publications, but without good design, ads can go unnoticed.

At a recent panel discussion, I was asked to share experiences in sales and marketing with an audience of Entrepreneurs’ Organization accelerator founders, along with fellow panelists Don Davis of Empire Automation Systems and Ron Valentine of ITX.

Bringing Customers to You

Blogging has been recognized for years as an important aspect of any marketing campaign. For Launch Team clients, the most immediate impact is in the short-game of lead generation. Blog posts are used as part of an inbound marketing program to direct readers to longer pieces of content like white papers, eBooks, and tip sheets that are form protected and used to generate leads. The blog post is designed to attract leads early in the buying process, those at the top of the sales funnel. Promoting blogs in strategic locations across the web is the most effective means we have of attracting new leads.

Ben Burton, president and CEO of iuvo BioScience, talks with us about his five-year strategic plan, targeting aggressive growth both organically and through mergers and acquisitions. The acquisition of Moog’s laboratory services business and recent divestiture of iuvo’s sterilization facility, LINK, in Erie, PA, will allow the company to focus on investing in expanding testing services.

Ben spent more than eight years at Bausch + Lomb as vice president of quality for its pharmaceutical business. We had the pleasure of tapping into his thought process on acquisition strategy—considering both cultural and branding implications.

Last spring, Michele Nichols and Aimee Schenck attended AUVSI XPONENTIAL, the prominent unmanned vehicle conference and exhibit, where some of our clients were presenting technical papers. Our team was also there for market intelligence, looking for market fit and viability for many of our component manufacturing clients. Even if you aren't ready to exhibit at a show, you can learn so much about the upcoming industry trends by simply walking the floor. Here are a few of our takeaways from last year's show:

Opportunities and Challenges

For optics and other component manufacturers, medical devices represent a strong opportunity—especially for those who need to diversify their revenue base from DoD.

The US medical device market growth rate has slowed in recent years; it’s projected at 6.1% for 2017. There are several factors slowing growth and innovation in US healthcare, including:

• The repeal and reform of the Affordable Care Act, and post-election uncertainty
• Iterative product innovation to speed product launch, reduce FDA hurdles, and reduce risk

In our last post, we discussed the growing interest in commercial applications for compact unmanned aircraft, or drones. Imaging, in particular, presents a real opportunity for optics and photonics component manufacturers. This emerging UAV market provides important lessons on the criticality of understanding and anticipating the needs of your target customers. Here are three things to remember:

Just back from SPIE’s Defense & Commercial Sensing (DCS) conference in Anaheim, and preparing for XPONENTIAL in Dallas next month, we’re noticing that the emerging drone market presents real promise as well as challenges.

The optics, photonics, and imaging exhibitors at SPIE DCS share a common challenge with XPONENTIAL’s component exhibitors—a great deal of unknowns in:

• UAV adoption curve
• UAV applications to invest in
• Requirements
• Regulatory environment

Marketing Strategies for UAV, LIDAR, and Emerging Automation Markets

With this year's show coming up, we looked back at the success of AUVSI Xponential 2017, the conference for unmanned technologies, drones, and robotics. The show featured more than 650 exhibitors and more than 200 courses covering the future of unmanned systems in energy, defense, automotive, wireless communications, and other industries.

Exhibitors and attendees, from optoelectronic component manufacturers to lasers and system integrators, had many common questions:

Effective strategic planning clearly establishes company goals and how you will meet them. It’s not something you discuss once in a meeting and then set aside; it’s an ongoing process with many moving parts. From regular budget checks to sales and marketing alignment to branding, you and your team should periodically revisit the different aspects of your strategic plan.

We have an immediate opening for a part-time or full-time Graphic Designer.

Print and digital experience required. Desired skill set: Adobe Creative Suite, template design for Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, HubSpot, among others. We offer flexibility, great benefits, and an interesting mix of work, from infographics to tradeshow booths, web to collateral. 

New product launch is risky, even for established companies with a defined product development and product launch process. In our work with high tech B2B companies, we’ve noticed a few places where companies often stumble.

It was all business at Photonics West 2017. The atmosphere was more serious and disciplined, with companies laser-focused on achieving specific marketing and sales goals and getting the most out of their trade show strategy. Our annual survey provides a look at these companies’ lead generation and follow-up success—check out the results to benchmark your own trade show performance.  [Take this year's survey!]

Occasionally we hear companies say that attending or exhibiting at trade shows brought them little ROI. The first question we ask is, “How many appointments with prospects did you have set up beforehand?” Frequently the answer is none. Hoping that prospects with a need will drop by your booth during the show, whether or not they are familiar with your company beforehand, is simply not enough.

Position changes reflect focus on coordinated marketing strategy

Launch Team Inc. is pleased to announce that three members of the team have taken on new roles within the company as it expands. Sarah Campagna has been named vice president of account services; Beth Shope, vice president of digital marketing; and Katie Steelman, content director.

Our team had the honor to teach a course called “The New Sales Model” during this year’s Photonics West industry track. We shared sales and marketing “wins” from our clients in the industry and asked participants to do the same.

Tom McManus, CEO of KegWorks, has worked to build a global, multi-channel, multi-brand corporation committed to “everything in the bar except the alcohol,” including their Line Logic and Behind the Bar brands.

Photonics West brings together more than 20,000 optics and photonics leaders from all over the world. SPIE’s industry track of courses is gaining momentum, and this year our team had the honor to teach “The New Sales Model.” There were some exceptional discussions among myself, Launch Team VP of Account Services Sarah Campagna, and sales and marketing professionals the industry. Couldn’t make the session? These attendee questions might provide some insight.

Booth design isn’t the only thing that can make or break a company’s trade show presence. Engaged, knowledgeable staff members who are eager to share their expertise are a must-have. A cool demo doesn’t hurt either. Check out the companies and events we thought shined at this year’s SPIE Photonics West, and what could have been better.

A Word to the “Whys”

You’re starting 2017 with a whole bunch of New Year’s resolutions for your business, gung-ho about your strategic plan. (Don’t have one yet? Download the one-page business plan.) A great plan has a clear vision and mission, a unique value proposition, measurable goals, and actions with accountabilities.

Most-Viewed Blog Posts

The data geeks in us love reviewing the year by the numbers. We identify what content was popular and useful to our audience so that we can continue to provide value in the new year. By views, here are the top 5 posts from 2016:

Technical Writing that Generates Leads

One of the first things we discuss with clients after positioning is their content. Content includes blog posts, white papers, tip sheets, and any other pieces of writing or video that are educational in nature as opposed to sales-related.

Inbound marketing will inevitably expand your company’s geographic reach—the internet is global, after all. It’s important to qualify leads from countries that represent a good fit based on:

• Industry clusters
• Competitive pricing
• Cultural fit

Elements of a Strong Marketing Strategy

In our work over the years, we’ve created many marketing plans and inherited dozens more. Most address the same basic components of a strategic marketing plan:

Launch Team Inc. President Michele Nichols will present a short course at the 2017 Photonics West conference to discuss inbound marketing and sales strategies for optics companies.

With rising trends in the medical device market such as 3D imaging and telemedicine, the consumer need for information is higher than ever. This article explains the basics of medical device classification and how to make sure your marketing adheres to FDA regulation.

According to a recent study of new product development, 39% of new product launches failed. Often these failures occur when companies don’t have a clear marketing plan, but there are other reasons, too. Improved internal communications can head off a number of these causes.

Last week we reported some of our findings from Hubspot’s INBOUND 2016 conference, including how to succeed using today’s sales model and how to overcome common inbound marketing challenges. This week we dive deeper into our favorite presentations and explore ways to improve email marketing, social selling, and conversations for a better customer experience.

It was Michele, Aimee and Mandy’s turn to attend HubSpot’s INBOUND conference this year in Boston. Each year we send part of our team while the rest hold down the fort at the office. While every member has been through HubSpot’s extensive training and certification, the conference offers the chance to interact with thousands of HubSpot agency partners and customers and to hear their experience with inbound marketing. Here’s what we learned:

Launching a new product or service is a significant undertaking for any business. You have invested considerable time, money, and resources in developing a new offering, honed your message and planned out your marketing activities, and you want those efforts to pay off. Although the ultimate goal is to engage your external audience and fuel sales, it’s also important to get buy-in from your team.

Over the past several months, we’ve done some research into what companies identify as their biggest challenge when planning marketing activities for a product launch. Though a well-established marketing plan is a large part of the groundwork for a successful product launch, we’ve found that many companies simply don’t have one. Our resources can help.

You asked—we answered.

Last week, we presented at an event for High Tech Rochester (HTR) and their manufacturing community, and at Optifest, Optipro’s annual manufacturing open house. Many companies like these, faced with overseas competitive price pressures and increasingly complex customer demands, struggle with what an effective sales model looks like now.

How many times have you said “I saw you left a voicemail. Haven’t listened to it, but I’m calling you back.”? I have to admit there are a number of unheard voicemails on my phone, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested or have not responded.

Many business leaders, particularly in manufacturing and high tech companies, are skeptical of inbound marketing; they think it’s “squishy” and question its value to the business. While it does take time to see significant growth, even those just starting to implement inbound strategies can achieve some wins relatively quickly.

Ron Wille, CEO of two INC 5000 companies and newly launched One Down Consulting Group, a consulting firm focused on aligning technology, process and people to grow sales, recently sat down with Launch Team President Michele Nichols to discuss sales trends and tips for technology companies. Check out Ron and Michele’s 11 tips for improving sales in just 1 hour.