Publicity Plus Targeted Advertising Vault Unknown Product Over Entrenched Competitor

Company on track for 600% sales growth, 15% market penetration after two years of product publicity

Like many successful small business entrepreneurs before him, Eric Rosenthal was determined not to stand still. As President of Magnet Paints an Amityville, NY-based paint manufacturer specializing in premium refinish and industrial maintenance coatings, Rosenthal had enjoyed some success in the architectural, industrial, and agricultural markets. Yet sales growth was far slower than he knew it could be, especially for a paint-over-rust, underbody-coating product sold primarily to maintain commercial auto fleets and farm equipment.

To expand his business to a new level, Rosenthal vigorously searched for new markets. He found what he was looking for in the vast automotive hobby, collector, and restoration market, with hundreds of publications serving the needs of potentially millions of car enthusiasts. Unfortunately, a competitive paint-over-rust product already dominated the marketplace and was firmly entrenched in the publics mind. To succeed, Magnet Paints would have to beat the category-killing giant of the car enthusiast, paint-over-rust marketplace at its own game. This would have to be done on a limited budget, starting with zero market visibility, and no distributors. Rosenthal was undeterred.

From market research, Rosenthal realized that car enthusiasts primarily used the paint-over-rust product to protect and maintain car underbodies, which otherwise would rust from exposure to water, ice, salt, fuel, and other corrosives. To distinguish Magnet Paints product from the established but generically named brand, Rosenthal re-named his paint-over-rust product Chassis Saver. This way, the brand name would underscore its benefits and correspond with how car enthusiasts would actually use it.

I studied my competitors product, pricing, and promotion," said Rosenthal. Quality-wise, I knew Chassis Saver compared favorably. As the manufacturer, we could offer essentially the same paint-over-rust product at a 30 percent discount. The problem was: how could we cost effectively convince consumers and distributors to try our product when our competitor had a virtual lock on the marketplace? With no name in the market, we had to go head-to-head with the established brand. We had to reach the buying public and say 'this is why you need to try our product."

Initially, Rosenthal tried some direct marketing without much success. The problem was not only that his product was unknown in the car enthusiast arena, but also that the sheer number of consumers involved was overwhelming. Reaching them by mail or phone was prohibitively expensive. As for distributors, Rosenthal says, With no name in the market and no one yet asking for Chassis Saver, we found it hard to approach distributors saying, 'Hey, Id like you to try to sell my product."

Rosenthal had a bit more success with an email campaign, using a mailing list he acquired from an online, auto enthusiast forum. However, he soon scaled back these efforts because people didnt like unsolicited email and he didnt want to alienate potential customers.

A firm believer in advertising, Rosenthal placed ads in a few restoration market publications with some success. However, the marketplace Magnet Paints was trying to break into was simply too big and too diverse to make real inroads using exclusively spot ads on a limited scale. And his budget was too small to blanket advertise in every industry and publication he wanted to cover.

I knew advertising would be part of the marketing mix," says Rosenthal. Yet for economic reasons I had to be selective and make an impact on a wider scale as well. I had to be in enough places at once to create a stir and get onto the 'radar screen of potential customers."

Shaking up the status quo was the biggest obstacle to overcome - and a one time ad or PR attempt wasnt going to do it," continues Rosenthal. To make headway against an established market leader, we needed to reach large numbers of potential customers over and over with our message."

In addition to carefully targeted spot ads, Rosenthal considered running his own PR campaign. However, a comparative lack of experience in the field and the daily demands of his business advised against this course of action. With only so much energy and so many hours in the day, its difficult to get the word out - even if you have the necessary PR know-how," says Rosenthal. You cant put off a PR campaign because you dont have time or dont feel like doing it now. It cant be something you do when you get around to it. And even if you manage to hire a competent in-house PR employee, you still have to police him to make sure hes doing it right."

Discovering Product Publicity

Opportunity presented itself to Rosenthal just over two years ago, when he read about a firm that specialized only in product publicity. On inquiry, he was convinced to give Torrance, CA-based Power PR a shot.

I had heard of typical full-service PR agencies, but the concept of performance-based product publicity really struck a chord with me," says Rosenthal. I knew that comparing my virtually unknown product to the market leader was the fastest way to gain mindshare, then marketshare, but was at a loss on how to cost effectively do it on my own. I decided to focus on what I was best at, and give product publicity a chance."

Founded in 1991, Power PR is a marketing public relations firm that specializes in gaining publicity for consumer, industrial, and high-tech clients. Having enabled the publication of more than ten thousand articles, the company's forte lies in explaining how a certain technology works for the benefit of its potential customers.

Marketing managers have long realized the importance of publicity for gaining recognition and establishing the credibility of their products. Given today's lackluster economy, public relations has gained renewed prominence as a means to attract new customers while keeping within tight marketing budgets.

Of course, advertising still ranks as a prime necessity, as pointed out by branding authority Jack Trout in his 1996 book, The New Positioning. "PR plants the seed. Advertising harvests the crop," wrote Trout. One can't live without the other. Advertising identifies you, positions you, and it clearly announces to the world that you offer solutions.

With publicity however, people readily recognize the editorial copy of electronic and print media outlets as objective arbiters of the "real" story. When a magazine features a story about a successful implementation of a new system, for example, the magazine editor stands as the person telling the story. If the story is told from the standpoint of a satisfied customer, such as in a case history article, then so much the better. Other similar customers will eagerly seek out that solution to their problem. In effect, publicity begins the sales process.

The writers at Power PR interviewed both Rosenthal and successful end users of Chassis Saver. They translated its benefits in time and dollar savings, highlighting its benefits for vintage car and truck enthusiasts, professional restoration shops, and fleet managers interested in heavyweight rust protection at lower cost. Once written and approved by all parties, Power PRs staff then spent hundreds of hours actually getting the articles placed in prestigious trade publications.

Product Publicity Gets the Word Out, Multiplies Ad Effectiveness and Cross-Sell

Over the past two years, Magnet Paints has enjoyed an average of eight published stories a month. This, in fact, has helped guide the company toward some truly powerful advertising in select publications.

At one point, we appeared in so many stories that we couldnt believe what was going on," says Rosenthal. We knew we had a winner because the phones wouldnt stop ringing. We were used to taking a limited number of calls from commercial clients, but suddenly we were getting 30 calls an hour for one particular item. In fact, one night after my office staff had left, I found myself strapped to the phone taking orders for 90 minutes. I took at least 20 orders for Chassis Saver and a similar number of catalog requests."

The broad publicity campaign actually helped us target our advertising toward some potent ad placements," continues Rosenthal. Based on measured response to magazine publicity, we identified one publication that produces over 200 responses a month from a small classified we continue running. We never wouldve known the magazine had this kind of drawing power if it werent for the article it ran. In another publication that goes to about 200,000 upscale farmers, we won the 2002 New Product Award in the transportation category based on the large number of reader responses."

Sales for Chassis Saver rose 100 percent during the first year of product publicity, followed by another 200 percent in the next six months, says Rosenthal. At this rate, the product is on track for 600 percent growth over two years of publicity, combined with targeted advertising.

After a spot on TNNs Trucks TV my website went crazy," says Rosenthal. We got thousands of Internet leads within a week from that. We now receive at least 10,000 unique visitors to our website monthly, without spending a dime for clicks. Daily traffic is 50 percent non-referral, which means that people are entering magnetpaints.com directly into their browser."

Not only are auto enthusiast websites linking themselves directly to Magnet Paints website, but also distributors are calling. Starting from zero distributors just two years ago, Magnet Paints now has over 100 distributors listed on its website with more calling Rosenthal on their own. I got a call from a Sherwin Williams retailer in Canada who wanted to sell Chassis Saver after some of their customers requested it," says Rosenthal. With product publicity, weve stimulated consumer end use, and now distributors want us because their own customers do."

Through sustained product publicity and select advertising against an entrenched competitor, Magnet Paints share of the paint-over-rust market has zoomed from zero to about 15 percent over the last two years. Additional sales benefits have accrued as well. For example, when approaching clubs in the auto industry, Rosenthal finds that the list of 200 publications that have run stories on Magnet Paints opens doors for him. Along with direct mail, we include a list of the publications that have mentioned us," says Rosenthal. This holds a lot of weight. People recognize us and become much more receptive to contact."

Whats more, product publicity plus advertising creates a cross-selling multiplier effect. When people call Magnet Paints, view their catalog, or visit their website in response to Chassis Saver, they say they didnt know about all the other products. For example, an antique auto enthusiast might also use Chassis Saver or another Magnet Paint product in his professional role as construction maintenance supervisor. Through publicity, the company cross-sells and opens new markets they wouldnt have known about otherwise. In this capacity to cross-sell, Magnet Paints paint-over-rust rival cant effectively compete because it doesnt have Rosenthals breadth of product offerings.

The secret to gaining marketshare from an entrenched business competitor," concludes Rosenthal, is to get your carefully crafted and positioned message to large numbers of the right people. Seeing your product or company over and over in multiple places gets people talking. Thats what PR, plus targeted advertising does. I get calls from people saying, 'I see you everywhere, so I finally decided to call you."

For more information about Magnet Paints or Chassis Saver, write to them at 336 Bayview Avenue, Amityville, NY 11701; call (800) 922-9981; fax (631) 842-8222; or visit www.magnetpaints.com/underbody.asp.

For more information about publicizing your consumer, industrial, or high tech products write to Power PR at 3711 Lomita Blvd., Suite 200, Torrance, CA 90505; call (800) 757-3715; fax (310)-787-1970; or visit www.powerpr.com.
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By Del Williams

Del Williams is a technical writer based in Los Angeles, California.