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While other companies have struggled to stay afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, Monument is exploring new opportunities thanks to a digital marketing campaign planned in 2019.

Building on a 2019 Six Sigma project to identify new ways to generate leads and improve Monument’s visibility as a provider of tolling and custom manufacturing services, the cross-functional team of Sandeep Goel, Custom Manufacturing; Jeff Gould, Financial Planning & Analysis; Chad Nichols, Information Technology; and Jeff Weeks, Business Development, has been working diligently over the last several months to expand Monument’s digital marketing initiatives and online presence.

The team started the year by keeping the MonumentChemical.com home page refreshed with new banner images, feature stories, and the “Challenge Us” campaign. Next, a series of ads ran with SpecialChem, a platform that helps formulators find ingredients that meet their formulation needs. Targeted ads were developed for each of the industries covered in the platform’s bi-weekly e-newsletter. This effort generated approximately 70 new leads, mainly from the coatings industry, and resulted in a handful of potential projects.

“Sharing the official LinkedIn posts for these stories with a few comments was a great way to increase visibility and awareness beyond our followers,” said Sandeep. “Several of my connections responded with positive comments like, ‘This is great,’ or ‘I didn’t know Monument did that,’ which is exactly the type of awareness we’re trying to build.”

A Google AdWords campaign took place in March with the goal of increasing the visibility of Monument for searches related to tolling. “Before we started our campaign, Monument showed up on page 3 for key search phrases like ‘hydrogenation custom processing,’ which essentially meant that nobody saw us,” said Sandeep. “By creating ad campaigns that focus on our custom manufacturing capabilities, the amount of traffic to our site has increased dramatically. Since March, we’ve generated more than three times the number of leads from our website than we did in the previous seven months.”

Although the team didn’t know what was to come when they first planned the AdWords campaign, the timing has been ideal. “We’ve had to find creative ways to stay connected with customers while traveling to visit them in-person isn’t an option, and the campaign has helped us do this,” Jeff added. “Many of the leads and opportunities we’ve generated are the result of business disruptions due to the pandemic. Customers are dealing with shortages and looking for new supply chains to fill gaps. As their needs evolve and they look for new ways of doing things, Monument being more findable online has been a tremendous benefit to us.”

Chad agreed with this, saying, “The ability to adjust our ads and search phrases as needed while putting a cap on our daily spend has allowed us to manage risk while seeing real-time results.” His involvement ensured that leads generated by the team’s efforts were correctly captured in Salesforce, routed to the right contacts to follow up, and campaign results and progress can be measured and analyzed.

When discussing the results achieved with both Google and SpecialChem, Sandeep was quick to recognize the team’s work to develop new processes. “Before we launched our digital marketing initiatives, we didn’t have anyone responsible for managing and vetting leads. Now that leads are flowing in through Salesforce, and Jeff is reviewing those related to tolling, we have a better understanding of the opportunities out there and other capabilities we may want to explore in the future.”

Looking back on the progress made since the Six Sigma project was first launched, Jeff Gould is proud of the team’s accomplishments. “We started with a project to improve lead generation and have gone beyond this to build and enhance our digital capabilities,” he said. “By taking a chance on online marketing campaigns and improving our search visibility, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.”