How a hardware distributor entered the market of Smart Buildings in a smart way

About

The Belgian entity of Koning & Hartman is part of the Vinci Energies Group, among other companies like Cegelec. Koning & Hartman Belgium is well-known for being a distributor of high-quality hardware components like edge computers, power supplies, industrial PC’s and industrial automation solutions. In 2022 Koning & Hartman Belgium asked us to help them explore new horizons in the world of smart building solutions.

The Challenge

How to enter the new challenging market of smart buildings, with a long sales cycle, without losing touch with the core: re-selling hardware?

The Solution

After extensive market research and through brand repositioning, partnership identification and network activation, Salmön+Salmön increased awareness about Koning & Hartman’s new offer.

In the process of communicating this to the market, we have redesigned the existing CMS to ensure a beter organic traction of the content platform.

We also used a combination of technical and practical content to create thought leadership and nurture the leads in the funnel.

Last but not least, we came up with a brand new product group in the Koning & Hartman portfolio: “Smart Basics”. Smart Basics are the little brothers of Smart Buildings. It is hardware  – what K&H was already very well-known for – made intelligent with software that’s also licensed via K&H. Because of the lower threshold than smart buildings, Smart Basics are much easier to promote within the organization, sell to existing clients, and to attract new prospects.

The Result

We increased awareness within the audience that matters the most to Koning & Hartman: sweet spot targets are being brought in contact with content based on their stage in the buyer process.

  • Traffic on site x12 in 3 months.
  • More than 70% of companies on site are related to the targets that had been set.
  • Smart building solutions and smart basics are most engaged sections.
  • On average 6x more MQL on a weekly basis

Services Provided

  • Market research
  • Real-time competitor monitoring
  • Product positioning
  • Go to market strategy
  • Business Solutions
  • Strategic partnership identification & activation
  • Website make-over on the existing CMS
  • SEO architecture & content creation (semantical and technical)
  • E-mail marketing
  • Performance marketing (LinkedIn & Google ads & Online directories)
  • MQL generation
  • Data enrichment to smoothen SQL

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