B2B Integrated Marketing

An incredible media release: The RoadStar^TM product launch by Philips Lumec

Our client, Philips Lumec, was introducing a new product into the outdoor lighting market called the RoadStar^TM.

Philips Lumec is Canada’s top manufacturer of decorative and functional outdoor lighting products, both contemporary and traditional, as well as a major player in the United States. Their products can be found everywhere, as shown by their varied projects in Asia, Mexico and the Caribbean.

The RoadStar^TM luminaire is an incredible piece of engineering and design, produced to address the need for large area LED lighting (to replace typical roadway luminaries (CobraHeads) seen on major arteries and streets). The RoadStar^TM brings to the table many advantages that simply didn’t exist before its appearance.

Exo had been involved in many aspect of this new product launch, from inventing the name, the positioning statement, creating advertising, to researching the market that will use this product. During this time, Exo gathered a lot of pertinent information, not only on the product, but how it is perceived by the industry.

Developing the media release

During the research project with Philips Lumec’s target clientele, it was discovered which benefits are of most importance to them. Energy efficiency came out in first place. Which gave us our title: Philips Lumec answers call for energy conservation with new LED-based roadway light.

The RoadStar^TM can save up 50% on energy consumption. Considering the hundreds of thousand inefficient Cobraheads that line streets and roads in almost every municipality around the world, if all were changed to LED RoadStars^TM, it could reduce by 1/5th the total energy used by a country for outdoor lighting.

The title contains many keywords that are used for on-line searches (energy conservation, LED, LED-based).

The rest of the press release addresses the other main concerns of the target clientele’s concerns such as: maintenance needs, required tooling, ability to retrofit existing CobraHeads (simply unplug one and plug in the RoadStar), lifespan, etc…

Media release targeting

B2B media releases are targeted differently than normal media releases of general public interest. The trick is to get the best of both worlds whenever possible.

In this case Exo targeted a wide variety of media outlets, but the real trick was targeting the on-line world. At Exo, we’ve developed a unique B2B technique that generates considerable results. It combines ‘normal’ news release strategies with on-line SEO strategies. The purpose is to generate results for our clients: short, mid, and long term.

On the short term, in the off-line B2B world, usually little is possible. Trade publications take months to get the info out, and beside some trade weeklies, ‘news’ will not likely see the light of day until some times has passed. However, the on-line world is instantaneous. On the short term, targeting industry specific (outdoor lighting, LED, sustainable development, environmental, social, municipal, engineering, architecture, lighting design, etc..) blogs, trade Websites, discussion forums, etc, instantly creates the desired exposure sought by clients.

And each of these hundreds of on-line sites creates a link (or two, or three) to the client’s Website (assuming links were incorporated into the news release). These links help Google’s referencing when searching for a subject matter. The more links exist pointing at a Website, the higher that Website’s standing on Google. At the moment that this being written, when typing ‘LED outdoor lighting’ Philips Lumec comes in ranking 3rd, their closest competitor comes in 21st.

On the mid term Philips Lumec got the trade publications to write stories and publish their news, they received requests for information from the top 10 leading trade publication in their field. This also creates a rebound effect (ripples in the media stream if you will). After the initial short term splash, about a month or two later, the trade publications deliver their info to their readers, and that causes another peek for information requests.

On the long term, the efforts continue to generate results for Philips Lumec, as more and more links are created on-line, pointing to their Website.

The results

It is important to note that these results are only the consequence of writing the news release and distributing it. They do not include subsequent efforts to promote the news release using Social Networks or other methods.

The news release:

• Reached a circulation of 542,000! Getting the same exposure using industry specific publications would cost close to 250,000$ and require 24 full page ads.
• Generated over 30 pointers on Twitter and FriendFeed alone.
• Is present on hundreds on industry specific blogs and trade Websites.
• Is present in peripheral industry sites such as Environmental Leader and International Business Times.
• And is still being referenced, requests for more information are still coming in, and trade publications are still writing stories about it.

All in all, combined with all the other marketing efforts related to the RoadStar^TM, the news release was a great success. It is this type of marketing teamwork, the combination of strategy, research, adaptation, and innovation, which makes Exo’s B2B news releases work beyond expectations for our clients.

PDF Version