How do you sell a niche product all over the world?

Three-thousand-seven-hundred… Technology supplier Feltest has an exact number for all his potential customers. But how do you market a niche product within a niche market? Together with owner and inventor Marcel Lensvelt, we work on gaining 3700 customers: “To make this a success, you need me and I need you. It is a collaboration between equals.”

Paper is made in a niche of the industrial sector. And for that niche, one person supplies a niche product to make that production process more precise: Marcel Lensvelt. The fact that his measuring tools are the only ones like it on the market, is great in terms of competition. The disadvantage is that only a few people are aware of their existence.

That is why, in 2018, Marcel approached us. His question: how can we make it easier for customers to find Feltest? And once we gain a customer, how can we sell them other products as well?

No growth without a strong foundation

So, it was time to get stuck into online marketing for Feltest! Then, the website was available in 5 languages and it ran on a WordPress platform. Every small adjustment meant 5 translators, and we were not able to switch as fast as we wanted to.

Marcel: “It was a monster of a website. A poor system with a lot of maintenance issues. After you told me about the low code system in SquareSpace, I was convinced that it was time for a new website. Setting it up went really fast, and it was affordable as well.”

Success in Asia, failure in South-America

With a flexible webshop as the basic platform for the marketing funnel, we were able to make progress. “Export makes up 99,5% of all Feltest sales. Feltest has customers all over the world”, says our founder and growth marketeer Diederik Gerbranda. “Because we want to address dozens of different cultures continuously, our methodology “with its fast and numerous experiments is ideal.”

Marcel: “One expression can appeal to the Asian market, and totally fail in South-America. You have to be able to turn off your own preferences. What is nice about Diederik, for example, is “that he also knows when he does not know something. Then we quickly set up a little experiment together and after roughly two weeks we will have the results.”

Switch quickly in HubSpot

For enticing leads, Marcel and I found a solution in HubSpot. Marcel: “HubSpot gives us so many new opportunities to try out. Marketing automation and setting up email campaigns for cross-selling after a sale is child’s play now. And it allows us to work together.

Can you automate sales?

A great marketing funnel, a large number of leads; without good sales they are useless. Feltest has many leads and even requests for quotes. But people often forget to place the final order. And even though we like to emphasize the importance of follow-up calls with entrepreneurs, for Feltest this turned out to be complicated: different time zones, different languages, and a target audience which rarely sits behind a desk but works on the factory floor.

That is why we are exploring with Feltest what we can mean in the area of sales. This is just outside our marketing comfort zone! “Diederik knows how determined I am about our ability to automate sales”, Marcel jokes.

Ambition

Up-selling, cross-selling and of course, reaching 3700 customers: “Marcel is far from satisfied, but luckily he always says this with a smile. “If something succeeds, that does not automatically make me happy. Success was the aim in the first place!”

He would like to test marketing ideas faster and more often: “With our small team we are the delaying factor ourselves. I really like our collaboration. I have the knowledge about the market, you have the knowledge about marketing, HubSpot and data. We need each other and we are equals.”