Phenom-World (now Thermo Fisher Scientific)

The success of Inbound Marketing

How Phenom-World gains more website visitors, more qualified leads and more customers with Inbound Marketing.

Phenom-World, a successful spin-off from FEI Company wants to become the no. 1 in Desktop SEM with clear positioning and strong thought leadership, and wants to gain more quality leads. This case study shows a snapshot of Phenom-World between 2016 – 2018, and how they grow their business with Inbound Marketing.

Inhoud

00Phenom-World: how it all began
01How good is your network in selling your products?
02Gain insight in Sales and Marketing ROI
03A new approach to Sales and Marketing through team effort
04The commercial transformation of Phenom-World
05Sell better

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Phenom-World: how it all began

It’s the year 2009. Phenom-World splits from FEI Company and starts to build a network of distributors and partners. They sell high-quality, desktop electron microscopes that are functionally rich, but simple to use.

Their mission is clear: to make nanotechnology intuitive and available to every researcher in every lab. And they succeeded In the years that followed: Phenom-World took a leading position in an entirely new segment of the market and became a textbook example of a successful spin-off. In 2018, Phenom-World sells her desktop SEM’s via a network of partners in over 45 countries worldwide.

Phenom-World firmly believes in the strength of her network. High quality products are combined with a close collaboration with partners in many different countries, each with their specific application and focus market. They enable Phenom-World to stay focused on her main competences: R&D, Sales, (Product) Marketing, Applications and Services. This formula has proved her success: between 2010 and 2014 Phenom-World had already reached a 300% growth in revenue. And in 2018 they are no. 1 leading global supplier of desktop scanning electron microscopes and imaging solutions, maintaining this leading position.

How good is your network in selling your products?

Phenom-World's ambitions did not stop there. In 2016, CEO Emile Asselbergs explained in this interview Phenom-World is aiming to double revenue from 20 million in 2016 to 40 million in 2020.

To reach such ambitious goals, the importance of gaining good quality leads is stressed more than ever. Every lead generated by Phenom-World should be part of a so-called ‘closed loop’, that tells Phenom-World exactly how successful their Marketing is, but also how successful every individual distributor is in selling their product.

This unlocked within Phenom-World the need for a ‘commercial transformation’. This case study shows a snapshot of Phenom-World between 2016 until march 2018, and how they grew their business with Inbound Marketing.

Gain insight in Sales and Marketing ROI

In July 2016, Phenom-World still maintained a steady revenue growth. However, the commercial team of Phenom-World, consisting (amongst others) of Richard Geschiere (Sales Director) and Marilla Ruczynski (Manager Global Marketing) recognized that they had the ability to improve their Sales and Marketing results.

We talked with Lorelei de Boer, digital brand manager at Phenom-World – who represents the Marketing team in this case study: “Around 2015, we did not have everything exactly in place like we wanted to prove the ROI of our Marketing and Sales efforts. Although our team was already setting up many activities to provide good leads – via our website, Search Engine Advertising, Email campaigns, events – we were not always able to prove the success of these campaigns.

Mid 2015 the team decided to take a closer look at her current Marketing strategy. Their activities were mainly focused on top-of-the-funnel activities, such as branding.

A new approach to Sales and Marketing through team effort

The team of Phenom-World had a clear goal. They were determined to align all of Phenom-World’s Sales and Marketing activities with the buyer journey of prospects, in order for them to generate qualified leads via digital channels.

Secondly, the team needed to adapt a way of working to nurture those leads from first click all the way up to closing the deal. Because distributors are the number one sales channel in 2018, this meant Phenom-World needed to find a way to collaborate better with partners and help them be more successful in selling.

Lorelei de Boer: “There was a need of a new set of Marketing and Sales tools that enabled us to structurally generate, nurture and track leads in every stage of the buyer journey. This meant: gaining insight on how prospects find us, how they behave on our website and other Marketing channels and why they buy.”

Also, the entire team needed to adapt an entire new skill- and mindset. But, most importantly: Phenom-World had to re-evaluate their current Marketing en Sales processes: a new approach to how Marketing and Sales work together and how leads were nurtured and handed over between both parties.

The ROI of Marketing and Sales activities was on some points not clear. Conversations between colleagues were not always about hard data and insights. Our team decided that this needed to change.