From Visibility to Demand: Building a Marketing Engine for a Relationship-Driven Manufacturer

The manufacturer sells through distributors and independent sales representative groups serving water and natural gas utilities, municipalities, contractors and other infrastructure customers. It is a highly relationship-driven business, with sales representatives building and maintaining relationships through distributor branch visits, trade shows and direct customer interaction. Those relationships remain central to the sales process, but a relatively small field team can only be in so many places at once.

At the same time, digital research had become an increasingly important part of the buying process. Customers were searching online for products, technical information, American-made solutions and requirements such as Build America, Buy America (BABA) compliance—often before connecting directly with a salesperson or distributor. Strategic marketing offered an opportunity to extend the reach of the existing sales model: increasing awareness and visibility, engaging customers during their research, and creating additional opportunities for the sales network to build relationships.

The company already had an established marketing program and a clear strategy for expanding its digital presence. Internally, however, marketing was lean: one full-time marketing professional with limited part-time support from a colleague whose primary responsibilities were in customer service and operations. Together, they supported a broad range of activities—from trade shows, product literature and distributor support to social media, website content, digital marketing and HubSpot.

The company was also working with an outside marketing agency, but as the program evolved, its needs had become more sophisticated. The next stage called for an agency partner that could work collaboratively with the internal marketing team while bringing deeper expertise in HubSpot, SEO, digital marketing and performance measurement.

HubSpot was already an important part of the company's marketing infrastructure, but there was significant opportunity to use it more strategically. Website forms captured inbound interest, but limited product context, attribution and routing made it difficult to see the full path from digital engagement to sales follow-up. Improving that visibility—and connecting search, content, paid media and lead management more effectively—would make both the marketing program and the existing sales network more effective.

The opportunity was not to create a marketing strategy from scratch, but to build on an existing foundation: combining the internal team's industry knowledge, customer insight and strategic direction with New Perspective's digital, SEO and HubSpot expertise to expand reach, capture and nurture demand, and create a more connected and measurable program.

Since April 2026, New Perspective has executed a high-impact SEO and AEO strategy across water and gas product lines, driving a 33% increase in monthly search impressions (from ~51,000 to ~69,000 in Q2) and a 23% boost in organic clicks. By June 2026, visibility hit a record 81,957 impressions (+98% YoY), while a strategic pivot to Answer Engine Optimization successfully secured direct citations within AI Overviews, ensuring the brand remains visible as search behavior shifts from clicks to AI-driven answers.

Content strategy focused on the questions and issues customers were actively researching, including lead service line replacement, American Iron and Steel (AIS) requirements and Build America, Buy America (BABA) compliance. Blogs and resources were developed collaboratively, pairing the internal team’s industry and product expertise with New Perspective’s search and digital content capabilities. Average engagement time of approximately 5.5 minutes on these resources provided a strong signal that visitors were finding value in the more in-depth technical and educational content.

Geo-targeted Google Ads campaigns launched in December 2025, initially focusing on curb and valve box products in Texas and Florida. Performance data was reviewed alongside market knowledge and sales priorities to guide expansion into additional states, including North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Arizona. Campaign-specific landing pages and state-level forecasts supported a more deliberate approach to testing and expanding paid search.

New Perspective’s HubSpot expertise helped the team strengthen conversion tracking, lifecycle management, lead routing and ongoing engagement.

Website inquiries—including catalog downloads and quote requests—could be captured with better context and routed more efficiently to the appropriate sales contacts based on territory, while HubSpot provided a stronger foundation for continued communication and lead nurturing.

These improvements gave the marketing team greater visibility into inbound engagement while creating a more consistent connection between digital activity and sales follow-up. 

Monthly reporting brought together organic search visibility, paid media performance, website engagement and lead activity to provide a more complete view of marketing performance. The team also began analyzing order data alongside campaign activity and timelines, creating an additional layer of insight into where marketing engagement and business activity may be moving together—without assuming direct attribution where the data does not establish it.