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Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

IRMCO Connects with the IMEC to Grow Their Marketing and Lead Generation

With the help of: Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center (IMEC)

About

IRMCO, a metal forming/stamping manufacturer in Evanston, Illinois, with 48 employees, has been a global technology company providing water-based custom lubricants for the metal forming and stamping industries for over 110 years

The Challenge

IRMCO recently developed a new evaporative product line that would benefit not only their current customers, but also those in a completely different industry. IRMCO is confident in their ability to secure new customers once introduced – the main hurdle is receiving the prospects. Connecting to their lead generation goals, IRMCO also looks to grow and build out their email marketing, as it’s a path to not only more leads, but the growth of current relationships as well. Receiving a steady stream of potential customers would provide IRMCO with the ability to grow their business quickly
IMEC was great in providing us a grant to help with our business growth. Connecting us with StratMG was not only a good company to work with for lead generation, but they also helped us launch into 3 new markets. The follow-up and attention to detail was great. We felt that StratMg really listened and understood our product and was able to put together a meaningful campaign.
— Jennifer Kalas, President

MEP's Role

IRMCO connected with IMEC in July of 2023 regarding email marketing and lead generation, utilizing the Cook County Manufacturing Reinvented Grant. IRMCO has worked with IMEC for over a decade on several projects including 5S training and ISO 9001 training, therefore the connection was built to start an email marketing and lead generation project. IMEC Technical Specialist Jaclyn Kolodziej brought in the StratMarketing Group, a trusted partner of IMEC, to help build and execute the strategy for the project.

The team worked together to create an outline of an email campaign through a story board to provide IRMCO with a base to start and carry out the campaign after the completion of the project. The emails combined new and already-created content by IRMCO to grab the attention of potential new customers while also informing them on the benefits of their products. The campaigns will be tracked by a lead scoring model that allows for efficient analyzation of potential leads.

IRMCO, IMEC and StratMarketing met several times for in-depth conversations throughout the course of the project, including planning sessions, data analysis meetings, and “next steps” meetings. IRMCO left the finished project with a database of new potential clients, a strategy and outline for future content, and new customers prepared to work with them. The email campaign sets IRMCO up with a strong base for lead generation and a bright future; IRMCO will be participating in a Round 2 of this project in 2024 to continue to build on the great momentum they received from Round 1.

Created July 4, 2024