How an innovative approach to launching innovation drives price premiums

The Company

Wilton is the category leader in workholding vises and clamps for a variety of commercial and industrial markets. The 75+ year brand heritage is synonymous with durability. Its products are manufactured in USA and Asia and are delivered through a vast distribution network throughout North America and Europe.

The Challenge

The Wilton leadership team set out to deliver ambition revenue growth though they already possessed dominate market share within key categories. The Dorn team was deployed to support Wilton in its pursuit of growth and clinch a strong return on invested capital.

Evolution To Growth

It was identified that the best opportunities for transformational growth would come from launching new products to existing markets. To accelerate a pilot for validating this growth hypothesis, Wilton searched their existing product portfolio and identified an underperforming line within a non-core product category. Using a market-back perspective, the team was able to understand more about the root causes behind why the product line was underperforming. The high price point was one of the most formidable objections to overcome. An agile New Product Launch (NPL) Commercialization Process was established to synchronize the product, marketing and sales teams activities for relaunching the product and compelling market adoption. The NPL go-to-market program components included:

Product Strategy

  • Voice of customer
  • Product line structure
  • Pricing
  • Trade dress
  • New product launch commercialization

Marketing Strategy

  • Market research and strategy
  • Brand architecture and strategy
  • Visual brand language
  • Demand generation
  • Website and ‘Where to Buy’ engine
  • Marketing automation
  • Content marketing
  • Event marketing
  • In-store marketing
  • PR
  • Analytics and dashboarding

Sales Strategy

  • Sales enablement (direct and channel)
  • Channel strategy
  • Account-based marketing
  • Sales promotion

Outcomes

Within six months of launch, Wilton experienced triple-digit revenue growth over the previous 12 months. The agile NPL Commercialization provided a foundation of processes, systems and habits for the product, marketing and sales teams to effectively gain market adoption for the product line and subsequent line extensions. Wilton continues to convert end-users into their innovation to create growth through customer stickiness and price premiums.

Growth In Action

“We set out to redefine new product launches at an organizational level to more effectively capture return on invested capital. The results set a new standard for our product, marketing and sales teams.”

— Robert Varzino, GM, JPW Industries