Relationships in Rural America and Worldwide

The Concept of ‘Smarketing’, Leveraging Brand Apostles and Effective Grassroots Marketing

OUTdrive Episode 27 with Adam Braverman

In this episode of OUTdrive, Cliff visits with Adam Braverman, Director of Sales & Marketing at Capstone Precision Group. An accomplished sales and marketing professional based in rural America, Adam is passionate about building strong relationships with customers, retail partners and brand apostles around the world.

Cliff and Adam discuss taking advantage of new opportunities, integrating sales and marketing efforts (‘smarketing’) for optimal results, leveraging brand apostles, effective grassroots marketing strategies and all that rural America has to offer. Keep reading for more insights from their conversation.

Integrating Sales and Marketing Efforts (‘Smarketing’)

Sales and marketing efforts are two of the most important aspects of a company’s long-term success. Adam understands this and leads the Capstone team to deliver results. Committed to reaching goals and remaining attentive to audience needs, Capstone approaches sales and marketing with an integrated approach that they call ‘smarketing’

Adam shares more insights into what this looks like for the company. “Strictly speaking, our marketing efforts are driven to inform and attract prospects to our brands and into our products,” says Adam. “Sales, on the other hand, works directly with the prospects and existing customers to reinforce the value proposition solution.”

At Capstone, sales and marketing work together to attract, inform and retain customers. Understanding the audiences they are trying to reach and creating a plan that allows them to collaborate means stronger, more sustainable results. Adam explains the importance of this, saying, “We try to avoid the sales versus marketing alignment, and that’s why we call it the ‘smarketing’ team,” he says. “When sales and marketing are aligned, we’re poised to attract more opportunities and generate more revenue.”

No matter the industry, building a team that can collaborate and work toward the same goal will not only lead to results, but strong relationships that allow for additional growth.

Grassroots Marketing & Brand Apostles

One way that the Capstone ‘smarketing’ team builds brand awareness is through strategic grassroots and retail marketing. As technology continues to grow in importance, brands can’t forget the impact and value of real relationships with real people.

When Cliff asks why Capstone is so involved in competitive shooting, Adam explained that it is vital to the company’s ‘smarketing’ efforts. “That’s grassroots marketing. The competitions are where the users are, and you want them to be involved in the application of your products, some of them even into the design of our products,” says Adam. Gaining personal feedback from their customers allows Capstone and its brands to continue to build the best products and deliver the best service possible.

The relationships established at competitive shooting events also lead to another very important aspect of the company’s grassroots marketing efforts: building brand apostles. Being in the frontlines of competitions and events and talking with real customers has proven effective for Adam and his team. He says, “I’ve found that this creates brand apostles who then spread your message by word of mouth or by bulletin boards or social media as well.”

While brand apostles communicate and share the company’s message to their own audiences, Capstone also utilizes electronic means to communicate with dealers and resellers. However, Adam says the team, “still feels the best way to communicate clearly is to pick up the phone or go to a face to face meeting.”

Strategic Planning for Sustainable Growth

One of the biggest value propositions of rural America is its location. As the USA’s sole distributor for Berger, Lapua, SK, and VihtaVuori, Adam and the Capstone Precision Group knew that geographic location would be vital for the efficiency and effectiveness of the company. With locations in Mesa, Arizona, Salt Lake City, Utah and other areas, Capstone was searching for a new distribution location as the company expanded.

Adam talked about the importance of geographic proximity for the new distribution location. He explained, “We needed something central, close to our largest companies and customers like Midway, Graf and Sons and Brownells. With containers coming in from Europe into Atlantic seaports, it just didn’t make sense to ship them all the way to Mesa, and then turn around and ship them back to the Midwest. After careful consideration, the location was selected as Sedalia, which is the perfect location.”

In addition to physical locations, businesses must also consider the workforces and communities when expanding operations. For Capstone, a rural work ethic added to the appeal. Adam added to this point, “Geographically, it’s the center for any logistics operation. But really, it’s about the rural work ethic and the people. The workforce we have is great, the turnover has been minimal and we had great support from the community and from Jessica Craig with Sedalia – Pettis County Economic Development.”

No matter the industry, it’s about the people that work with you and work for you. For Capstone, the need for a strong workforce and close proximity to their partners is met by basing operations in rural America.

As your company and team expand, you have to focus on finding the right combination of variables that will lead to sustainable growth. For Capstone, this means an ideal geographic location in rural America, a hardworking and dedicated team, a strategic marketing and sales plan and a commitment to excellence.

While your company’s ideal combination may look a bit different, you can’t forget the value of quality service, personal connections and the importance of a strategic plan. Hear more about these topics and more from Cliff and Adam on this episode of OUTdrive. Check it out!