Solar Eclipse Celebrations in Cleveland

Solar Eclipse Celebrations in Cleveland

Something big is coming to our city in Cleveland… It’s the solar eclipse!

On Monday, April 8, the Great American Eclipse will be taking place throughout the Midwest region of the USA. The path of totality lies within Cleveland which means we will receive nearly four-minutes of darkness in the middle of the afternoon! This event won’t happen in Cleveland again until 2444, so make sure you’re prepared for the event.

Throughout Northeast Ohio, events will be taking place in honor of the solar eclipse like:

A solar eclipse is a sight totally worth seeing. No matter where you are that afternoon, we hope you’ll find a great viewing spot for some fun in the sun. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive a pair of Sonnhalter branded solar eclipse glasses.

Enjoy the specs…and the eclipse!

https://www.sonnhalter.com/2024-solar-eclipse/

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World Plumbing Day

World Plumbing Day

March 11th is set aside each year to spread awareness of the importance of plumbing and plumbers. At Sonnhalter, we have a great appreciation for plumbers and the work that they do. Today, we will be sharing some plumbing facts to promote the practice and why it’s important.

Did you Know That Plumbing Improves the World

  • Standardized plumbing can be traced back to around 3,000 B.C
  • Over 1 billion of people gained access to piped water supplies between 2000 and 2015
  • About 0.3% of homes across the country have a minor plumbing leak
  • The global population of people who used safely managed sanitation services increased from 28% in 2000 to 39% in 2015
  • A 4-minute shower can now use as little as 24 liters of water
  • The dual system toilet flush, created in a small town in Australia in 1980, now uses as little as 4.5 liters of water

Today we salute the ones who keep everything flowing, and not overflowing. Thank you to the dedicated plumbers who answer the call and don’t recount the tales of what they’ve pulled out of pipes.

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Unleashing the Power of Diverse Minds

Unleashing the Power of Diverse Minds

Following is a guest post from our friends over at Long & Short of It, masters of ideation, customer insights and market research. They like to say they “dig and find lots of data and then turn it into actionable insights.” Following is their guest post. 

Innovation has always been an indispensable driver of progress, reshaping industries, and propelling businesses forward. But why do some organizations just do it better than others? Those organizations practice an important principle – they embrace diversity.

It’s often thought that innovation is the domain of a privileged few, characterized by ingenious thinkers, executives, creatives, or right-brainers, who single-handedly come up with brilliant ideas. However, the true essence of innovation is far more empowering and all-encompassing—it is a quality that resides within every individual, regardless of titles, roles, and backgrounds. A cornerstone of our ideation sessions has therefore always been including a wide variety of individuals to participate in the process of creating new ideas.

Diversity of thought

No one has a monopoly on creative thinking or the ability to see things from a different perspective. And yes, while certain individuals may innately be more creative thinkers, the potential for innovation is available to everyone. In the right conditions, anyone can be an idea machine.

Change things up

Encouraging individuals across all levels to share their unique insights and ideas creates a culture of problem-solving. During many typical brainstorming sessions, you will find similar people, going into a typical conference room, in front of a whiteboard, with the idea that in this sea of sameness, new ideas will be generated. That poor team is doomed from the start. It’s not so surprising then that the ideas are less innovative and more likely just incremental improvements.

Nurturing a culture of innovation

Organizations can enhance their innovation capabilities by:

1.    Embracing Inclusivity: At your next brainstorming session, stretch the boundaries of who you would normally include. Invite individuals from other departments, interns as well as executives, and even some from outside your organization.

2.    Changing the landscape: Please just have your brainstorming sessions anywhere but in the usual space. Go outside if you can, a different building, anything but the same room where you may have always held these types of sessions. There’s a reason why new thoughts blossom by simply taking a walk or an activity that breaks your normal routine.

3.    Following through: Don’t ask for ideas only to ignore them. It’s important to not only have a wide variety of people participate in the ideation process, but also to stay engaged with them through the entire life cycle. Not all ideas are good ideas, but all need to see how their collective ideas are implemented, transformed into something even greater, or possibly shelved as a future potential initiative. And most importantly, helping them understand why.

4.    Acknowledge and communicate: Recognizing and applauding innovative contributions—regardless of their scale—reinforces the principle that everyone plays a pivotal role in propelling innovation. Even if not everyone in the company can participate in some form of an innovation session, if you are encouraging their input and ideas, ensure it is being acknowledged..

5.    Fostering a creative environment: It can be difficult to just ask people to take the time and go be creative without providing them with the resources to do so. Your organization doesn’t have to go as far as Google’s famous 20% policy where they allow employees to spend at least 20% of their time on pet projects, but there needs to be some allocation for people to take on the added role of helping your organization come up with breakthrough ideas.

Creativity resides in the heart of every individual across your entire organization. It should not be an annual event or a special exercise, but a mindset embraced by the company, backed with up with processes and support. Even if innovation sessions are often led by marketing or your strategic planning group, it’s important to remember that they may lead the process, but all are involved. Your organization’s ability to harness the full breadth of everyone’s innate capability to tap into their creativity holds massive potential for innovative progress.

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48,034 Attendees, 1,875 Exhibitors and My First AHR Expo

48,034 Attendees, 1,875 Exhibitors and My First AHR Expo

By Kylie Stanley, PR Technician

When I attended PHCC Connect back in October, I thought it was a crowded show, but how I was proven wrong at AHR Expo. AHR Expo brings together manufacturers and suppliers of all sizes and specialties to share ideas and showcase the future of HVACR technology. This year was my first time attending the show, so I had no idea of what I was getting myself into when I arrived at the convention center.

The show took place in the “windy city” of Chicago this year, and it was my first time traveling on a plane for work! I was very excited if you couldn’t tell. I was shocked at the amount of people in Chicago, from the traffic leaving the airport, to when we arrived at the expo where we waited over an hour to get our badges! This show was very well attended, and the attendees had a great time visiting.

Some key things I noticed around the show were the interactive elements that booths were promoting. Here are a few that stood out:

  • Booths handing out beer and flavored water
  • Plinko to win “swag” items
  • A chance to win an E-bike if you gathered stamps from specific booths
  • And more!

Over the last few years, we’ve seen booths utilizing engaging designs to drive traffic and promote brand awareness. Companies continue to make the most out of their booths and get creative to drive traffic.

The podcast pavilion was just as popular as last year with 20 podcasters covering the latest topics in the industry. We can’t wait to see all the upcoming podcasts from the show, and we know they will continue to grow in popularity.

Outside of the show, we had a wonderful time hanging out with our clients Franklin Electric and NIBCO. Franklin Electric threw a customer appreciation party at Roots Pizza where they served beer, wine and lots of food options for its guests. Not to mention, the restaurant was decked out in blue lights, and they were raffling off some great prizes for attendees!

As for NIBCO, we had a wonderful surf and turf experience at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab. We got to experience stone crab and a selection of pies including the restaurant’s famous (and amazing) key lime pie.

For this being my first AHR Expo, I would call the show a success! It’s exciting to see everything that’s happening within our industry up close and in person.

Until next year–at AHR in Orlando!

Check out our recap video here:

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Market Intelligence: Data-Driven Profit Growth

Market Intelligence: Data-Driven Profit Growth

By: Insight2Profit

It should come as no surprise that data enables us to minimize risk and make more effective business decisions. Where does that data come from, though, and how is it interpreted? Market intelligence, the process of collecting, analyzing, and leveraging data on markets, competitors, and customers to maximize profit opportunities and reduce threats, is a major factor empowering companies to respond to changing conditions and succeed in today’s fluctuating market environment.

There are several different methodologies within market intelligence—qualitative interviews, quantitative surveys, secondary research—and all of them reveal unique actionable insights. This data can be used to answer critical business questions like willingness to pay, key purchasing criteria, and price perceptions relative to competitors.

We sat down with Andy Banyas, Director of Market Intelligence, to discuss the ways collecting market intelligence can enable strategic decision-making. Over his career, Andy has led more than 200 market intelligence consulting engagements, supporting some of the largest companies globally in gaining value-added insights to guide their business. He has experience across a wide range of industries, including various industrial markets, business services, and consumer products.

How Can Market Intelligence Drive Profit Growth?

Andy: Obtaining a clear understanding of how customers perceive a specific business and its offerings allows for formulation of a go-to-market strategy that leverages client strengths and exploits market opportunities and competitor vulnerabilities. Understanding the key elements customers consider when choosing a supplier provides the insight necessary to build a compelling market positioning and messaging strategy that leverages these key drivers, and the ability to price based on value to the customer to extract the full return from each sale.

Knowing how customers evaluate their purchases, what is most important to them, and how they perceive competitor offerings helps build the foundation for making sound and confident decisions on product, pricing, marketing, and channel strategies, all built on the knowledge of what is most important and compelling to customers, allowing the client to move forward with confidence.

What Are Some Examples of Key Questions Businesses Have About Customer, Competitor, and Supplier Behavior That Market Intelligence Can Help Answer?

Andy: While each situation is unique, there are several broad categories of inquiry that market intelligence can address, including:

  • What are the key drivers of a purchase decision – including the importance of product/service performance; price; availability; ease of use; and channel options?
  • How is the business and its offerings perceived in the market? Are they seen as a commodity, a low-price offering, or a high quality but high-priced provider? How is the business perceived across key criteria compared to leading competitors?
  • What is the role of price in the buying decision? Is it the most important consideration or are there other factors at play? And what is the level of willingness to pay more across each key market segment if specific additional value is provided?
  • Where are the key leverage points in the value chain? What role and level of importance does each node in the chain fulfill, and what is the impact of the value chain on customer behavior and the business?
  • How are competitors perceived in the market? What value do they bring; what is their key point of differentiation; where are their weak spots that can be exploited?

How Can Market Intelligence Help Solve Price Increase Uncertainty?

Andy: The best way to explain how market intelligence can help solve price increase uncertainty is with an example:

Problem: One of INSIGHT’s clients was considering a price increase but was concerned about the reaction in the market and potential loss of volume. They were also unsure as to the reaction among their key distributors to a price increase, so they wanted to gather data to better understand the role of price in the purchase decision as well as distributor perceptions.

Approach: INSIGHT designed a custom data-collection approach that included one-on-one interviews of end users conducted across two different market segments, and interviews with various large distributors serving those segments.

Result: End-users indicated that price played a minimal role in the purchase decision, and the product/provider chosen was based primarily on the strong performance of the product; a history with the product and provider; ease of use; and strong support from the provider sales rep.

Additionally, distributors reinforced this information regarding end users and also indicated that they didn’t see a price increase as affecting the market, and in fact were questioning why increases had not already occurred.

The takeaway here is that the client could increase prices significantly (10-15%) across key market segments with no risk of losing unit sales volume, while still maintaining a strong presence in the market and relationships with key distributors.

What Research Methods Does INSIGHT Use to Help Businesses Gather Market Intelligence on Topics Like Willingness-To-Pay, Purchasing Criteria, And Demand/Market Trends?

Andy: The methods employed differ by project and are customized for each specific need. Generally, though, there are two methods for gathering information:

  • Primary research, which involves collecting insights directly from people in the market, such as customers or competitors. Primary research may take two forms:

a. In-depth interviews, consisting of one-on-one conversations with key constituents in the market that obtains more qualitative data than surveys.

b. Surveys, with an appropriate sample size to ensure appropriate confidence levels that obtain more quantitative data than interviews.

  • Secondary research, which is focused on searching information already in the public domain for insights on industry trends, emerging technologies, government regulations, key competitor data, and macro-economic factors.

In addition, research will often include interviews with key stakeholders and SME’s within the client organization to gain their perspectives and insights on key topics.

Once Information Is Collected Through Interviews, Surveys, And Secondary Research, How Does INSIGHT Analyze and Interpret That Data?

Andy: All the information gathered is analyzed in its entirety to build a complete understanding of the key topic areas. For the interviews, INSIGHT will look for commonality of answers to build a consensus on certain key topics, as well as divergence in answers to reveal any confusion in the market or differences by segment or customer type.

For the survey analysis there are multiple analysis methods available including the comparison of numerous cross tabs of the results to compare responses across different criteria. In addition, tools such as Gabor-Granger may be used to determine the price elasticity of products and services.

Van Westendorp analysis can be used to understand the ranges of prices offered that allow a determination of an optimized price point(s). Also, conjoint analysis can be done to help determine how people value different attributes that make up an individual product or service. The specific analysis tool INSIGHT chooses is dependent on the problem being addressed and the goal of the research.

Regardless of the tools used, the outcome is a detailed summary of the information obtained and the impact this market intelligence has on the client business, as well as clear recommendations on how the client should proceed considering the intelligence gathered.

What Are Some Examples of Market Intelligence in Action? How Have INSIGHT’s Findings Directly Contributed to A Business’s Strategy Going Forward?

Andy:

Example #1: Market intelligence on end users and competitive offerings allowed for the development of competitor profiles that sales reps could utilize to counter competitor positioning and offerings. This same market intelligence helped guide the development of customer profiles that segmented the market on key variables associated with perceptions of value and usage. Such prospects/customers could be prioritized based on opportunity, and specific messaging and sales outreach strategies could be developed for each profile.

Example #2: Market intelligence on distributor pricing of client products indicated a price position well below many leading competitors, providing the client the opportunity to increase prices on multiple products while still maintaining a competitive price advantage. Research methodologies were developed and introduced to the client so that they could regularly monitor distributor pricing to be alerted to any competitive price changes and/or changes in distributor pricing of both the client and competitor products.

Example #3: Primary interviews revealed a customer beginning the process of retooling their operations and in turn evaluating the potential purchase of all new equipment. Client sales team was alerted to the opportunity and were successful in beginning the conversation on selling equipment to this customer.

Example #4: Client was provided overwhelming evidence that end user customers had limited awareness of or sensitivity to product pricing, allowing the client to immediately increase prices with little risk of volume loss, and increased margins on sales to existing customers.

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The Basics of UTM Codes

The Basics of UTM Codes

By Kaylee Lauriel, PR Intern

The future of digital marketing is here, and it goes by UTM Codes. UTM codes, or Urchin Tracking Module, are snippets of code attached to the end of a URL and are used to pinpoint specific source of traffic to a website. Using these codes is essential to understand how effective your marketing is.

Five UTM Parameters

There are five parameters to every UTM code that are necessary to track different aspects of your marketing campaign.

  1. Campaign Source – the source of your traffic such as website name, search engine or social network.
    1. UTM Parameter example: &utm_source=facebook
  2. Campaign Medium – tracks what type of traffic the visitor came from such as email, social media

or cost per click.

  • UTM Parameter example: &utm_medium=email
  • Campaign Name – enables you to track the performance of a specific campaign, such as differentiating traffic between different Facebook Ad campaigns.
    • UTM Parameter example: &utm_campaign=summer-clearance
  • Campaign Term – tracks relevant ad-based keywords to help identify which keywords resulted in a site visit.
    • UTM Parameter example: &utm_term=sports-equipment
  • Campaign Content – distinguishes between ads pointing to the same URL to determine what someone clicked on to get to your site.
    • UTM Parameter example: &utm_content=navlink

The Whens and Whys of UTM Tracking

Use UTM codes to better evaluate promotional campaigns. Tag every advertisement of your campaign with these UTM codes to see what type of content best resonates with your target audience. By using UTM parameters, you will be able to see what ads drive more traffic to your website and evaluate what will be appealing to potential customers. By using UTM codes, you will be able to refine your entire marketing strategy and create even better ads that bring more traffic to your website.

UTM codes allow you to track where traffic is coming from and find the right channel for your audiences to help properly measure each campaign’s ROI. In order to understand if your marketing is successful or not, UTM tracking is a must.

UTM Tracking Tips and Tricks

Creating your own UTM parameters can be tedious and overwhelming. Follow these tips and tricks to make sure you’re not making life harder for yourself or your team.

  • Use a pre-determined naming system

Long lines of code can be bafling at the best of times. Come up with an agreed-upon format for each of the five parameters and ensure that your team comprehends what they mean.

  • Use simple language

Use language that is easy to understand and doesn’t go deep into company jargon. Remember that your audience will see the codes you use and they will need to understand what it means as well.

  • Remember that UTM parameters are case-sensitive

It is recommended to use all lowercase to make things easiest for you and your company. One accidentally capitalized letter could mean all the difference when trying to track information for your campaign.

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