Support Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity by donating demo models, surplus inventory, tools and building materials throughout the month of August.
CLEVELAND – June 2026 – Sonnhalter, a communications firm marketing to the professional tradesman in the construction, industrial and MRO markets, will host its 17th Annual Tool Drive in partnership with Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity. Since launching the initiative in 2010, Sonnhalter’s Tool Drive has raised $603,000 in donations to support Habitat’s mission of providing safe, affordable housing opportunities throughout Northeast Ohio.
Sonnhalter’s Annual Tool Drive will run throughout the month of August. Organizations, businesses, and manufacturers are encouraged to donate demo models, extra inventory, tools, and building materials to benefit Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity. Donations collected through the Tool Drive help support Habitat’s homebuilding efforts and fund ReStore operations across Cuyahoga and Lorain counties.
“Each year, we continue to be inspired by the incredible generosity of our clients, partners and the Northeast Ohio community,” said Matt Sonnhalter, vision architect at Sonnhalter. “What began as a small initiative has grown into a meaningful annual tradition that supports Habitat for Humanity’s mission while bringing the trades community together for a greater purpose. Reaching more than $603,000 in donations is a milestone we are extremely proud of, and we are excited to build on that momentum during our 17th year.”
The Sonnhalter Tool Drive encourages businesses and manufacturers within the trades industry to look through warehouses and facilities for overstock inventory, unused demo models and gently used tools or materials that can be donated to support Habitat’s efforts.
Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity has helped hundreds of local families achieve safe and affordable homeownership while strengthening neighborhoods across Northeast Ohio. Donations collected through the Tool Drive will either be used directly for Habitat projects or sold through one of Greater Cleveland Habitat’s ReStores. Proceeds from ReStore sales help fund homebuilding and rehabilitation programs for families in need.
“The Sonnhalter team continues to demonstrate what true community partnership looks like,” said Laura Potter-Sadowski, director of ReStores at Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity. “Their commitment to bringing together clients, manufacturers and local supporters for this cause helps us make a lasting impact throughout the communities we serve. We are incredibly grateful for their constant support and excited to celebrate the 17th Annual Tool Drive together.”
For information on how to participate in the 17th Annual Sonnhalter Tool Drive, or to coordinate larger shipments, please contact Rosemarie Ascherl-Lenhard at 216-242-0420 x130 or [email protected]. Monetary donations can be made payable to “Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity.”
LinkedIn has evolved far beyond an online resume platform. In 2026, it’s one of the most valuable tools for B2B and industrial companies looking to engage with distributors, strengthen their relations with customers, and attract potential employees.
Today, consumers are doing their research long before they make a purchase or contact a sales team. Potential employees are researching company culture before applying and professionals are using LinkedIn daily to network and engage with brands they trust.
For manufacturers and industrial marketers, that means showing up online consistently and strategically, and an opportunity to build credibility within the industry and with customers.
Put People at the Center of Your Content
One of the biggest shifts on LinkedIn is the importance of personal branding and employee advocacy.
While company pages still matter, content that is shared by employees and leadership teams often receives more engagement than normal corporate posts. People want to hear from real workers with real expertise and experience with their company. Encourage your team to share:
Industry insights
Project updates
Trade show experiences
Company culture moments
Career accomplishments
Behind-the-scenes content
This not only expands your company’s reach but also humanizes your brand, which is important in industrial industries that can sometimes feel overly technical.
Focus on Thought Leadership, Not Just Promotion
The most successful companies on LinkedIn provide value first.
Instead of constantly promoting products or services, focus on content that educates, informs or solves problems for your audience, making it easier to understand and creates a more approachable brand. This could include:
Industry trends
Process improvements
Safety tips
Manufacturing innovations
Customer success stories
Q&A sessions
Expert insights from your team
Positioning your company as a knowledgeable industry resource helps build trust and keeps your brand top of mind when people who have decisions to make are ready to buy from a certain company.
Video Continues to Grow
Video content continues to perform well on LinkedIn and on other social platforms, specifically short, authentic videos do very well in terms of audience engagement.
Industrial marketers can use video to simplify complex topics and showcase expertise in a more engaging way. Some content ideas include:
Product demonstrations
Plant/Building tours
Employee spotlights
Trade show recaps
Quick industry tips
“Day in the life” and behind-the-scenes content
The content in the video doesn’t need to feel overly polished; authenticity and expertise matter more than high production value, allowing the company to showcase its culture and engage the audience by being truthful.
Consistency Matters
Many companies still only post occasionally or when they have a major announcement. But LinkedIn rewards consistency across all kinds of posts.
Posting regularly helps keep your company visible and reinforces your expertise over time. A consistent presence also helps support recruiting efforts, strengthen brand awareness and create more opportunities for engagement, as many people are finding jobs or internships on LinkedIn.
The brands seeing the best results are the ones that show up consistently and participate in conversations and engage with people interacting with their posts, not just broadcasting classic messages.
LinkedIn Is Also a Recruiting Tool
For younger generations entering the workforce, LinkedIn plays a major role in evaluating potential employers. Candidates want to see:
Company culture
Employee recognition
Leadership visibility
Community involvement
Career growth opportunities
Sharing internship experiences, employee achievements, volunteer initiatives and workplace culture helps position your company as a place people want to work in, not just a company selling products or services. Showcasing company personality truly captures younger and older audiences’ attention and attracts them to the brand.
LinkedIn has Grown, and will Continue to…
In 2026, LinkedIn continues to be one of the most effective platforms for B2B and industrial marketing.
Companies that invest in authentic content, employee advocacy and consistent engagement are building stronger relationships with other companies and individuals who use the platform, which increases visibility and creates long-term opportunities for growth.
For industrial marketers, LinkedIn is no longer optional, it’s an essential part of a modern marketing strategy that can help any kind of business grow.
Influencer marketing is no longer limited to fashion, beauty, or lifestyle brands. In 2026, influencer partnerships have become a valuable tool for B2B and industrial companies looking to expand their reach and connect with audiences in more authentic ways that can build brand credibility.
As platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube continue to shape how people consume content, companies are realizing that industry experts, creators, and employees can play a significant role in marketing success.
For industrial brands, influencer marketing today is less about celebrity endorsements and more about trusted voices, technical expertise and authentic industry connections that relate to targeted audiences.
Influencer Marketing Has Evolved
A couple of years ago, companies might have viewed influencer marketing as a trend primarily for consumer brands. Today, it has become a strategic part of marketing programs. Industry professionals are using social media to:
Share expertise
Review products and equipment
Highlight manufacturing processes
Discuss industry trends
Showcase trade shows and events
Build professional communities
Increase brand awareness
Platforms like TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube Shorts have made industrial content more accessible and engaging than ever before. Even highly technical industries are finding success through short-form video, educational content and behind-the-scenes storytelling as videos are booming in terms of content consumption.
People do not want to sit through long videos that overexplain, they want simple, punchy, and positive videos that make them feel emotions, which helps build brand loyalty and trust.
Authenticity Matters More Than Reach
One of the biggest shifts in influencer marketing is the growing importance of authenticity.
Audiences today are less interested in “too perfect” advertisements and more interested in real experiences and trusted recommendations. In certain cases, niche industry influencers who might have fewer followers, but who have highly engaged audiences can deliver stronger results than “more popular” creators who deliver broader messages. For B2B and industrial companies, effective influencers may include:
Engineers
Industry experts
Technical specialists
Tradespeople
Manufacturing professionals
Industry educators
Employees and brand advocates
The goal is to partner with people who genuinely understand this industry and can communicate your company’s value in a credible and engaging way.
Employee Advocacy Is a Form of Influencer Marketing
One of the most overlooked influencer opportunities may already exist within your company.
Employees who share company culture, project updates, industry insights, and workplace experiences can help increase visibility and build trust online. This type of content often feels more authentic and relatable than traditional corporate messaging or generic posts because it allows the audience to get a glimpse of the company’s overall personality, which can end up building trust.
This can also support recruiting efforts. Younger generations entering the workforce often use social media to evaluate company culture, leadership, and career opportunities before applying for a job.
Consider an Influencer Program
In 2026, influencer marketing became such an important part of modern B2B and industrial marketing strategies because of how well audiences respond to their messages and content.
Whether using in-kind or paid influencers, both make it easy to target different audiences. Their content can involve ambassador programs, ongoing collaborations, and even events or tradeshow partnerships. Whatever they are promoting, it is more relatable to audiences coming from their posts as they connect with people better than generic advertisements.
As digital platforms continue to evolve, influencer programs are no longer just for consumer brands, they are becoming a valuable tool for industrial companies looking to stay competitive and relevant in today’s marketing landscape.
As we recognize National Safety Month this June, it’s an opportunity to spotlight the importance of creating safe work environments for the professionals who keep our world running like plumbers, electricians, HVAC technicians, mechanics and more.
Four Ways to Prioritize Safety in the Trades
Gear Up Proper personal protective equipment (PPE), including hard hats, gloves, safety glasses and steel-toe boots, is essential on any jobsite. Ensuring PPE fits correctly and is used consistently can make the difference between a close call and a serious injury.
Use the Right Tools The quality of your tool’s matters. Poorly made or worn tools can slip, break or fail under pressure. Investing in durable, high-quality equipment helps protect both productivity and the people using it.
Stay Aware of Hazards Jobsites are constantly changing environments where risks can appear at any moment, from uneven surfaces and loud equipment to electrical hazards and working at height. Taking time to assess the worksite, identify potential dangers and follow safety protocols helps prevent accidents before they happen. Routine safety checks, proper PPE and clear communication all play a role.
Prioritize Training Education is one of the most powerful tools for maintaining a safe work environment. National Safety Month is a great time to refresh your knowledge, whether by attending a safety workshop, participating in hands-on training or reviewing the latest industry standards and OSHA regulations. The more informed your team is, the better prepared they are to respond to risks.
Creating a safer environment in the trades starts with all of us. National Safety Month is a time to refocus, re-engage and recommit to the habits that keep teams safe. Safety isn’t just a priority in June, it’s a value carried onto every jobsite, every day.
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.
Marketing metrics matter. Sit in enough meetings and you’ll see people read the numbers differently. You can feel it about five minutes in. That becomes a problem when you’re trying to move in the same direction.
Performance reports, KPIs, dashboards, they’re full of data. It’s usually easy to find. The harder part is getting the team to look at the same numbers, through the same lens, and arrive at a shared understanding of what to do next.
The Elephant in the Room
There’s an old Indian parable about blind men describing an elephant for the first time. One feels the side and calls it a wall. Another grabs the trunk and says it’s a snake. And so on. No one sees the whole.
Internal teams are remarkably good at recreating this parable. The SEO lead looks at the dashboard and sees an organic traffic problem. The channel manager sees a conversion rate issue. The CEO sees a revenue gap. Same data with different conclusions. Sound familiar?
Why This Keeps Happening
Part of it is structural. Marketing teams are often organized around channels and functions, which means expertise gets siloed right along with accountability. Each person or team is optimizing for something slightly different, spend efficiency, engagement rates, attribution, pipeline contribution. Those objectives don’t always point in the same direction.
The other part is they skip a step, going from data straight to action without pausing to ask whether everyone agrees on what the data is saying. We worked with one client who had different team members being “fairly certain” as to why lead volume had dropped, with different potential ideas on what to do. The issue wasn’t the data. It was that no one had sat down together to build a shared read of it first.
What to Do About It
The goal isn’t unanimous agreement on everything. Consensus by committee leads to mush. It’s about building a shared framework for making sense of what you’re seeing and using that to decide what to test and what to change. At Long & Short of It, this is often where we add the most value: not in the analysis itself, but in facilitating the conversation around it (with a bit of our own view on what the data says of course!).
Start with the business objective, not the metric. Before opening the dashboard, align on what you’re trying to achieve. Not “improve click-through rates,” but are you trying to drive more qualified leads? Increase fewer but larger dollar sales? Improve retention? That objective is the anchor. Every metric conversation needs to connect back to it.
Separate observations from interpretations. An observation is what the data shows: “Website traffic is down 18% month over month.” An interpretation is a theory about why or what the data is telling us: “We may be reaching fewer new people because we pulled back on paid media in Q3.” Keeping these two things distinct, and being explicit about which you’re doing, reduces the noise considerably.
Build hypotheses together. Once observations are on the table, bring the full team in. There is power in a collective discussion with different areas of expertise. A good hypothesis is specific and testable: “If our cost per lead is rising because we’re talking to the wrong audience, we’d expect to see plenty of clicks but very few conversions. We could test that by tightening our targeting and running a 30-day campaign to a more defined segment.”
Design a test, not a committee. Once you have a hypothesis, resist the urge to debate it indefinitely. We love the 80% rule – once you’re about 80% there, move on. It’s more important to take action, test and learn rather than debate or try to get to perfection. Pick one thing to change (not several at a time, because then you won’t be sure what affected the change!), define what success looks like before you start, set a timeframe, and measure. Sometimes a focused 30-day experiment tells you everything you need to know.
Close the loop to revenue. Channel metrics are useful diagnostic tools, but they’re not the point. The point is whether your marketing is contributing to actual business outcomes: leads, pipeline, sales, revenue. Build that connection explicitly into how you review performance, even when the attribution isn’t perfect.
The Real Opportunity
The teams that get the most out of their marketing data aren’t necessarily the ones with the most sophisticated tools. They’re the ones that have learned how to have better conversations about what the data means and how to turn those conversations into clear, testable decisions. A smart team, working together, and being curious is worth more than any software platform out there. Work with what you have.
My name is Lauren Peugeot, and I am the incoming 2026 Public Relations (PR) Intern for Sonnhalter. In the fall, I will begin my third year at The Ohio State University, where I am pursuing my Bachelor of Arts in Strategic Communication and minoring in Pharmaceutical Science. I am also working towards obtaining a Strategic Sales Certificate to complete my degree. Through both my coursework and extracurricular activities at Ohio State, I have developed a passion for creativity, marketing, and building lasting relationships with the individuals I work with.
At Ohio State, in addition to maintaining a busy academic schedule, I am engaged in social and leadership aspects of campus culture. Currently, I am an active member of the Sigma Kappa chapter of Kappa Delta, where I serve on council as the Vice President of Recruitment & Marketing. Within this role, I have taken on responsibilities such as delegating marketing content and managing PR-related initiatives for optimized recruiting efforts while maintaining Kappa Delta’s core philanthropic values.
Another role I hold is working as a Research Assistant for the Ohio State School of Communication. In this position, I help facilitate relationships with lab directors and assist research participants in successfully completing studies so that the collected data can contribute to new findings of communication styles. The study I specifically work on examines how utilizing different media channels affects personal relationships, which has further expanded my interest in public relations.
I am from Mayfield, Ohio, about 25 minutes northeast of downtown Cleveland. Besides academics and extracurriculars, I enjoy staying active and spending time with friends and family. One sport I especially enjoy is volleyball, and I play on an intramural volleyball team at Ohio State. Activities like this have taught me the importance of teamwork, communication, and adaptability, which are qualities that will hopefully benefit me throughout my time interning and learning more at Sonnhalter.
I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to join the team this summer and become part of such a welcoming and supportive company culture. I am excited to “connect the pipes” between public relations and marketing with the B2T mindset and gain firsthand experience with all “the nuts and bolts” of the industry. Through this opportunity I hope to build new relationships, contribute to the team, and make the most of this internship with Sonnhalter.
