Driving Portfolio Growth
Founded in 1981 as American Thermal Instruments, CAVU Group specializes in temperature monitoring and thermal management solutions. After a series of acquisitions through the years, today the Dayton, Ohio based company has 3 business units – American Thermal Instruments that provides temperature monitoring and reporting for food, pharma, chemical, and other verticals; Latent Heat Solutions that solves thermal management and thermal runaway issues for aerospace, e-mobility, military and other mission critical industries; and Microtek that solves thermal management problems in the bedding & textile, building & construction, packaging & logistics, and other industries. They are a growing firm with untapped potential.
Unclear Brand Strategy
To take advantage of cross vertical needs for both temperature monitoring and thermal management, leadership created CAVU Group. The company was still operating as 3 distinct business units with no clear role for the primary CAVU Group brand nor clear brand promises for the various business units. While CAVU’s products were groundbreaking and innovative, the company had little focus on sales, marketing, or “brand” as potential drivers of the business. The challenge was to both establish CAVU Group as the umbrella company and to build the existing businesses. “We knew we needed to make a change, but our biggest concern was negatively impacting decades of market leadership,” stated Trent Matthews, Chief Financial Officer of CAVU Group.
Creating a Distinct Brand Strategy
CMO-OnLoan and the CAVU team started by creating an overarching “Why We Exist” statement to anchor the brand strategy, then developed the promise & secret sauces for CAVU Group and for the three business units under the umbrella of CAVU. Next, the team tackled the brand architecture and key messages. The desire was to build visual connective tissue between the brands, as well as set up a clear role for CAVU Group. After exploring options, the team decided on a “hybrid/endorsed brand” architecture that kept the unique identity of each business unit, while linking all as part of CAVU Group.
Implementing the Strategic Marketing Playbook
Next, the team developed an integrated sales & marketing approach to build awareness and increase leads of the now defined CAVU Group and its sub-brands.
The first step was a Market Attractiveness Analysis to define the key opportunity markets and the ideal target customers within each market. Next, the team did a Journey Map that identified the key decision makers, their roles, the problems they were trying to solve, and how a CAVU Group company could help them solve those problems.
After building target lists of companies and decision makers, the team then implemented a Lead development plan that included a series of sequential calls, emails, LinkedIn contacts and in-person meetings. Each contact focused on what the decision makers cared about, and on moving the leads further through the funnel from awareness, to interest, and finally to customer.
A weekly process was established where the Marketing & Sales teams would meet to work the list of leads, ensure alignment of where every lead was in the funnel, and decide what actions needed to be taken, and by whom, to further develop the leads through the funnel. This integrated approach is being further automated through Salesforce and Pardot and continues to serve as the roadmap that CAVU uses to deliver their growth targets.
Confidently Growing Distinct Brands
The CAVU marketing team successfully rolled out the new branding and is confidently implementing the Strategic Marketing Playbook. Also, while still early, the team’s key performance indicators (KPIs) show progress toward the CAVU Group growth goals. “We have what we need to grow our brands and can do it without being overwhelmed,” concluded David Haan, Marketing Director for CAVU Group.
Click here to learn more about CAVU Group
