Case study
A modern post pandemic success story
-
client
Intertronics -
Date
10/11/2025 -
category
Corporate and Business Communications Campaign -
Title
A modern post pandemic success story
The brief
Back in March 2020, when British industry was concerned about its future, the managing director of Intertronics, a supplier of industrial adhesive systems, received a letter from the Government.
When he opened the letter, with trepidation, he discovered it was a request to continue operating throughout the lockdowns, because of the importance of adhesives to British industry, and in particular, the medical industry.
Industrial adhesives seem a long way from daily life. But every time someone uses an insulin pen, gets a vaccination or uses a catheter, they are relying on industrial adhesives.
In high technology manufacturing, adhesives are a sticky subject. There is no universal or perfect adhesive, so every choice includes some level of compromise.
Intertronics supplies adhesives, coatings and sealants, and the equipment needed to dispense them, to high-technology customers in the medical and electronics industries. It’s a small business, with 25 employees and 3,000 customers.
Insightful technical guidance is a cornerstone of its business; helping customers find the optimal materials and processes. We wanted to translate this into a PR and marketing campaign that drove sales opportunities.
Objectives and budget
1. Media coverage. Generate 160 pieces of media coverage in trade media, that uses an authoritative technical voice to position Intertronics as the go-to adhesives partner
2. Build the audience. Achieve a 5% increase on visits to the website, and a 10% increase in referral traffic to engage new customers
3. Newsletter. By trialling a new approach, increase click through rate from 7 to 10% to generate increased interest from existing customers
Ultimately, the objectives were designed to support the sales team and enable Intertronics to bounce back to pre-covid sales revenue.
Strategy and research
Intertronics’ business is split roughly 40/20/20 between materials, equipment and consumables. We decided to focus on generating recurring revenue and created a set of core messages that focussed on being adhesives specialists first, which would be reinforced with messaging about equipment.
We used industry reports, and metrics from the previous year’s campaign, to identify topics that would resonate with our audience, and to gain insight into the best channels to deliver our message.
For example, the International Federation of Robotics Robot Density report, Make UK’s Manufacturing Outlook and The Manufacturer’s annual report. Based on these, and conversations with customers, key topics were supply chain, return on investment (ROI), upfront cost, sustainability and materials innovation.
We looked to State of Marketing for Engineers for guidance on the type of content to prioritise and identified technical thought leadership and whitepapers (70% of engineers prefer in-depth technical information) as the most impactful. Technical resources would be web hosted and then shared with media (69% of engineers find information on vendor websites, and 46% trade media), with the aim of driving traffic to these assets.
The report highlighted a “downward trend” in e-newsletters. To tackle this head on, we decided to pivot our approach to less regular and more tailored content, addressed from the customer’s salesperson, rather than a generic company email.
The products are niche, and it was important we were targeting ideal customers. We determined which media medical device and electronics design engineers would be reading, and created a core list of outlets, for example, Med Tech Innovation, What’s New in Electronics, Fastening Solutions and Design Solutions.
The marketing and sales team supported with a social selling strategy, engaging heavily on LinkedIn and sharing media coverage and technical resources with their networks.
Execution and creativity
We created a calendar of regular activity including:
• Product launches promoting new material launches
• Blog associated with a technical challenges
• Customer case studies for third-party credibility
• Using a features calendar, we secured opportunities for all core “adhesives” features in advance
• Repackaging content for to relevant customers via email marketing
Alongside this, we executed quarterly campaigns around our key themes:
• Return on investment: we arranged a roundtable with our team and Mike Wilson, Chief Automation Officer of the Manufacturing Technology Centre. This was written up as a whitepaper to be hosted on the Intertronics website, with a news release shared with media.
• Sustainability: we produced a guide to the sustainability of UV curing systems, which was shared with media.
• Cost: We came up with the strapline “robots, cheaper than the MD’s new car” and produced thought leadership content around it
• Materials: we produced an infographic on myth busting for cyanoacrylate adhesives, alongside thought leadership content explaining the innovation and industry implications
Effectiveness and results
1. Media coverage. Against a target of 160, we achieved 241 pieces of coverage, one per £107 spent on PR. All coverage was in highly relevant engineering and manufacturing media including What’s New in Electronics, Design, Products and Applications, Med Tech Innovation, Industrial Technology, Components in Electronics and Robotics and Innovation.
Intertronics also secured speaker slots at two trade shows free of charge, a testament to the authoritative technical voice we built.
2. Website. Achieved a 20% increase in YoY referrals to the site, and a 7% increase in website visitors to 145,000 sessions year.
3. Newsletter. Click through rates increased to 20%, meaning that one in five readers visited the website after reading — a 50% increase on previous figures. Customer lifetime value has increased from £31k to £42k.
Importantly, Intertronics hit its stretch targets every month in 2022, and broke booking records for five months of the year. The Key Accounts group, which is almost entirely built out of material customers, also hit their stretch target, and their regular target has doubled from 2021 to 2023.
