FactorySense had already done something remarkable before we started working together. They’d delivered a landmark RFID implementation at Northrop Grumman’s Space Park — 1.5 million square feet of one of the most regulated manufacturing facilities on the planet. The product was proven. The team knew their industry inside out.
What they needed next was a strategy to become the market leader.
The Plan
The engagement started with a 3-year business and go-to-market plan — a 160+ page evidence-based strategy covering the full path from US market leadership to European and international expansion.
I conducted in-depth market research across 20+ competitors, ran 1-2-1 customer interviews to surface the real purchase drivers and genuine gaps in the market, and used that insight to build a clearly articulated positioning and value proposition for FactorySense at enterprise level.
The plan covered brand purpose, target market segmentation, decision-making unit mapping, customer journey, ABM framework, partner strategy, 5-year financial forecast, full promotion mix and a 30/60/90 day execution plan. It was the strategic foundation for everything that followed.
Please see an outline of the Business Plan project and it’s deliverables (you might need to zoom in to view it on your screen). You can download this as a pdf also.
Strategic Advisor & Fractional CMO
With the plan signed off, I joined as Fractional CMO to lead the execution — and as a close strategic advisor to the founder and CEO throughout.
That advisory relationship ran alongside everything else: pressure-testing positioning decisions, responding to competitive moves, shaping partnership priorities and product direction, and making sure the strategy stayed live as the business evolved. For an entrepreneur moving fast in a technically complex market, having a trusted commercial and communications partner invested in the outcome is a different proposition to a standard consulting engagement. That’s what this was.
Brand
Complete rebrand from the ground up. Brand architecture, messaging framework, brand values, logo redesign, full visual identity, colour system, typography, photography direction and iconography. Brand guidelines documented across two versions to ensure consistency as the business scaled.
The result was a brand that felt credible in an enterprise sales conversation — clean, technical, authoritative — and worked equally well on a trade show booth, a product box, or a board-level sales deck.
Product Packaging and Design
A significant design project within the engagement was the development of product packaging for FactorySense’s physical RFID hardware — shipping and product box design that carried the new brand identity into the physical world across the full hardware range.
Working with my designer, I also directed the UI/UX for both the FactorySense.io web-based tracking platform and a companion mobile app — from customer-facing dashboard screens, asset tracking views and reporting interfaces through to the on-floor mobile experience. The brief was to make a technically complex system feel intuitive across every level of user, from operations director to factory floor.
Website
Full redesign and rebuild around the enterprise buyer. Industry-specific pages for Aerospace, Defence, Electronics, Medical and Biotech, and Supply Chain. A structured Resources section built to support SEO and thought leadership. Clear conversion pathways and a demo request flow optimised for enterprise. Messaging aligned to buyer pain points at every level of the decision-making unit.
Sales Enablement
Collateral rebuilt from the ground up — product sheet templates, individual solution sheets across all key product and service lines, and a company sales deck built with narrative arc and interactive elements. Complex RFID technology, told as a clear and compelling story that worked in a live sales conversation and stood alone as a leave-behind.
Proposals rewritten for positioning and narrative strength, with direct input on pricing strategy and competitive positioning for major bids.
CRM set up in Zoho then transitioned to HubSpot. ABM programme designed from scratch — account scoring, contact scoring, ZoomInfo integration and prospect engagement playbooks. Sales team recruited, onboarded and managed. Outbound cadence run with the team — sequencing, messaging, targeting and activity management — driving meetings with leading enterprises across the target verticals.
Digital Marketing
SEO strategy and execution built from a standing start — keyword research, topic clusters, technical SEO, on-page optimisation and a sustained link building programme that delivered hundreds of backlinks across the engagement period. Google Ads campaigns ran week on week, driving consistent inbound calls and form submissions from enterprise prospects.
LinkedIn built from low engagement into an active channel reaching senior, director, VP and C-suite professionals across Sales, Business Development, Operations and Engineering at enterprise companies — precisely the decision-making unit FactorySense needed in front of. Social media managed across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube, with a monthly content calendar of thought leadership aligned to SEO themes and campaign activity.
Events — 2023 / 2024
Five major industry events managed end-to-end across two years, covering booth coordination, sponsorship and speaking sessions:
– 2024 | International Manufacturing Technology Show | Chicago, September
– 2024 | Anaheim Electronics & Manufacturing Show | October
– 2024 | Del Mar Electronics & Manufacturing Show | San Diego, April
– 2023 | Anaheim Electronics & Manufacturers Show | September
– 2023 | WESTEC | Long Beach, California, November
Webinars — 2024
Three webinars co-produced with HID Global and AIM, reaching enterprise RFID and manufacturing audiences across North America:
– WIOT Live Stream Session with HID Global | 11 September
– RFID in Manufacturing with HID Global | 28 August
– AIM RFID in Manufacturing with HID Global | 12 September
AIM — the Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility — membership supported industry credibility, partner relationships and visibility within the broader RFID and AIDC community.
RFID Journal 2024 Awards
I identified the Northrop Grumman Space Park deployment as award-worthy, made the case internally, and managed the entire submission process — including careful stakeholder coordination with Northrop Grumman’s leadership given the sensitivity of their operations.
The project was of such scale that RFID Journal created a new category — Best Large-Scale Deployment — specifically to accommodate it. FactorySense and Northrop Grumman were shortlisted, presented on stage at RFID Journal LIVE! 2024 at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas, and came second — behind a global logistics giant — in a category that didn’t exist before their project was entered.
Results
Organic search impressions grew to over 11,000 per week. Page one rankings achieved for key category terms including #1 for RFID consultant. Google Ads drove consistent inbound enquiries, with conversion rates of 4–6% at peak. LinkedIn built an engaged audience of senior and C-suite professionals across the target US enterprise market.
The outbound sales cadence generated meetings with leading enterprises across aerospace, defence, electronics, medical and supply chain. The Northrop Grumman account expanded substantially through a land-and-expand strategy, with new enterprise pipeline opened across all target verticals.
From no marketing function to recognised industry player — in under two years.
