Frequently asked questions
We’re used to answering these ones! If you don’t find the answer you’re looking for, feel free to shoot us a note.
What types of companies does Gorilla best serve?
For more than a decade, we’ve built our expertise working with B2B companies throughout the manufacturing ecosystem. Our clients include engineering-heavy OEMs, custom machine builders, contract manufacturers, robotics integrators and industry 4.0 tech companies.
We’re at our best with companies that have deep expertise in their lines of business and sell customized solutions (rather than commodities) that require a consultative sale through often long and complex buying processes. Learn more about our ideal client.
How did you develop a specialty in industrial marketing?
We founded Gorilla 76 in 2006 and very quickly found that our best and favorite customers were companies we once described as “blue-collar brands”. From the beginning, we liked working with people that woke up every day and got their hands dirty making things. Some of our earliest clients were construction businesses – all B2B. As we grew and evolved, we continued to explore the industrial sector and eventually honed our focus on midsized manufacturers. Though every client has been unique, we began identifying patterns – similar problems, challenges, and goals among these companies and we developed a methodology for solving them. Here are some case studies.
What makes Gorilla different from the thousands of other marketing agencies out there?
Three things make us different. First is our niche serving midsized B2B manufacturers – particularly those who possess deep expertise in their lines of business and sell complex, customized products or solutions that require an often-long and highly-consultative sales process. Second, our work centers around helping our clients harness their knowledge and convert it into marketing and sales content that addresses the problems, goals and related questions of the buying process influencers at ideal-fit accounts. And third, our success metric is your growth in high-margin sales from the right customers. If you’re not generating more sales (and at the right margin), we’re not doing our job. We’ll hold ourselves responsible for helping you integrate your marketing and sales initiatives into a business development unit that produces a significant and measurable ROI. Learn more about who we help and how.
How much do Gorilla’s services cost?
For a full-scale program with Gorilla, we recommend budgeting roughly $200-300K/year, including both our agency fees and your media buy.
That said, we like to eliminate as many barriers as possible to getting started, so each of the four parts of our framework (learn more on this page) can be implemented one step at a time, and at the right pace for your organization.
How will I know if my investment has been successful?
We’ll begin our engagement by focusing on your revenue and profitability targets, as well as any other goals you may have for your initiative. Then we’ll work backward to set aggressive, but achievable KPIs (key performance indicators) to guide us. We’ll help you put the necessary software and processes in place for full-sales-funnel reporting. But measuring results will require a commitment from your end too. We’ll need an open dialogue between our team and your Sales team that includes consistent sharing of sales reports. This allows us to trace revenue back to the origin of the customer and identify what activities played a role in moving him/her through the buying process to the sale.
Do you have any documented examples of success with other clients?
We do. Here’s a collection of case studies from real Gorilla clients.
What’s the makeup of Gorilla’s staff? How big are you and where is your team located?
We’re a team of 20 with our office located in the heart of St. Louis’ Central West End and most of our team local. The two founders – Joe Sullivan and Jon Franko – have built an in-house team of marketing strategists, copywriters, designers, developers, account coordinators and project managers around them. Collectively, this group possesses specialties in brand positioning, content marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), lead generation, website development and optimization, email, account-based marketing and sales enablement. Learn more about our team.
How can your marketing people who know nothing about my business possibly create content that will resonate with our audience?
When it comes to producing content, our job is simple – to extract the knowledge of your company’s subject matter experts and translate it into well-organized, professionally-written content that will resonate with your audience. We’ll be the first to acknowledge that we’re not the experts on the content. You are. Our expertise lies in asking the right questions that pull the right insights out of your team’s brains, and supplementing those insights with research. Because our writers come from journalism backgrounds, they’re well-versed in learning about unfamiliar, complex topics and producing engaging content around them.
How much of our team’s time will be required for our engagement to be successful?
Although our clients hire us to fill a gap in their experience and skill sets, we can’t succeed without you. You possess the experience, not us. So in the early stages of our work together, we’ll need you to do some heavy lifting with us. We’ll apply our methodology to lead your executive, sales and marketing teams through a strategy development process as we develop an understanding of your ideal customer, your competitive space and the place you occupy in that marketplace. Throughout a typical engagement, we’ll require the attention of your team as follows:
- President / CEO: a half-day discovery meeting up front during our Industrial Marketing Road Map process, a monthly 30-minute executive team meeting to discuss progress toward goals, a comprehensive marketing review twice per year and a half day of ongoing discovery annually
- VP of sales: the same time commitment as your president/CEO, but with one additional 30-minute meeting each month for sales enablement and marketing-sales alignment
- Marketing director / marketing manager: In addition the the commitment listed for the VP of sales, availability for twice-per-month status calls and miscellaneous email/phone communication to keep projects in motion
- Various subject matter experts: collectively, a few 30-minute interviews throughout a given quarter to lend their expertise in the content creation process
Who on Gorilla’s team would I be working with?
Our first step with new clients takes the form of a strategy project like our Industrial Marketing Road Map. During this process, you’d work with one of our founders (Joe Sullivan) and one of our marketing strategists. Should you hire us to implement the plan we create for you, you’d have a dedicated team made up of a founder, a marketing strategist and an account coordinator. And you’d have an in-house team of copywriters, designers and developers at your disposal, depending on the nature of the work required to achieve your desired results. Learn more about our team.
You talk a lot about strategy, but what kind of work do you actually implement for your clients?
We always begin with a strategy/consulting engagement like our Industrial Marketing Road Map. But should you hire us to implement that plan, our work for you will consist of some combination of brand positioning, content marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), website development and optimization, email, account-based marketing and sales enablement.
Am I required to start with a consulting engagement, or can I jump straight into implementation?
We’re strong believers that strategy needs to precede implementation. Even if we jumped into a long-term engagement together, we’d spend our first few months developing strategy. So rather than requiring a 12-month+ contract, let’s start by creating a plan that you and we are confident will get you to your desired future state. Let’s make sure there’s a good fit between our two organizations in the process of doing so. And let’s give our team the chance to earn your trust before you go all in.
We’re struggling with filling a retiring workforce, is that something you can help with?
Yes, we’re finding manufacturers are struggling to attract and retain top talent. We’ve built a process around modernizing an outdated hiring model. We go through an in-depth discovery workshop and research process to better understand your hiring and retention pain points. From there, we propose a plan for implementation. You can read about our special engagement called the Hiring & Retention Road Map.
Where does the name “Gorilla 76” come from?
It comes from a couple of 23-year-old guys back in 2006 who were silly enough to think they could start a company. “Gorilla” is a nod to “guerrilla” marketing. In our earliest days, we took on any client willing to throw a few bucks our way and figured out how to make something of nothing. And “76” points to the seventh month of 2006, when we unofficially started this adventure (about six months before we realized we had to formally file as an LLC and about two years before we quit our jobs and made the leap into doing this thing full time).
