THE CHALLENGE
A homegrown app that became a burden instead of a solution
Cincinnati Inc. has shipped more than 50,000 build-to-order machine tools over the past century. Its field reps often have as little as five minutes of face time with a prospect — sometimes in a front lobby, sometimes standing next to equipment on a shop floor. They need to pivot instantly to whatever the conversation demands.
In 2012, the company tried to solve this by building a mobile app in-house. It helped display content digitally, but the resources required to maintain it were unsustainable. Constant requests for enhancements and content management meant the team would need to hire more people — eliminating the cost and efficiency savings the app was supposed to deliver. It also couldn’t operate across all devices.
“You may be thinking you’re going to start slides 1, 2, and 3, but your customer really wants to see slides 10, 18, and 25,” says Matt Garbarino, Director of Marketing Communications at Cincinnati Inc. “Showpad lets you easily go where the conversation goes.”
THE SOLUTION
Any device, online or offline — with a dedicated success partner
Cincinnati Inc. turned to Showpad to eliminate the app maintenance burden and give reps the flexibility to present wherever and whenever they need to — including on the shop floor without an internet connection.
The shift also cut printed collateral from 30 pieces to five, saving at least 50% on printing costs. Reps who once carried stacks of materials now carry a tablet loaded with organized, current content.
“If you want your sales team to have the most impactful presentation and the ability to be interactive with their customers, you need a tool that allows those things to happen,” says Garbarino. “Showpad does that.”
A dedicated customer success coach also met with the team weekly to ensure both marketers and sales reps were getting the most out of the platform — a level of partnership the homegrown solution never provided.
“Showpad lets you easily go where the conversation goes.”
Matt Garbarino
Director of Marketing Communications at Cincinnati Inc.
THE IMPACT
Visibility into what happens after the meeting ends
Before Showpad, Cincinnati Inc. had no way to track what happened to content once a rep shared it. Now sellers can see when a prospect opens an email, which slides they viewed the most, and whether they forwarded materials to a colleague.
That intelligence gives reps context for when and how to follow up — turning guesswork into informed action. And marketing now sees which content sellers share most and which pieces buyers engage with, creating a data-driven content strategy the team never had before.
“Showpad allows our marketing department to update sales media from a central location and push that content in real-time to the sales team,” says Garbarino. “This ensures that our sales team is always up-to-date using the current and approved marketing content.”