How ADV Imagine Closed $450,000 in new revenue with Thought Leadership Content & LinkedIn Outbound
"That $250,000 project came directly from LinkedIn. The net profit on that one deal pays for Uptown for a year"
Challenge
ADV Imagine had the capabilities to serve aerospace and defense, but its reputation lived in automotive. The right buyers in new industries didn't know they existed.
ADV Imagine (formerly ADV Fiberglass) manufactures fiberglass and carbon fiber components from R&D and prototyping through full production runs, AS9100 certified with the quality and turnaround times production programs demand. The business was built on automotive work, referrals, and repeat relationships.
The growth plan was expansion: defense, aerospace, space, and the other corners of the composites world where programs are bigger and vendors are vetted harder. Those buyers, the chief engineers, presidents, and supply chain and manufacturing leaders, are a niche, slow-moving audience. Deals hinge on timing: the vendor that's top of mind when a program lands wins the work.
As COO, John Gerwatosky owns business development on top of running the shop. He needed the right people to know ADV, trust the quality, and think of them the moment a project needs parts, without spending his weeks prospecting.
“In our industry, if it's not top of mind, they'll just push it aside and ignore us. But there's always that sweet spot when we hit them up at the right time, and they go, this is perfect timing, I can't believe you contacted us.”
Solution
Uptown ran LinkedIn outbound and thought leadership content together, so the same niche audience receiving ADV's messages saw its work everywhere they scrolled.
Uptown worked with John to:
- Run outbound from two LinkedIn seats targeting supply chain, manufacturing, procurement, and engineering leaders at companies that use composites across aerospace, defense, space, and automotive
- Publish thought leadership content from ADV's real projects, building the trust and credibility that shortens a manufacturing sales cycle, and feeding post engagement back into targeting
- Refine the ideal customer profile from John's own close data, down to the production companies with the bandwidth and budget to award real work
- Retarget every 30 days, hand each warm conversation to John for email and site visits, and carry the mid-engagement rebrand from ADV Fiberglass to ADV Imagine across both profiles
“We've been getting contacted by more people than we're normally used to. That has a lot to do with LinkedIn.”
Results
The combination turned a niche audience into revenue: $450,000 closed and over a million impressions on exactly the buyers ADV wanted.
During the engagement:
- $450,000 in new revenue closed across two production accounts, both of which started as LinkedIn conversations: a $250,000 carbon fiber program with an electric vehicle manufacturer and a $195,000 program with a security robotics company
- 1.4M+ impressions and 433,000+ professionals reached in 12 months of thought leadership content, 94% of it beyond ADV's own network, with an audience led by Director-level and above at aviation and aerospace component manufacturers
- 80+ positive replies, a steady flow of discovery calls and site visits with engineering and operations leaders, and 247% follower growth that keeps compounding
