Kubota
Their products may be tough, but their people employ a soft touch to make their customers happy. Meltwater helps point the way.
Cultivating Lasting Relationships
Kubota established their Canadian operations in Markham, Ontario, in 1975. Today more than 135 dealers sell and service Kubota tractors and other heavy-duty equipment essential to construction and agriculture in Canada. Kubota Canada uses Meltwater to monitor and engage with customers, dealers, prospects, and influencers.
The Challenge
Monitoring Conversations and Supporting Campaigns
Since their inception 130 years ago in Osaka, Japan, Kubota’s products have been reshaping the land to make it more habitable. It was the company's pipe that carried Japan’s first municipal water supply. “For Earth, For Life” is the company’s credo, and Kubota Canada’s 150 employees work hard to make it ring true. Kubota’s Emma Wahdani says, “Canada is extreme in its weather and terrain. Product testing is done here to make every Kubota product tougher. Being relevant to our dealers and customers is why we're successful.”
Wahdani is one of six people tasked with creating campaigns for Kubota products, brand, and events marketing. The team manages social media and often shares what’s on customers’ minds internally. Prior to acquiring Meltwater, marketers were often unaware of issues being raised on a variety of channels, including social, TV, radio, and print. This meant missing out on opportunities to please existing customers and win new converts. To succeed in niche markets, the team wanted to engage in influencer marketing but was unsure who to reach out to and how to proceed. And while they already had a robust marketing automation tool, they struggled to populate it with high-quality content — the type of content available in a platform like Meltwater.
Meltwater helps us answer the question: how can we ensure that the content we're producing is relevant to what people want to know about Kubota?
Chad Ming, Digital Marketing Manager
The Solution
TV, Print, Social, and Radio All on One Platform
The selection process was thorough and cross-departmental. All parties agreed they needed a platform capable of singling out Canada-specific content and mentions. Following conversations across all types of media — broadcast, social, print, even radio — was also high on their wish list, along with the ability to measure sentiment and see what was trending.
After selecting Meltwater’s all-in-one platform, Kubota Canada can now measure the ROI of their campaigns and programs. They’re able to track customers and prospects talking about them online and offline, even when they’re not tagged, using the Explore product. This provides them with a more accurate assessment of total mentions and consumer sentiment, along with the opportunity to head off any potential issues and keep customers happy. The platform provides greater insight into Kubota Canada’s ad activities on TV and other media. And with Meltwater’s influencer contact database, marketers can easily seek out and find the exact characteristics and experiences they want in the people they choose to partner with.
Kubota’s Chad Ming says, “Transparency is a key benefit of Meltwater. We now know who picks up our press releases and blogs about us out of genuine interest. These are people we may want to build a relationship with.”
Meltwater Enables Kubota Canada to
Monitor every mention on TV, social media, print, and even radio from one platform
Search by desired traits for people they want to sponsor as marketing influencers
Execute more successful product launches using insights acquired via social media
Summary
Meltwater Helps Kubota Canada
Monitor and measure TV, radio, print, and social on a single platform
“Meltwater Explore’s ability to monitor TV and radio is huge. Add in the social tools, and this is what drove us to say let's try this out and see where it goes. I worked closely with my service rep to get up and running. Since then, we’ve been getting real-time insights that frankly, I've never seen before.” – Emma Wahdani, Marketing Communications Specialist
Succeed with influencer marketing by identifying just the right people
“We started doing influencer marketing this year and found Meltwater’s platform extremely helpful. Their search tool allows us to sort through all the features people share in their bios to identify those people with the exact hobbies and other key characteristics we're looking for.” – Chad Ming, Digital Marketing Manager
Grow and engage their audience without being overwhelmed by complexity
“Initially, we thought Meltwater might only be for large companies. We don’t have a mass-market audience. But as we became more familiar with the platform and listened in on conversations to learn more about our target audience, the benefits became clearer. Having our marketing metrics in one place helps also.” – Chad Ming, Digital Marketing Manager
