Ballenger Brands
Marketing Research and Marketing Strategy
Challenge
As a holding company, Ballenger Brands has achieved success by pairing financial acumen with partnership connections. The company holds ownership stake in brands in the aviation, finance, green industry and real estate sectors.
In 2021, Ballenger Brands expanded its green industry portfolio by purchasing an irrigation and water resource management company. Named Ballenger Irrigation, the company had a stable customer base but faced an executive transition as its founder began a phased retirement. Ballenger Brands also needed the company to grow its revenues to support the acquisition. Mark Ballenger, the chief investor of Ballenger Brands, retained SageRiver Consulting to evaluate growth opportunities and develop a new leadership vision and marketing strategy.
Project
SageRiver Consulting served as the chief strategists for the project and engaged a trusted marketing communications partner for key components of the scope.
To inform its recommendations, SageRiver evaluated Ballenger Irrigation’s internal capacities and conducted comprehensive market research to assess its products and services, market position, customer needs, market trends and competitive landscape. SageRiver also analyzed political and economic factors to determine whether the company should market its services to the fast-growing cannabis sector.
Based on those insights, SageRiver and its partners developed:
- A new “make every drop count” brand, positioning and visual identity for Ballenger Irrigation, along with a new website and marketing collateral
- A business and go-to-market strategy to enable Ballenger Irrigation to triple its revenues over three to five years. SageRiver detailed its recommendations in a full business plan, which included:
- Transition planning recommendations to guide the company through executive leadership changes
- Strategies for building and sustaining a strong marketing and sales culture
- Recommendations for increasing market share within Ballenger Irrigation’s core markets
- Strategies for expanding into adjacent markets
- Recommendations for enhancing marketing and sales through search-engine optimization, digital marketing and public relations opportunities
- Strategies for leveraging technology as a force multiplier
- A one-page strategy visual that describes the company and its purpose, customers and services. The visual has become a key tool in recruiting and unifying employees around the company’s strategic vision.
- A Strategy Roadmap that illustrates the company’s strategic goals, timelines and performance indicators to build leadership consensus around how they will achieve their strategic goals
- Facilitated executive team sessions that culminated with signing a document to show their shared commitment to their business and marketing strategy
SageRiver also recommended that Ballenger Brands create a separate company to offer irrigation design, installation and maintenance services to cannabis growers. SageRiver and its partners developed a unique brand for the new company—Ballenger AgGrow—as well as brand positioning and collateral.
Results
In less than a year, Ballenger Brands has grown Ballenger Irrigation’s staff, promoted and recruited new leaders and created alignment around the brand, vision and strategy. The holding company plans to launch Ballenger AgGrow later, as part of its overall green industry growth strategy.
“The unbiased research and analysis that SageRiver provided was invaluable,” Mark Ballenger said. “It confirmed that we had tremendous opportunity and could set ambitious goals. As an investor, I think I have a good business sense, but you need strategists with an outside perspective to come in, ask the right questions and paint a picture of the future in a way that your team can see and understand. That’s how you get buy-in from the people who will make the vision a reality.”
Story Categories: Marketing Strategy and Strategic Planning. Story Tags: Environmental Scan, Executive Buy-In Process, Go-to-Market Planning, Market Research, Marketing Communications, Marketing Planning, Marketing Strategy, Research, Strategic Planning, Strategy Development, and Succession Planning.
To inform its recommendations, SageRiver evaluated Ballenger Irrigation’s internal capacities and conducted comprehensive market research to assess its products and services, market position, customer needs, market trends and competitive landscape. SageRiver also analyzed political and economic factors to determine whether the company should market its services to the fast-growing cannabis sector.
Based on those insights, SageRiver and its partners developed:
- A new “make every drop count” brand, positioning and visual identity for Ballenger Irrigation, along with a new website and marketing collateral
- A business and go-to-market strategy to enable Ballenger Irrigation to triple its revenues over three to five years. SageRiver detailed its recommendations in a full business plan, which included:
- Transition planning recommendations to guide the company through executive leadership changes
- Strategies for building and sustaining a strong marketing and sales culture
- Recommendations for increasing market share within Ballenger Irrigation’s core markets
- Strategies for expanding into adjacent markets
- Recommendations for enhancing marketing and sales through search-engine optimization, digital marketing and public relations opportunities
- Strategies for leveraging technology as a force multiplier
- A one-page strategy visual that describes the company and its purpose, customers and services. The visual has become a key tool in recruiting and unifying employees around the company’s strategic vision.
- A Strategy Roadmap that illustrates the company’s strategic goals, timelines and performance indicators to build leadership consensus around how they will achieve their strategic goals
- Facilitated executive team sessions that culminated with signing a document to show their shared commitment to their business and marketing strategy
SageRiver also recommended that Ballenger Brands create a separate company to offer irrigation design, installation and maintenance services to cannabis growers. SageRiver and its partners developed a unique brand for the new company—Ballenger AgGrow—as well as brand positioning and collateral.
