Most complex industrial buying decisions unfold slowly and cautiously. In regulated manufacturing markets, sales cycles stretch over months or years, buying committees grow larger, and decisions are shaped less by persuasion than by risk reduction and confidence-building. When marketing activity is misaligned with how technical and commercial buyers actually evaluate options, marketing program effectiveness is impacted.

According to Dan Konstantinovsky, strategy director at RH Blake, addressing that misalignment starts with focusing on the buyer’s decision process. For more than 30 years, the firm has helped manufacturers in high-stakes, regulated markets understand how customers actually make decisions across long, nonlinear buying journeys. Rather than chasing tactics, RH Blake focuses on Voice of the Customer (VoC) research to uncover how buyers assess risk, build confidence, and move toward change.

“We build growth strategies around how buyers actually make decisions, and we use that insight to guide everything that follows,” says Konstantinovsky.

Through that VoC work, the firm interviews manufacturers’ ideal customers, not just internal stakeholders. These conversations reveal where buyers go for information, who influences decisions, what risks matter most, and which messages help buyers feel confident rather than overwhelmed. RH Blake then pairs these external insights with the client’s internal perspective, creating a clear view of how the market actually perceives the offering.

Those insights are formalized through the RH Blake Growth Roadmap™, a go-to-market framework grounded in customer reality rather than assumptions. The roadmap aligns positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategy with buyer decision-making, prioritized customer value objectives and how their client can uniquely address them. As markets evolve, new products launch, or priorities shift, the firm builds on that foundation through continued collaboration and research, maintaining strategic continuity without locking clients into static plans.

  • We build growth strategies around how buyers actually make decisions, and we use that insight to guide everything that follows.


This adaptability is critical in environments defined by long, nonlinear buying journeys and conservative decision-making, where traditional funnel models are sometimes insufficient on their own. Rather than discarding buying-journey thinking altogether, RH Blake supplements it by identifying compelling events that prompt buyers to reconsider existing approaches. These include compliance changes, facility expansions, operational disruptions, or new strategic initiatives that create moments of openness to change.

A product launch for caster manufacturer Caster Connection illustrates this approach in practice. They introduced a new caster technology across healthcare, distribution, and manufacturing markets. While the underlying product remained the same, its value shifted by audience: improved ergonomics and worker safety in distribution environments, and quieter operation that enhanced patient experience and supported stronger HCAHPS ratings in healthcare settings.

RH Blake conducted interviews with subject matter experts and target customers in each vertical, developing market-specific messaging and go-to-market strategies. Educational webinars, white papers, dimensional mail, and targeted outreach created awareness and preference, resulting in a launch that addressed market-specific needs while maintaining a unified product story.

Measurement and transparency support this ongoing adaptability. RH Blake maintains performance dashboards for every client engagement, tracking KPIs tied directly to pipeline contribution, buyer engagement, and progression through long sales cycles. Client teams revisit progress and assumptions on a biweekly cadence, using these dashboards to evaluate ROI, test assumptions, and determine where strategy needs to adjust as buyer behavior evolves.

The firm also reinforces its work through proprietary research, including its annual Thought Leadership Impact Research and Buyer Journey Intelligence reports. These studies examine how manufacturing leaders consume information, evaluate suppliers, and increasingly use AI-driven search tools early in the decision process, helping validate and refine execution across client programs.

Buyers now have access to more information than ever before and as complex manufacturing markets continue to evolve, the importance of credibility and domain expertise is only increasing. In response, manufacturers are placing greater value on marketing partners who understand their industries deeply, recognize the realities of long decision cycles, and can translate technical complexity into clarity over time.