Making Lightning Strike Twice

The Situation:

In the wake of 9/11, several companies rose to the challenge of serving first responders. One such organization was SensIR Technologies. Its breakthrough threat-detection technology was the basis for a truly portable – and powerful – machine designed to give emergency and military responders the ability to proactively and accurately identify threats, including hazardous chemicals, chemical warfare agents, and more.

So successful was its new technology that SensIR Technologies was acquired by a larger company, Smiths Detection, in 2004, just two years after its founding. Smiths essentially took on SensIR to shelve a competitor.

But a noncompete is a finite thing. After a decade, SensIR’s founders saw that the white space in the detection industry they’d previously identified and occupied was once again open. In 2019, their next iteration, RedWave Technology, was born.

The Challenge:

While bringing back SensIR’s threat-detection tool represented an excellent opportunity as nothing like it now existed, the founders realized that the industry had changed a great deal in the ensuing years. Just as crucial, the techniques for quantifying and reaching a now more stratified target audience had also shifted. It would take some retooling on both fronts to get RedWave Technology back into the market.

The Solution:

On the technology side, RedWave improved the original tool with the introduction of the ThreatID machine, which is lighter and more portable, able to identify a wider array of threats, and features more functionality. It also created a wider array of purpose-built products, including the portable XplorIR handheld gas/vapor detector, compact ProtectIR chemical threat identifier, and InterceptIR rapid gas identifier for unmanned systems. In addition, RedWave added a proprietary TeamLeader mobile app to monitor hot zones for better real-time decision-making.

In terms of reaching the audience, Virtuoso created a communications plan harnessing data-driven tactics to reach a larger, more demographically diverse target. Targeting larger federal and government teams, civilian teams, private commercials, and law enforcement, we first rebuilt all the databases, cleaning and optimizing all contacts to ensure we were reaching decision-makers as we expanded outreach. After building out the narrative (“Because you don’t know when you’ll get a call for the unknown”), we took a tailored approach to reaching our targets across the RedWave website, socials, eCRM, video, social platforms, print, and more. We also fielded a comprehensive network of regional influencers to amplify our efforts, adding the credibility of acknowledged subject matter experts in all our outreach efforts.

The Results:

There are a couple ways to gauge the success of our efforts. First, we have the data. Using a recent “First 90” snapshot, we achieved:

23% Increase in site traffic
86,000+ New database contacts added
$170k In new opportunities

As proud as we are of those numbers, there’s another one that truly validates our efforts: $76.2 million. That’s the recent sale price of RedWave Technology to 908 Devices. We helped make lightning strike twice.