3M Interconnect Growth Activation Experience

While 3M was a globally recognized brand, awareness of its Interconnect solutions remained relatively low within several priority industrial manufacturing segments. Customers recognized the brand, but not necessarily the relevance.

Some target segments were estimated to have less than 0.5% market penetration, highlighting a substantial opportunity for growth but also a significant awareness challenge.

While relevant Interconnect solutions existed across the portfolio, there was no segment-specific destination that aligned with the audiences targeted by the campaign. The existing catalog structure was product-centric rather than audience-centric, making it difficult to present a curated collection of solutions for a particular segment.

Given the campaign timelines, restructuring the underlying product catalog was not a practical near-term option. The challenge was to create a scalable approach that could connect campaign audiences with relevant solutions, content, and conversion opportunities while supporting rapid execution of the growth initiative.

The initiative was designed to increase awareness, direct engagement, and qualified demand for 3M Interconnect solutions within several underpenetrated industrial markets.

Before launch, stakeholders aligned around a set of measurable campaign KPIs covering awareness, engagement, lead generation, opportunity creation, and commercial impact. These targets helped create a shared definition of success across marketing, sales, business, and UX teams while keeping execution focused on outcomes rather than activity.

The initiative centered around three primary goals:

• Increase awareness of 3M Interconnect solutions within priority industrial segments

• Create stronger direct engagement with end users rather than relying solely on traditional channel-driven demand generation

• Generate qualified interest that could contribute to opportunities, pipeline growth, and future market expansion

Campaign Targets

In addition to performance targets, the initiative was structured around an accelerated go-to-market timeline. The team was tasked with moving from planning to launch in less than 27 days while supporting a broader launch target of August 4, 2025. This created additional pressure to deliver a focused solution that could be implemented quickly and effectively.

Four priority segments were identified: Material Handling, Robotics, MedTech, and Semiconductor Test & Measurement. Each segment had distinct technical needs, target accounts, and audience profiles, ranging from engineers and technical leads to biomedical product teams, scientists, systems engineers, and high-tech manufacturing specialists. These users were trying to solve specific engineering and manufacturing challenges related to motion, vibration, data speed, downtime, board space, interoperability, and reliability. The experience needed to help them quickly identify relevant 3M Interconnect solutions for their specific applications and environments.

One of the most important discoveries was that the existing product catalog was not organized around the same industrial segments being targeted by the campaign.

Relevant products and solutions existed throughout the catalog, but they were distributed across broader categories and application areas rather than grouped by the targeted segments for this effort.

It became clear that leading with customer challenges and application-specific pain points would establish relevance more effectively than directing users into a large and technically complex product catalog.

The broader initiative combined targeted LinkedIn campaigns, paid search, rep firm outreach, and dedicated landing page experiences to increase awareness and engagement within priority industrial manufacturing segments.

A key objective was building stronger direct relationships with end users rather than relying exclusively on traditional channel-driven demand generation.

From a UX perspective, the challenge was straightforward: create a clear path from campaign engagement to meaningful action.

Dedicated segment landing pages became the foundation of that strategy. Each experience connected campaign messaging, industry-specific challenges, relevant solutions, and expert engagement opportunities within a focused journey.

The strategy focused on:

• Establishing relevance quickly

• Maintaining consistency from ad click to landing page

• Simplifying engagement paths

• Reducing unnecessary navigation

• Creating direct opportunities to connect with 3M experts

Key Design Decisions

Several decisions shaped the final experience:

Segment-Led Landing Pages

Dedicated landing pages were used to create stronger alignment between campaign targeting, industry-specific messaging, and engagement opportunities.

Expert Engagement Over Product Exploration

The experience prioritized direct access to 3M experts rather than encouraging deep product browsing early in the journey. This helped keep users focused on understanding solution relevance and taking action.

Reusable Experience Framework

A shared page structure was established across all four segments to support consistency, scalability, and accelerated delivery while still allowing segment-specific content and messaging.

UX Strategy

The UX strategy focused on helping users move from initial awareness to expert engagement as quickly and clearly as possible.

Rather than encouraging deep product exploration, the experience was designed to establish relevance first, build confidence through solution messaging, and create clear opportunities for direct engagement.

Several UX principles guided the experience:

• Prioritize relevance before exploration
• Surface engagement opportunities early
• Reduce unnecessary navigation and distractions
• Maintain consistency between campaign messaging and landing page content
• Support users at different stages of decision-making

A “Contact a 3M Expert” call-to-action was positioned near the top of each landing page for users ready to engage after reviewing the introductory content and solution overview.

The same call-to-action was repeated near the bottom of the experience to support visitors who wanted additional context before taking action.

Navigation was intentionally simplified to keep attention on the primary engagement path and reduce unnecessary exits.

Together, these decisions created a focused experience that guided users from awareness to action while supporting the broader campaign objectives.

[PLACEHOLDER_IMAGE — CTA STRATEGY DIAGRAM]

Annotated wireframe showing CTA placement, simplified navigation, and engagement pathways.

Once the overall campaign direction and segment strategy were established, implementation moved into a collaborative working phase across UX, copywriting, design, marketing, SEO, development, campaign teams, analytics partners, and business stakeholders.

Early content and narrative development were driven collaboratively between copywriters and business teams to define:

• Segment-specific messaging
• Industry pain points
• Campaign positioning
• Engagement goals
• Supporting content priorities

From there, working sessions between UX, copywriting, and design translated those inputs into structured landing page experiences.

UX Structure & Wireframing

My responsibilities included experience architecture, wireframing, content hierarchy recommendations, stakeholder alignment, design reviews, QA validation, and implementation support throughout the project lifecycle.

Low-fidelity wireframes were used to establish the foundational structure for each landing page experience before progressing into implementation-ready designs.

Early UX exploration focused on translating campaign messaging, content requirements, and engagement goals into a reusable page framework that could scale across all four target segments while maintaining consistency.

A shared structural model was established to support content flexibility, streamline stakeholder reviews, and accelerate implementation across the broader campaign initiative.

Using a reusable framework helped simplify implementation, reduce design variability, and support the project’s accelerated deployment timeline.

Approved wireframes and UX structures were then translated into implementation-ready high-fidelity experiences using the existing 3M design system and approved design patterns.

This phase included:

• Visual refinement
• Responsive considerations
• Component integration
• Stakeholder reviews
• Implementation-ready specifications

The design system lived in Axure at the time, supporting reusable patterns, implementation notes, and collaborative review workflows across teams.

[PLACEHOLDER_IMAGE — HIGH-FIDELITY DESIGNS]

Final landing page designs showing hierarchy, design-system usage, and CTA implementation.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Execution

The initiative required coordination across UX, copywriting, design, development, SEO, analytics, campaign teams, marketing stakeholders, business leaders, sales teams, and rep firms.

Implementation spanned both Global and US web properties, requiring alignment across multiple publishing environments, approval processes, and stakeholder groups within an accelerated delivery timeline.

To maintain momentum, the project operated through a structured cross-functional cadence. Twice-weekly working sessions focused on content development, paid search, social campaigns, implementation progress, and optimization planning. Bi-weekly full-team reviews were used to assess campaign performance, discuss emerging insights, and align priorities across marketing, sales, and business stakeholders. Monthly rep firm reviews provided feedback from the field, while weekly executive report-outs kept leadership informed of progress, risks, and campaign performance.

My role was to connect strategy, content, implementation, and launch execution throughout the project lifecycle. This included supporting stakeholder reviews, experience validation, development planning, implementation reviews, QA activities, and launch readiness efforts across both Global and US platforms.

UX partnered closely with developers throughout implementation by translating requirements into detailed development tickets, reviewing preview environments, validating experience quality, and supporting production launch activities.

Final QA and launch readiness activities focused on:

• Layout validation
• CTA visibility and placement
• Responsive review
• Implementation verification
• Messaging consistency across campaign assets

The campaign was structured as a test-and-learn initiative and continued evolving after launch through ongoing monitoring and optimization across paid media performance and user engagement metrics.

Following launch, marketing, analytics, campaign, UX, and business stakeholders reviewed performance regularly and adjusted campaign strategy based on emerging insights.

Optimization efforts focused on understanding how different audiences engaged with the experience and identifying opportunities to improve campaign efficiency and engagement quality.

Performance reviews considered:

• Audience targeting

• CTR performance

• Engagement behavior

• Bid efficiency

• Segment-level performance

Even though total traffic came in lower than original projections, the quality of engagement throughout the campaign ended up significantly outperforming expectations.

Once users entered the experience, engagement metrics were consistently strong:

• High Value Actions exceeded target by more than 50%
• Marketing Qualified Leads nearly doubled projections
• Opportunity-generation targets were fully met
• Pipeline contribution exceeded the original forecast by more than 4x

The results reinforced a few things pretty clearly.

The segment-led approach helped make the experience feel more relevant to users arriving from targeted campaigns. Keeping the landing pages focused, reducing unnecessary navigation, and creating clearer paths to expert engagement helped support stronger downstream conversion behavior.

The project also showed the value of adapting the experience around real business constraints instead of trying to force large structural changes into an aggressive launch timeline.

By the end of the initiative, the combination of targeted campaign strategy, focused UX decisions, and cross-functional execution helped contribute to measurable business impact across both engagement and pipeline performance.