How a global specialty plastics manufacturer built worldwide recognition with SpecialChem’s demand creation
- Case Study - Demand creation & Demand capture Solutions
- Plastics Applications
Program impact since December 2022
Supplier rank up from 120
Page views across programs
How can a specialty materials producer build global recognition around a proven but niche technology?
A large specialty plastics manufacturer active across Asia had spent years developing a syndiotactic polystyrene (SPS) grade. Formulators who worked with the material rated it highly, but outside a small circle, almost no one had heard of it.
By December 2022, the manufacturer’s SPS technology ranked in the low 120s among suppliers listed in SpecialChem’s Master Catalog of Plastics & Elastomers. It drew roughly 330 product page views that year, with a popularity index of 0.97. The material had a track record in only two applications: automotive parts and kitchenware.
A popularity index compares a product’s page views to the number of product pages in its category. If every product attracted equal traffic, each would score exactly 1. Popular products score above 1; products drawing less attention than their portfolio size would predict score below 1. At 0.97, the manufacturer’s technology sat just below that midpoint.
The manufacturer’s own marketing and sales team had the capability to qualify leads that came to them, but overall, there was no digital demand-generation engine set up to bring qualified leads at scale.
This gap in opportunity identification was a significant pain point for this manufacturer. A new production line was beginning in November 2023, and the goal was for it to be at full capacity by April 2025. Having a new supply without a matching global demand would mean idle capacity, and a cost that the business would not be able to absorb indefinitely.
The company identified three key areas to work on, which would become the objectives of the program:
Broader Brand Recognition
Global visibility beyond a small circle of formulators
Market Education
Steady Qualified Leads
What does a multi-year Demand Creation program look like in practice?
With these objectives in mind, the manufacturer began a multi-year program with SpecialChem’s Demand Creation service in December 2022.
Demand Creation keeps a supplier’s technology visible and trusted with material specifiers before they start actively selecting a material. Through that exposure, the technology stays visible and features on a specifier's short-list once the decision-making process starts. The program expanded and grew every year. Elements tailored to the business objectives were added to support the demand of interested prospects.
Program evolution, December 2022 – present
Year 1 · Dec 2022
Year 3
Expanded to the secondary Master Catalog community , The Digital marketing program naturally evolved and shaped itself around two complementary pillars: Demand Creation, to stay visible with the market before a project starts, and Demand Capture, to convert material specifiers already building a short-list for a material.
Dedicated Project Identification added, supporting and complementing the internal efforts of the manufacturer’s own sales team.
Year 2 · Apr 2024
New technical content creation to cover areas of interest: EV, 5G/E&E, water management
Year 4 · Today
case studies, webinars, technical
brochures
Year 1 · Dec 2022
Year 2 · Apr 2024
New technical content creation to cover areas of interest: EV, 5G/E&E, water management
Year 3
Expanded to the secondary Master Catalog community , The Digital marketing program naturally evolved and shaped itself around two complementary pillars: Demand Creation, to stay visible with the market before a project starts, and Demand Capture, to convert material specifiers already building a short-list for a material.
Dedicated Project Identification added, supporting and complementing the internal efforts of the manufacturer’s own sales team.
Year 4 · Today
case studies, webinars, technical
brochures
What changed after three years of Demand Creation?
The manufacturer’s ranking in SpecialChem’s Top 100 Suppliers of Plastics & Elastomers climbed fast. It went from around the 120s in 2022 to jumping roughly 45 places within a year, and it now ranks among the top 75 most popular suppliers.
Product page views grew nearly 25 fold, from 330 in 2022 to 8,254 in 2025, and its popularity index rose from 0.97 to 5.9 over the same period, meaning its products now draw nearly six times the traffic their portfolio size alone would predict. Across three full program years, its brand also generated more than 2.2 million page views.
Across the three years, the program generated 3,003 marketing-qualified leads, 90% of them from the manufacturer’s technical content library.
Click-to-lead conversion reached 23.1%, 19.7%, and 27.6% across years one through three, ahead of SpecialChem’s 12.9% industry benchmark every year, and by year three, it was more than double the benchmark. Their March 2026 webinar alone generated 82 marketing-qualified leads, with 45% live attendance and 9 sample requests from this single event.
82 marketing-qualified leads generated from a single March 2026 webinar
That engagement is also converting into a working pipeline. The program has generated 133 qualified sales opportunities to date, and the team is actively working on dozens of open projects, with several digital buyers having moved down the pipeline and approaching a purchase decision. The application footprint has grown too: at kickoff, the technology had two known uses: automotive and kitchenware, while today, new opportunities include EV and automotive connectors, alloy applications, enclosures, and autoclave uses.
Conclusion
Three years ago, this manufacturer’s technology ranked outside the visibility it deserved. Today, it ranks among SpecialChem’s Top 100 suppliers, with an audience that keeps growing and a pipeline of qualified opportunities that keeps refilling.
If your own technology is well-proven but still known only in one region or one channel, this is the same starting point.