Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The value of case studies


Case studies, describing how customer needs have been met and their outcome received, can have a positive influence on new business.

The use of case studies as a marketing tool can be very informative and influential in converting prospects into customers, or persuading people such as architects or consulting engineers with specifying authority to recommend your product. Case studies should outline the brief or issue being addressed, mention options considered and provide the rationale for the final choice, then explain how the product or system was installed and finally the outcome of the project will round off the case study.


Case studies are usually most relevant to projects and contracts for example in architecture, construction and engineering. The target audiences will include management of companies and organisations contemplating similar work as well as specifiers working in those disciplines. Often they will be used to show case a number of company products or systems installed in the project.

We can divide the case study into 4 main sections:-
1.     The scene can be set by describing the project brief or problems to be addressed and the specific role or involvement of your company.
2.     Then review the options that would meet the goals of the project and the recommended solution.
3.     Details of the products or system can then be described, perhaps illustrated with building plans, wiring diagrams and photographs showing important stages of the work.
4.     Finally the outcome. Were the targets met, what did the client have to say what are the views of the users?

Building a portfolio of well-explained and illustrated case studies will help develop credibility and trust. The final version can be designed for print, to download from a web site or as a web page including links to products and other relevant information and always including company branding and contact information.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

The great, the good and the not so great

Final decisions in the buying process can often be influenced by the opinions of others. Aiming to achieve positive influences, or turn less enthusiastic endorsement into support, is an essential part of the marketing brief.

There are many people willing to offer opinions on the value and merits of your products but for simplicity consider two main groups that need to be addressed:-
          1. The experts and 
          2. The users
Expert opinions in general are the views expressed by people recognised as having authority within their field and whose independence and judgement is respected and trusted. They can be the 'great and the good' of the industry, reviewers of a trusted magazine or web site, or professional consultants. Industry or market sectors often have a 'guru' whose advice is sort and respected and a favourable or unfavourable opinion of a new product can be decisive to potential buyers looking for guidance. All these influencers should be identified and subject of a communications programme of information and disclosure directed towards getting them to be advocates for your products.

Keeping in touch with users of your products is as important as bringing them through the earlier stages of the buying process to become customers in the first place. Continuing  a dialogue not only helps confirm that they made a wise purchase decision, but contented customers can be turned into repeat customers and through personal testimonials, advocates on your behalf. Where products are sold directly identifying this group should be easy, but where goods are sold through intermediaries other methods will be needed to motivate product users to participate in your communications programmes.

Finally a word about the 'not so great' - the disaffected customer who uses online means to have a moan and dissuade others from buying your products. Monitoring the usual places, engaging and providing solutions can be time consuming in dealing with rogue dissidents, but failure to do so promptly can tarnish your product's and company's hard won reputation.



 

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Time for a marketing audit?

When was the last time your marketing programmes were subjected to review and audit?

Annual marketing plans and budgets, for those who write them at all, tend to be repetitive year on year. How often does the plan take a fresh look at the market, customers and prospects and ask is the plan still relevant, or have things out there changed? And not just the means of delivery of the message but has the market fundamentally changed, are new players reshaping that space, do customers still want the same thing and where do they go to find what they want?

What prompted this chain of thought was an enquiry from a company where the dynamics of their market seemed to have changed and a realisation that sales leads from their old sources were dwindling and they needed to be pro-active in generating more. Unfortunately it exposed the absence of any marketing plan at all and consequently no tools to use to improve the situation. One worrying aspect of their specific case is the main product they sell started life as a replacement for an old technology solution and selling a smarter, more energy efficient and useful modern solution was an easy sell. Today there are many suppliers in that market not to mention the imports at rock bottom prices and the old technology all now replaced so the original message needs to change too. Time to conduct a marketing audit as a prelude to developing a marketing plan and building a new sustainable position.

So before the situation becomes a crisis, have another look at your target market. Has it changed from the last time you actually thought about it? Is the user base still the same, what are your geographic boundaries - maybe when you started it was defined as a particular region, now it could be the world. Have the buyers and influencers changed? At one time it may have been the case that engineers carefully evaluated a number of potential products and the buying team bought a specific product from the engineer's approved manufacturer. By now there may be little difference so buyers bypass the engineering evaluation and just buy a generic product from the company that gives the best terms. So both the target market and target audiences have changed, the competition intensified and prices and margins declined. Worse still the sales brochure doesn't cut it anymore, why wait for that to turn up in the post when a web search can find a supplier right now.

Of course these changes don't usually happen overnight, but a audit to check the marketing plan is  addressing the actual situation might be worth doing.