Marketing - Review Of Clients And Strategy
Client Organisation:
Business to Business Services
Position:
Owner Managers
Context:
A business to business services organisation had grown steadily for the first three years whilst the company was new but had plateaued in the fourth year. With no marketing strategy to speak of the owners wanted a cost effective plan that would re-ignite growth and could be implemented quickly.
Objectives:
To review the existing client base and profile the "ideal client" and their criteria for buying services. Then to generate marketing materials that addressed those criteria and a process for ongoing marketing.
Format & Duration:
Time was spent one to one with some of the key members of staff in the organisation and a review of the client base, particularly the clients that accounted for the majority of sales. The desired client base was profiled (using some of the LAB profile patterns) to generate a clear picture of their buying motivations with respect to the company services.
Outcomes:
Marketing material, including brochures and inserts for particular services were generated using messages that specifically targetted the prospects and clients of interest. The website was improved to include facilities for collecting customer and prospect data. An 'irregular' newsletter was implemented as a means of positioning the company with clients and prospects.
More importantly processes were developed and implemented to ensure that the marketing plan was adhered to. To make this easy the philosophy of little but often was adopted for blogs, newsletters and marketing mailshots. Processes for responding to all client enquiries with literature (hard copy or e-mail pdf's) were also adopted.
Comments: Often SME businesses treat marketing as a necessary evil and confuse it with direct sales activity which stops when there are enough projects to work on and starts again when things get quiet. In reality marketing can work well when it's a consistent business activity, it goes hand in hand with engaging customers and, with modern marketing technology, the return on investment can be directly measured.