The Five “R’s”

I have worked with many business leaders who employ a shiny new Marketing Director to help transform their marketing function and then provide them with a “To Do” list of all the initial things that the MD feels “needs” to be done rather than what actually “should” be done.

The new Marketing Director, desperate to impress, resorts to type and begins to “restructure, repackage, redesign, relaunch and then resign” mainly because they did not begin at the right starting point and ask the right questions.

A new refreshed logo, a new funky website, a few new promotions, and some funky social media campaigns, may tick all the boxes initially with your MD, but if it fails to engage with your core customer base, then it will not deliver long term success and growth for the business.

Understanding Your Market & Customers

Marketing is the process of understanding your marketplace and competitors, which helps to define your company’s market positioning, pricing, and service. All of this helps to promote the company effectively to your target audience and explain clearly how they might benefit by working or buying from you.

Every successful Marketing leader should always have funds allocated in his annual marketing budget for structured systematic research that explores questions about the company’s competitors, products, and services, which then helps to build up a knowledge base about the environment the company is operating in. Simply put, without this core understanding of your “market & customers” the marketing team are just churning out the same activity they have always done in the past, which will flat line results and hamper true long-term growth.

Knowledge Drives Strategy & Growth

Creating a knowledge base within your business is essential, and is derived from effective research and planning tools, both qualitative and quantitative,  which once in motion, helps to craft a successful marketing strategy which continuously evolves over time to drive long term business growth.

Fail To Plan, Plan to Fail.

There are many recent examples where companies have failed to understand their customer or taken their customer base for granted and paid a high price as smart competitors move in on their complacency. The assault by Aldi and Lidl on the UK grocery market whilst Tesco was looking the other way at expansion in the USA or the refusal by Arcadia Group to adapt quickly enough to their customers online buying habits are two classic examples.

When I joined CK Tools in 2012, my very first starting point was extensive International market and consumer research on the brand, competitors and the products. This then helped the brand team create activity growth plans for their categories that kickstarted the programme for significant company growth over several years, in what was a mature and competitive marketplace,

If you need help in reviewing if your marketing team are working on the right things PMF Marketing can help. Please call me today for a FREE 30-minute call and let’s get building your business back to growth together.

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Identify What Will Add Value

In 2008, working as a Category Manager for Holts Car Care, I was responsible for an emergency puncture repair sealant product called Holts Tyreweld. A fantastic product which would seal and inflate a tyre if you incurred a puncture. The main benefit of the product, was that it would help you get back on the road and to a tyre repair centre quickly and safely.  One of the negatives however, which was holding back the products growth at the time, was the reluctance of the UK tyre repair outlets to repair the puncture once the latex sealant had been put into the tyre.

Make Sure The Alliance Is A Good “Fit”

The solution was to approach the management at National Tyres & Autocare and strike up a strategic alliance agreement. This would ensure that any of the 235 NTA branches would repair the puncture of any tyre treated with Holts Tyreweld. NTA were quick to see the commercial opportunity of having their brand and contact number tagged on over a million cans of Tyreweld in Tesco, Halfords etc.. and the benefit of delighting the customer with a solution. The initiative grew the products sales by over £500k in the first year.

Communicate Why The Alliance Works

Fast forward to today and one of our clients Kraftwerk Tools has joined forces with Franke Sinks to help complement its Mobilo Workshop Storage solutions. The new product package introduces a Franke sink, detergent, hand sanitiser gel and paper towel dispenser, alongside their existing range of storage cabinets, all in one neat solution. PMF Marketing has then developed the concept further, with new advertising in the automotive press, which not only communicates the alliance, shouts about getting your workshop “organised”, but also reinforces the government guidelines on hand washing and keeping Covid-19 safe at work. The new ad will go live in Professional Motor Mechanic (November 2020). The complete package offers a unique, quality solution for the customer and has fantastic standout in the magazine delivering a powerful yet clear message for the consumer.

If you believe your business would benefit from a market audit and some fresh thinking developing a new sales and marketing strategy, contact PMF Marketing today for a free 30 minute consultation.

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That was the question posed by a well established tool company from Switzerland who had been trading successfully across Europe for the past 40 years who turned to PMF Marketing for help in understanding the UK market and to develop a new sales and marketing strategy for the UK market for them.

Where To Start ?

The client wanted an initial outline of how the project would be approached and  to understand what they would get at the end. PMF Marketing provided a timeline of workflow activity along with timescales, that would not only set out defining the UK market and analysing the opportunities, but would then develop an action plan, so there was something tangible at the end of the project which the client could use if an opportunity existed.

Defining The Market

PMF Marketing had a rich understanding of the routes, channels and customers in the automotive aftermarket and quickly set about mapping out the picture for the customer to develop an understanding of how big the market opportunity was and who were the big players in the market that needed to be approached. Various market data reports were used to put “scale” on the opportunity and a customer profile of each account was created.

Analysing The Opportunities

Various  business development models were then applied to identify the barriers to entry, using SWOT Analysis, Gap Analysis, Competitor Analysis and Price Benchmarking to ascertain what tactics would need to be employed to create a sales story. It was essential that there was clear identification of product USPs which would set the company apart from what already existed in the marketplace.

Some field research was then carried out to speak to potential end users about their purchasing behaviours, attitudes to the existing brands in the market and if they were open to a new brand coming into the UK. It was clear from this research that an opportunity did indeed exist to provide something “new” from a credible, quality supplier and despite some economic challenges, the market was ripe for further development.

Time For Action

Pulling all this information together in a digestible format with language barriers was not an easy task, but again PMF Marketing had experience working within the International markets, so were aware to keep the language simple. The “UK go to market plan” that was finally delivered was over 80 pages long, but was clearly structured in a way that the client could understand and could dip in and out of the different sections easily, with the executive summary, recommendations and  next steps clearly summarised.

Six months on from this exciting journey with the new client, not only was the UK go to market plan implemented, but we also helped them to open the doors to their first UK National Account with many more in the pipeline.

If you believe your business would benefit from a market audit and some fresh thinking developing a new sales and marketing strategy, contact PMF Marketing today for a free 30 minute consultation.

https://www.mpdonline.co.uk/userfiles/images/flipbook-promos/MPD-VDE-Kit.pdf

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Many suppliers have gone into liquidation, customers who were earmarked for growth are sat on months of stocks due to their premises being closed, new markets that were identified for development are not accessible due to travel restrictions and looking at your P&L account, you face the dilemma that your existing marketing budget cannot sustain the low level of sales you are now seeing. But where do you start and what exactly do you need to do to grow your business again ?

To help kickstart your thinking there are some simple steps you can do to help get the business fired up again.

Fail to plan, plan to fail

Now is the perfect time to review the business plans you had in place for 2020 to ensure you are set up for success in 2021. Look at your sales and marketing plans, do they need to change?

The use of simple business models like a SWOT or a DMAIC may help you to explore new ideas or new markets which are now a necessity if your home market is under stress. Do you need a strategy day with your sales teams to understand the new trading environment? Perhaps you need to conduct some research about how your customers are now buying your products, has it changed? Do you need to prioritise your business growth opportunities? do you need to look at new products to cater for a market segment that you know is now in growth, but you are not equipped to service?

Think Digital
Without doubt the crisis has accelerated the shift to digital and many of the better companies are going further, by enhancing and expanding their digital channels. They are successfully using advanced google analytics to make better and faster decisions about improvements to their website or using e-marketing to strengthen their links to customers.

Is your website representative of your business? are you regularly updating content to give visitors the information they need when they visit your website? are you actively promoting your goods and services on all possible social media channels?

Video Is King
With many of your sales team having to work remotely or talking to their customers via video conferencing, the importance of good video content is now more important than ever before.

Infomercials about your latest new products or promotions are quick and easy to make and deployed across social media or sent out as links in an email to your customer database, can provoke real customer engagement and get those phones ringing again with those sales leads coming in.

The above are just a selection of business growth solutions that are available from PMF Marketing.
If you would like to understand more how I can help your business, please call me today for a FREE 30 minute call and lets get building your business back to growth, together.

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