How Digging Reveals Opportunity Treasure

Businesses are all too often caught up in day-to-day operations, ensuring existing customers and enquiries are dealt with effectively and not thinking too far into the future. But what happens when the enquiries stop coming in? Do you know why – is it because the industry has moved on?

What is Desk Research?

Desk research involves collating information from industry reports, articles in media publications, the internet and other sources of information on your chosen area of interest to form a clearer picture.

Why Conduct Desk Research?

There are many reasons why businesses conduct desk research for example:

·         To identify trends in your industry or market sector

·         To understand the current state of your industry and where it is forecast to go

·         To determine where your business fits into that future picture

·         To identify if your business could operate in a different industry or market sector

·        

How can you conduct Desk Research?

As with all market research, it’s important to have a clear objective; an understanding of what you want to find out from the research and how your findings will influence your business moving forward. Having determined your objective there are a number of steps to take:

·         Define your industry / market sector

Although you may be positioned in one particular industry or market sector, there may be other related industries and/or market sectors that will have an influence on your business. For example, a traditional print newspaper publisher will be affected by the online publishing sector.

·         Identify potential sources of information

As previously stated, there are numerous sources of information available, some free of charge whilst others would incur a fee:

·         Mintel Reports

·         Industry publications

·         Industry bodies

·         Thought leaders within your industry

·         Check information for relevance

Having identified potential sources of information, it is then important to check the relevance and authenticity of the data, opinions or facts stated. Any information you find could provide valuable insights for your business but it should be considered in light of the following questions:

·         When was the information published and what dates does it cover?

·         Is the information based on the industry in the UK (or the geographical area you operate in) or is it a more general overview?

·         What sources of information have been used to create the report / article? Are these sources credible?

·         Does the information come from a voice of authority within the industry?

Review Findings

Once you have collated your information from the various sources you can build a picture of the history of your industry from the past through to the present and where it is forecast to go in the future. From these industry forecasts business decisions can be made regarding how to develop your business moving forwards. For example, if your research shows that the industry is forecast to decline in the near future, decisions can be made regarding whether to diversify your business to offer your existing customers something new.

·        Communicate

     Following any research, it is important to communicate with your employees to ensure they are aware of your future business plans. This will reduce the likelihood of employee unrest due to any changes made as a result of the research, especially where these changes have a direct impact on your employees.

If you would like to discuss how we can help you to better understand your industry /market sector through desk research, give us a call today.  

Karen Munson is Strategic Officer at Enterprise Marketing Solutions and contactable on 01296 695635 or Karen.munson@enterprisemarekting.co.uk. 

Keep Your Business Ahead of the Competition

We all know that we live in a competitive business environment. A simple internet search will reveal a multitude of possible companies locally, nationally and internationally, all offering the same or similar products/services.

The recent recession also changed several industry landscapes, with closures, mergers and acquisitions; so how confident are you about your industry landscape and where you are positioned within it? And, how can you use competitor research to stand out from the crowd, ensure you stay at least one step ahead of the competition and help protect the future of your business?

Why Conduct Competitor Research?

Competitor research involves finding out information to enable a clearer understanding of the market in which your business operates. This in turn can help to inform business decisions regarding the future direction of your business and how you communicate with your customers.

There are many reasons why businesses conduct competitor research for example:

• To understand who they are competing against (this could be locally, nationally or internationally)
• To understand how other businesses are positioning themselves in the market
• To determine how they will position themselves in the market going forwards
• To highlight any gaps in the market
• To understand the potential of launching new products/services

·    

Who are your Competitors?

The first step in competitor research is to define and understand who your main competitors really are. Whilst the most obvious competitors are those providing an equivalent product/service within a set radius of your business, there are a number of factors to consider such as:

• Geographical Area – This will be influenced by the type of business and the products/services provided. If the product can be packaged and distributed easily and cost-effectively the geographical area to consider will be wider.
• Size of Company – The size of a company may influence their ability or willingness to meet customer requirements efficiently and effectively. For example, it may not be cost-effective for a large manufacturer to produce a bespoke one-off product for a customer and therefore would not be considered a main competitor to a smaller manufacturer that focuses more on these bespoke products.
• Products/Services – Whilst there will be companies who offer an almost identical product/service to your business there are also likely to be companies who offer a small element of the same products/services as part of a wider or differentiated offering. This may not form a major part of their business at the current time but it is still important to understand where they fit into the market.
• Substitute Products/Services – Consider what your customers might buy instead if they don’t purchase your product/service. All forms of sporting activities could be classed as competition to each other but then so could watching television, arts and crafts, listening to music or simply relaxing at home as consumers will choose between these activities to fill their spare time.

How can you conduct Competitor Research?

Having determined the criteria for defining your key competitors, it is important to have a clear objective to ensure you are collecting the most relevant information through your competitor research. There are a number of factors to consider, dependent on what you are looking to achieve from your research, these include:

Factor	Rationale
Products/Services Offered	Is there a gap in the market? Is there an overload in certain sectors of the market?
Accreditations	Are there any accreditations that would benefit your business & help you stand out from your competitors?
Positioning	Is the company focused on price / product / the customer or is it customer-centric?
Guarantees	Offering a guarantee provides reassurance to customers that they are choosing a company that values customer satisfaction & quality
Machinery	What capabilities do they have? Will their machinery need to be updated in the near future?
History	Credibility & trust from customers prospective or new, dynamic and fast moving
Industries Covered	Are there any particular industries or types of work that the company focuses on?
Types of Work
Turnover/Financial Stability	To gain an understanding of where your company fits into the current market and if your competitors are in a position to invest in machinery/infrastructure if required.

There is also a wide range of information sources, each able to provide a slightly different perspective of your competitors. The selection of information sources to use for your research will depend, in part, on the customer type and how they are most likely to search for information.   

• Website - For many customers, both Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer, the internet provides the initial source of information and therefore company websites provide the opportunity to view your competitors and your own business through the eyes of a potential customer. The information available from websites varies dramatically between companies but will often prove to be a good initial source of information.
• Company reports – If you are making business decisions regarding significant investment in machinery, infrastructure etc. company reports can provide a good indication of how your competitors would be able to react to this.
• Social media – How are your customers/prospects interacting with your competitors? Social media is often used as a tool for sharing experiences with others, both positive and negative, and can therefore provide valuable insights into how your customers/prospects view your competitors.
• Trade publications – How is the industry portraying different companies? Trade publications often feature case studies highlighting how companies have approached a particular issue.
• Mystery shopping – Sample your competitors levels of customer service, product knowledge and processes by acting as a potential customer.

What do you do with the results?

The analysis of the results will depend in part on the nature of your competitor research, the quantity of information and the initial objectives of the research. For example, the presentation of the results may take the form of a matrix through which it is possible to identify a gap in the market or areas that your business is not currently capitalising on, such as company accreditations.

Following analysis of the results of our research, a number of questions can then be assessed to help form the basis of future business and marketing strategies. For example:

• How are we positioned (customer perception) in the market? E.g. Are we Lidl or Waitrose?
• Are we offering the correct mix of products/services?
• Is there another product/service we could offer?
• How do we compare with our competitors with regards to pricing?
• Do we communicate with our customers effectively?
• Are our customers (and competitors) using the same social media channels as us?
• Are we offering our customers something different to our competitors?

Having conducted competitor research and acted upon it accordingly, it is also important to reassess your competitors on a regular basis to ensure you stay aware of any changes they make which could impact on your business.

If you would like to discuss how competitor research can help your business, give us a call today.  

Karen Munson is Strategic Officer at Enterprise Marketing Solutions and contactable on 01296 695635 or Karen.munson@enterprisemarekting.co.uk. 

How Happy Clients Can Make You Money

Many businesses rely on their existing clients for repeat business. However, do you truly understand what your customers think about your business? Do you know why they chose to come to you in the first place? Or what, if anything they think makes you different from your competitors?

Research has shown that it costs 6-7 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one (Bain & Company). By understanding your existing clients you can work towards building upon and improving their experience by ensuring you keep them happy. This in turn will improve the experience for new clients who will benefit from the improvements and recommendations implemented from the client research.

What is Client Research?

Client research provides a means for your clients to express any concerns they may have, how they feel about certain areas of your business and gain feedback on any proposed changes within your business. And if it’s independent, they will be more honest than if you conduct it yourself. Client research can include areas such as:

·         Their understanding of the services available

·         Levels of customer service

·         What your company is doing right

·         Are there any areas they feel your company could improve upon?

·         Their thoughts on a proposed new product range

Why Conduct Client Research?

As a business it’s easy to become complacent, thinking “our clients keep coming back to us so they must be happy”. But what happens if there’s something they think you could improve upon, or you make a change thinking it will improve things for your clients when in reality it makes things more difficult for them?

Whilst a happy customer is likely to return for repeat business and may give you the benefit of the doubt when they first encounter a negative experience, if this negative experience is repeated they may go elsewhere, without giving you the opportunity to correct this.

You may have some aggressive competitors or new entrants to your market that are marketing heavily to your clients. Client research can tell you whether those competitors are addressing issues that your clients have and that you are not currently taking into consideration.

By conducting client research and acting upon the feedback you will be able to demonstrate that you value your clients and their opinions, therefore creating a more open business relationship whereby they feel they can discuss issues with you. 

How can you conduct Client Research?

As with all research, it’s important to have a clear objective; an understanding of what you want to find out from the research and how you will act upon this information.

Once your objectives have been identified, there are a number of consideration:

·         Sample Size – The closer you get to the total market number, the more robust your sample will be (and thus, the validity of the results typically increases too). The general rule of thumb is 100 responses or a minimum of 10% of your total targeted market. So, if you have 300 clients, 30 is a minimum base to use, or if you have 20,000, you may opt for a smaller survey of around 100 clients.

·         Representative Sample - In order to gain a fair representation of your clients’ views it is important to ensure you speak to a variety of contacts within your database. A long-term client who has used your business for over 10 years is likely to have a different opinion to a client who has only recently started to use your business.

·         Question Design – The questions can be quantitative – box ticking answers – qualitative – asking their opinions with open ended questions that allow them to say whatever they like or it can be a combination of the two.

·         Interviews / Surveys – Consider whether telephone interviews or printed surveys are the best option. The use of telephone interviews will enable the interviewer to probe for additional information on answers where necessary but this can also be a more time-consuming exercise.

·         Timing – Your clients will have their own work to complete which will take priority over completing your client research. Allow your clients to choose a time that suits them best, and give them the opportunity to rearrange if necessary.

·         Set Expectations – Tell your clients approximately how long the survey will take to complete so they can plan their time accordingly.

·         Communication – To encourage your clients to participate, tell them why you are conducting the research, what you are hoping to learn and how you will act upon the results. Make it clear that you will be listening to their views and will feedback to them once the research has been completed.

·         Appreciation – Thank your clients for their opinions and make them feel appreciated.

·         External Input – Your clients may be more likely to give an open and honest opinion if the research is conducted by an external person. The results from the research can then be reported anonymously.

What do you do with the results?

This will depend partly on the actual feedback provided through the research process.

If feedback from your research is positive, it shows that you are doing a good job and making your clients happy. However, it is important that the business understands what it is that the client says you are doing well so that these factors are not overlooked in the future. It is also unlikely that your research will show that every single client is 100% happy with every element of your business and there is always room for improvement.

Client research may also identify areas for improvement such as:

·         A lack of consistency in the application of processes within your business

·         Personality clashes between clients and employees

·         A lack of client understanding of other products/services offered by your business

·         Clients not fully understanding how a process works

·         Clients feeling that they aren’t communicated with

Regardless of the outcome it is important to communicate the results of your research both internally, so your employees can act upon the feedback and externally, to demonstrate to your customers that you care.

If you would like to discuss how client research can help your business, give us a call today.  

Karen Munson is Strategic Officer at Enterprise Marketing Solutions and contactable on 01296 695635 or Karen.munson@enterprisemarekting.co.uk. 

Getting Inside Your Clients’ Head

We are all individuals with our own views, expectations and limitations. As a business have you stopped to consider things from the perspective of your clients, prospects and employees? How are they likely to react to your latest news, marketing campaign, product launch or any other activity?

On Friday, my 5-year old came running out of school with a massive grin; Max the Bear was coming to stay for the weekend. Max is the class bear and each weekend he goes to a child’s home to join in with their family activities which are then reported in Max’s diary through a combination of photos, drawings and writing.

Whilst discussing this with my son, we decided that as it’s Max’s diary, it should be written from Max’s perspective. After all, how a bear views the world could be very different to a 5-year old child. I wasn’t entirely sure how well this would work, however, after a couple of activities I can honestly say that Max started to express his own opinions about whether he wanted to join in. For example at a birthday party Max was scared that the other children would hurt him as he was smaller than them, so he sat on the side watching until he was happy to join in.

The same principal needs to be applied in your business.

“Getting inside your client’s head” helps you understand what makes them tick, how they view your business and how they are likely to respond to various events. When you create an avatar for your “ideal client”, all of your marketing activity can then be created with this person in mind. This is all about them, not about you!

Consider an IT company providing support to small businesses. Let’s say their ideal client is “Bob”, the owner of a small company who is involved in running all aspects of the company. Bob is always rushing around making sure the business is operating as efficiently as possible and has very little time to spend understanding how the IT works, he just needs to know that it works. As a small business owner, Bob often works outside normal office hours, so he is concerned about having IT issues and not having support available. He is therefore looking for a company to look after all his IT requirements and get his business back up and running if and when anything goes wrong with his IT.

Bob has been told about 2 local companies that offer IT Support for small businesses so looks at their websites to find out more. Which company do you think Bob would be more likely to approach regarding his needs?

Company A

The website looks professional and includes lots of technical information. The case studies and testimonials focus on larger companies and how the company has helped to support IT departments within organisations.

Company B 

Uses clear and easy-to-understand language and includes case studies and testimonials from companies of a similar size to “Bob’s”. The site looks clean, is easy to navigate and each page displays clear contact details including an out-of-hours number for 24-7 support.

It’s clear to me that Bob would choose to contact Company B. They have understood the main concerns for small business owners like Bob such as lack of time and the need for 24-7 support and demonstrated how they have helped similar businesses.

If you would like to discuss how Enterprise Marketing Solutions can help you “get inside your client’s head” to help your business grow, give us a call today.  

Karen Munson is Strategic Officer at Enterprise Marketing Solutions and contactable on 01296 695635 or Karen.munson@enterprisemarekting.co.uk. 

Emmy's Marketing Work Experience

I graduated from Birmingham University with a BA degree in Marketing and Management in June 2013. Since then I have found it difficult to secure a permanent job within marketing. The main reason for this was my lack of experience. My Dad's colleague recommended I contact Karen to see if I could come for a week's work placement in Aylesbury at Enterprise Marketing Solutions. My aim of the work placement was to gain some experience in an actual marketing company so that it would enhance my CV. I gained so much more than that within the 4 days I worked with Karen.

On the Monday I arrived I had no idea what to expect, Karen talked me through her business and explained what a busy week I had in store. I then read through some marketing plans she was currently implementing with her clients and I was so impressed with the detail and the creativity she had used.

That afternoon I met with Andrew, Karen's right hand man! They had a Skype meeting with a taxi firm to discuss how their marketing plan was going and in particular the website and social media for the company. I had not taken any modules to do with the internet at University, which after listening to Andrew's viewpoint made me regret my decision and it is definitely something I will look into and learn more about in the future.

On Tuesday I arrived at Aylesbury nice and early as we had a breakfast meeting in Oxford at the Business Wealth Club. Karen introduced me to many important business people from the area. We had two meetings and it was fascinating to see how Karen networked and I loved meeting people that were so enthusiastic about their businesses, the same as Karen was with hers.

That afternoon we went to another meeting at a local business called Sivatech, Karen was there to get feedback on the recent leaflets she had designed. It was good to be asked my opinion and it really made me think about all different aspects of marketing including the design element and also made me feel valued.

On Wednesday Karen and I travelled to Banbury to meet with a company named Kendra. They were in the early stages of their marketing plan that Karen had written for them. It was a long meeting but interesting as we covered every aspect of the business. With Karen's recommendations a timeline was set up to implement the plan.

That afternoon Karen gave me the chance to write my own case study about one of the marketing plans I had read earlier in the week. I quizzed her to get all the facts and wrote a 2 page case study.

On Thursday, I was given the task to research other companies in the area which could be of interest to Karen. I created a spreadsheet and found contact details for potential tele marketing activity. Market research is incredibly important to any business so it was good to put to use my knowledge from University.

That afternoon I accompanied Andrew back to Sivatech and observed a class he taught the employees about how to use word press and manage the website that he and Karen had made for the company. Once again it reminded me that online marketing is something that I would really like to get into and learn more about.

That was the end of my incredibly busy week. I felt that I had learnt so much in that small amount of time and I am really grateful to Karen and Andrew for all that they taught me.

Within my job search over the last 6 months I had been drifting away from applying for the marketing roles but after my work placement at Enterprise Marketing Solutions it had reminded me how much I enjoy marketing and it put me back on track to starting my marketing career.

Coincidentally I had a job interview the next day at Mercedes head office in Milton Keynes. I really believe that the knowledge and confidence that Karen had given me this week is the reason how Mercedes offered me a job that very same day.

Emmy

 

 

Where Did My Market and Customers Go?

Have you found that the Recession has changed a few things? You might have found it's had a rather profound impact on your marketplace and your customer base. So how can you identify where your industry is now and what your customers are likely to do next?

Macro reports are market research reports, which provide you with information about the wider environment within which you operate, relating to your industry. You are likely to find it brimming with useful information and intelligence on your category, the competition, your customer and developing trends, with very little upfront outlay.

Macro market reports are just one of the low cost tools at a business’ disposal for up to date market context and insight. They provide many useful details including:

·             Size of the market; so you understand the size of your potential sales opportunities;

·             Size of the industry; so you can decide on the % market share that you want to aim for

·             Trends in the sector; so you know which of your products and services are relevant to drop or promote

·             Details on key players; so you can determine how you want to position your business in the marketplace, know who your competitors are, clarify how your brand differentiates you, what you what to be seen to stand for, and who your target customers might be

·             And even identify new opportunities for innovation, which you can lead.

Furthermore, these reports provide solid, factual market figures which can provide a good rationale and background for wider business plans. For instance, the information provides good input into a SWOT analysis which in turn, provides a corner stone for future strategic planning. 

So for a low cost, high return investment, don't you think it's time to understand your market place a little better? 

Richard Wood, Insights & Intelligence Officer, Enterprise Marketing Solutions T: 01296 584834.