Be true to your company profile

One company profile is not more “right” than the other; they are just different and may be appropriate for different target customers. For example, a closer look at two different style magazines will make this very obvious. Let’s compare People StyleWatch and Vogue.
At a fast glance, the cover of People StyleWatch appears very busy. I assume that this is a strategy to give the impression of being the one magazine in which you may find everything. On the cover you are informed that the magazine will include information on where to shop for the best bargains, secret beauty tips will be revealed and you will be educated in how to shape your body the best way.
The cover of Vogue has a more unadorned appearance and gives an impression of that this magazine will only convey the best of the very best. This magazine will bring you a selection of the top brands, how to look good in every life situation and articles on stylish celebrities that you can identify with. The strategy here, I assume, is to attract an audience with a greater purchasing power.
These two magazines are true to their profile; every cover, issue after issue, year after year will give a similar expressions. As a result the reader audiences of these magazines differ. Bearing this in mind, it is important to analyze your brand with regards to who you are, what you supply and for whom, and what your benefits are. Most important of all is to generate a company profile that conveys this and stay true to your profile for long-term customer identification for your brand in the target group.

Message for success

I am not very interested in cars and do not know much about car brands. Marketing from the automobile industry towards me must therefore be crystal clear. In fact, I am a potential customer. By comparing two car brands with their backbone in the Swedish automobile industry, Volvo and SAAB, makes the importance of a distinct message to succeed very obvious.
With Volvo, I get a family car with an emphasis on safety. I know that from many years of a distinct and consistent marketing message from Volvo. But what do I get when buying a SAAB? Do I get a war machine like SAAB Jas 39 Gripen? Do I get a truck like the ones formerly produced by SAAB Scania? I have no associations to SAAB cars. Who is driving a SAAB? Is it a car that brings me high quality-to-price ratio or is it a car that makes me feel luxurious when driving it? I don't know. To me it's just a car that takes me from A to B. However, I want more than that. I want my car to be an extension of my personality. A sporty outdoor lifestyle would perhaps fit well with Jeep, whereas a Porsche gives more a feel of career and performance.
Personally, I drive a Toyota Yaris. It's small, economic, fun and it never gives up - just like me. ;-)

Everybody wants a reference

How usual is it to chose a carpenter right out of the phone book? Not very usual, I assume. Instead you start by asking around for references. Your customers probably do the same to find their way to your business. So why not start taking networking seriously?
Compared to an advertizing campaign, word of mouth (WOM) is a cheep way of marketing your products. Compared to cold phone calls it most certainly is more effective. Some companies rely entirely of WOM. Aussie Haircare is one example of the power of WOM. The initial marketing of their hair styling products was carried out largely through referral marketing in various online communities.
One way to network is to join forces with other professionals with similar or complementary products to your without being competing. For example, if you are an instrument supplier you could ally yourself with a supplier of consumables suitable to use with your instrument. Another way is to network within a society where your potential customers may be members.
In advance your networking event, prepare a short presentation about yourself, your company, who your customers are and your advantages compared to the competition. When you are asked about what you are doing, don’t just tell what you sell. Instead, explain when your products are needed and by whom. This way you facilitate for your reference to remember what you have to offer and when your products or services are needed. In this way, your reference will more likely come to think of you when he or she meets one of your potential customers.

Less is more

A company that is often mentioned when talking about successful marketing is IKEA. Independent on world location, IKEA stands for Swedishness and has a well communicated company history and traditions. The distinctiveness in their marketing communication has subsequently built them a strong brand.
Branding should be based on corporate identity, profile and image. You can’t be everything for everyone. Important to consider is what you are (products, facts) and for whom (when are your products needed), how you will communicate your identity (profile) and what marketing channels you will use for this communication (where are your customers susceptible for your message).
Company profile needs to reflect the company’s values, be communicated from inside the company and out and be well implemented internally in the organization. Branding needs to be credible, consistent and long-term.
Keep the message simple and clear. It is said before but worth mentioning again and again; less is more.

Authenticity and transparency

Consumers tend to have an increased interest in authenticity with an increased need for transparency. With the increased range of products, it is hard for the consumers to decide what is authentic. Marketing is not working as it used to. Therefore we need to change our focus on marketing from “what consumer needs” to “what consumer wants”. Distinctive brands need something more – sensory marketing. Advertizing campaigns has become less important. Instead, quality-to-price ratio has increased in importance. There is a shift from lowest price competition to quality-to-price ratio. Also the story of tradition and origin is important. Advertize with your heart, not your brain.

Sensory marketing

Today's major information flow and constant lack of time requires new ways of communicating. Functional benefits are no longer enough. It has become increasingly important to communicate the brand through the company's values, material selections (not only in products but also in packaging and brochures), product design and the design of the graphic profile (visual identity). I read Bertil Hultén’s book Sensory Marketing (ISBN: 9789147087105) with great interest. Fascinated, I read about companies working to create the brand's soul with the help of signature scents, signature sound, design and figurative marks, taste strategies and choice of materials. For example, to add weight to technology products signals quality. Some companies work with the same face or the same jingle voice year after year and I dare say that most of us know the signature sound of the ice-cream truck. Shops and hotels are working with signature fragrances, furnishings and lighting to create a company identity.
How can you apply this to a company whose products mainly are exported? Start by clarifying what the company stands for and what values there are in the company. Based on this, think about how to convey this through the company web site, marketing material, product packaging, etc. Review the company logo, paper quality in printed material, packaging design, colors and graphic images in the marketing material, design of the website, etc.
To signal quality, trust and responsibility you can for example select an FSC certified paper and environmentally friendly print production. Select signature colors and work only with a few in your marketing communication, preferably the same as in the company logo, review the choice of images, fonts and layouts and ensure that it strictly abides the selected graphic profile. By this you create a company identity through the selected colors, design, form and images (visual) and a feeling of quality through the selection of paper quality and design of printed material (feel). Visual and audio impressions can for example be conveyed through a video on the company website and that presents the company or its products. As an added value, you can offer something that is specific to the country or place where the business is located, to your customers to eat or drink at visits or congresses (taste and smell). Company values are communicated through all the things you do and all the choices you make.

Dare focusing

How many times a week, if not daily, do you not get calls from sales persons who convincingly tell you how many their magazine actually reaches out to and what effect an ad in that same journal would have on your sales. I once got a call from one of Sweden's leading tabloid newspapers. The salesman informed me correctly that many of our existing and potential customers on the Swedish market actually read this paper. With that being said, he wanted me to know what true potential an ad in this tabloid would have for us on finding new buyers of our products on the Swedish market.
As a marketing manager at a company that provides tools for scientists within a niched field of research, my question back to him was if he really believed that our customers would be receptive to the message in an ad from us in the tabloids? My experience is that it would have been wasted money. For a message to come through, it is important to find the right medium in which the recipient is most likely to be receptive to the information. A scientific journal is a more appropriate forum in our case. For us, where the recipient most likely do not even read the printed edition, but instead scans the electronic version of the same for what is published in his or her own field of research, an ad in the printed edition would probably pass unnoticed.
The same way you evaluate where to spend your money best, you should evaluate how to spend your time most effectively. The reasons for a potential customers to choose a different technology than the one you have to offer is important information for you not to waste time on so-called cold leads. It is equally important to be aware of how the products fit the user needs and why customers choose to work with your products, as it is to know why in other customer situations the products fit less. Resources are always a limitation. Hence it is important to decide how to spend them, in terms of time and money, to get the biggest bang for the buck.

The distribution network

For small and medium-sized enterprises with less possibilities of establishing own sales offices worldwide, it is instead important to build up a good distribution network of dealers and agents. Ideally would be to find distributors who are dedicated to the supplier's own products and can devote all resources to the sales of these. That is not always the case. So how do you choose the right partners?
There are a lot of different distributors out there. There are large ones with a broad product range, small dedicated to a specific product category, major catalog companies with minimal customer contact and smaller companies with more focus on being out at customer sites.
The large, reaching broad has not always proven to be the best. Neither has the small niched ones shown to be the most appropriate. The ones that usually succeed as distributors are the ones that have a clear profile towards the customer, who do not have a too wide range of products, which have the right customer profile in their CRM systems, who have similar products as the supplier and hence can offer them in packages, so called product bundling.
After having worked myself some years for a distributor on the Swedish market, I cannot stress enough the importance of the supplier keeping good contact with the distributor. Of great significance for the inspiration is also the opportunity to receive training from the supplier. When the dealers have a good relationship with you as the supplier, have knowledge of your products and their market positioning, are familiar with the product's unique selling points versus the competition, have good knowledge of the product's customer profile, and feel comfortable with the sales of your products, only then you have a good chance of succeeding with your distribution network.

Competing on price or quality

It's not unusual to end up in a price discussion in a customer contact. It is important therefore to in advance have thought about what is included in product pricing. What do the customer pay for? Anyone can offer a low price, but can your competitors offer what you have?
It is common to speak of "quality-to price ratio”. As a customer you may strive for the lowest price, but it can be expensive to buy cheaply. You do not want to pay a high price for a product that keeps mediocre quality, but it is conceivable to sometimes cut down on quality and instead go for a cheaper product. However, no one wants to buy a product with such low quality that one cannot get the expected out of the product. This can lead to a need of byuing a new or more expensive product and then it becomes expensive to buy cheaply. Although it sounds like the obvious, it is important to clarify this for the customer.
A product may possess a higher price due to the fact that it is based on reagents or components of higher quality and hence are more expensive in purchase.
Maybe your quality system requires more resources than your competitor’s and hence the product is safer for the customer to use. You might be more accessible to the customer than your competitors are. You may have specialized knowledge and therefore can provide better service and support around the products than competitors can. If this is important for the client and included in the price, the customer will most likely see it as getting high value in exchange for the money paid and that the product holds a high "quality-to-price ratio”.

Company profiling with small resources

I was at Pfizer, the other day to listen to Bengt Mattson, who lectured on the company's work on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the business opportunities it can generate. It is interesting to follow Pfizer's efforts to build a profile as a responsible company, which supports projects in global health and sustainable development and the use of this profile in the corporate business plan. For those of us who work with sales and marketing at a small or medium-sized businesses the difference in resources becomes very clear here. We do as well want to create a defined company identity to use in our business models, but do not have the same muscles. Inspired by a small company from the north of Sweden, Västerbottensost, I am convinced that it is possible to do this even with limited resources. A good start is to review the company's profile.

• What was the reason for the company starting and what was the original business idea? Write down the company history!
• Who are the users of products today and why? How are the products tailored to user needs?
• Analyze the competition. What is the brand's Unique Selling Points (USP)? How do the products stand in the competition and what are the benefits?
• What does the company's future look like? Write down the company vision?

From this, you get the brand value. A clear market positioning is now beginning to discern.
A clear corporate identity is not only important for the customer to understand when to turn to your company for business. A clear corporate image also provides the company guidance in using its resources right. For example, it is not only important to know why your customers choose you, but also important to know why, a seemingly potential, customers still opt for another product or technology. This in order not to waste your sales resources on so-called cold leads.