The Challenge We Identified
Ongoing success across 70 years in business certainly is something to relish. But our client, a contract manufacturer serving both consumer and commercial markets, wanted to better understand the sustainability of their existing marketing and sales efforts and where new growth opportunities might exist. Specifically, our client was interested in identifying and marketing to “best fit” prospects that had the same potential as their current pool of Fortune 500 companies.
Our Approach To The Problem
Given our client’s long-term success, Decision Associates’ marketing and sales team knew it was important to assess what had worked for the company in the past as well as how their markets, products, customers and competition may have evolved. To that end, we proposed and then implemented a multi-phase approach:
- Five-year market opportunity study to assess which markets and product categories were declining, which were growing and which were likely to undergo change in the next three to five years.
- Comprehensive competitor analysis to determine how our client measured against key competitors, including online performance of their website and social media marketing.
- Assessment of their sales processes and ability to open new markets as well as incorporation of best practices for lead generation and sales pipeline management.
What Has Happened Since
The scope of work we recommended yielded exactly the data and insights our client sought. Each of the three primary phases of this initiative provided a foundation for growth in the year ahead, including:
- Our research identified specific market and product categories for new business. In turn, we provided a “ready-to-work” data file of prospective customers that outlined the potential fit as well as decision-maker contact information.
- The competitor analysis and website audit resulted in a correction action plan to fix errors and warnings of our client’s existing website and steps to improve the site’s search optimization and online ranking. We also provided recommendations for development of a new website focused on generating leads and driving sales in the new market and product categories suggested by the research.
- The sales assessment included the sharing of tools, associated electronic templates and virtual training to help our client enhance their processes for sales planning and forecasting.
We look forward to continuing our work with this client as they implement our recommendations and pursue the new business opportunities that have been identified.
