Cogitation \ˌkä-jə-ˈtā-shən\
1. the act of meditation or contemplation.
2. the faculty of thinking.
3. a thought; a design or plan.
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 - Disney’s stores – like this one in Downtown Disney – are just one example of how they extend the brand experience (photo courtesy of Rennett Stowe)
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of attending a session put on by the Disney Institute in Orlando covering the Disney Customer Experience. This Saturday morning workshop covered some of the techniques that Disney uses to excel in customer service. The topic that stuck out most for me was their efforts to “extend the brand” to help visitors to Disneyworld gain a better overall vacation experience and further build a positive impression of Disney. Some of the tools they use to accomplish this include:
- Well designed vacation packets sent with your reservation information and other useful (and promotional) information in preparation for your visit.
- Branding and greeting at the airport, including shuttle transportation to the Disneyworld area with video entertainment to get you in the mood.
- Signage placed well out from the park itself to make you feel surrounded by “Disneyness” (again, my word, not theirs).
- Special treatment by the hotel staff, including (as an example) entertaining arrangement of any plush Disney toys you may have purchased and left in your room for the day (such as Mickey finishing off your room service meal).
- Development of Downtown Disney, to make even your adult or nightlife activities encompassed by the Disney brand.
This may seem an obvious step for an entertainment or destination company, but it can’t possibly apply in industrial marketing, right? Well ever since that session, I’ve looked for examples of companies employing such practices in a B-to-B or technical market, as well as brainstormed how we might implement such practices at my own companies. You would be surprised at the ways in which this can apply. Some ideas to consider:
- Offer to engage with your customers in their specification process, to help ease their burden and, at the same time, create specifications that provide your solutions a slight edge. You can even charge for these services for some customers, and perhaps credit back the cost should they select your solution.
- Provide thorough supporting information on your quotes, leveraging your marketing communications material where possible to reinforce your value proposition and overall corporate message.
- When you receive the order from your customer, provide an acknowledgement with your thanks and, should the project involve engineering time or project management, keep in steady communication with them on its progress.
- Provide a branded token of your appreciation after completion of a successful project, something of nominal value but meaningful (and creative, if possible).
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 - Sandvik Coromant’s “yellow coat specialists” are a common sight in factories and at trade shows
Make sure your service personal wear visible and quality company attire; one company in the tooling industry equips nearly everyone who touches the brand in front of customers in bright yellow work jackets, even at trade shows (where their technicians can often be seen in their customers’ booths, making adjustments, real or exaggerated, to equipment).
- Invite your customers to meet with you at trade shows, and employ other minimally intrusive ways to keep your brand in front of them on a timely basis.
- Offer to create and share a success story – often companies have internal newsletters that need content, and if you have provided them something that helps fulfill a corporate mission (like sustainability, continuous improvement, etc.) they will be happy to promote the success internally.
- Offer complimentary periodic inspections of your installed equipment, perhaps in conjunction with other service trips you are making to the area to cut down on costs; this provides an opportunity to generate revenue through spare parts and to identify other opportunities to provide solutions to this account.
- Offer to do a consultative review of the customer’s operations and where your solutions may help, along with an analysis of the payback and ROI on such solutions (this may only be possible once you have credibility from providing a successful first solution).
- And, perhaps the most common solution – develop a blog, newsletter, company magazine, or other method of communicating more regularly with your customers even when they are not in the buying cycle, so that you are front-of-mind when they are.
Have you implemented or observed other practices for extending a brand presence at industrial accounts?
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I have recently been honored by having the opportunity to guest post on some blogs of particular interest to me due to their focus on topics that are important in my life. Please take a moment to not just skim over the posts that interest you, but visit the blogs and consider adding them to your reading list, as they have some top quality content.
The Lean Startups Blog – One of the leading blogs in the “real world” startup arena, Apollo Sinkevicius cuts to the chase with his views of what it takes to run a successful startup. This post discusses lean marketing strategies for startups and small businesses, emphasizing the importance of starting good habits early, establishing a customer-focused message, and driving consistency in not just image but behavior across the organization. My thanks go out to Apollo for the opportunity to contribute.
The International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) Blog – As an exhibitor in the biggest and most significant manufacturing show in the world, I have a particular interest in executing a successful event. This post discusses the process of selecting what to exhibit at such a major show and how to go about making it memorable for your visitors. Look for potential future posts I may submit to this blog, as the show planning process continues. Special thanks to Lee Anne Orange for inviting me to join the bloggers for IMTS.
The Be More Productive Facebook Fan Page – Claudine Motto is a productivity coach who is full of useful advice, and I have a particular passion for finding ways to get more done in a day. In an interview on her fan page, we discuss using Microsoft Outlook as a task management system. In a related post on this blog, I share some helpful advice Claudine has provided on better prioritizing some of my tasks. I am grateful to Claudine for our ongoing dialog on new ideas and the opportunity to share some of my Outlook techniques.
Career Life Connections – Leanne Chase has made a business out of helping people cope with work / life challenges, and I was happy to have the opportunity to share my view on making smart sacrifices as part of your work / life strategy. Leanne and I have discussed before how erroneous it can be to think of it as “balance” (because it never is), so I fastidiously attempt to avoid using that word (I hope I succeeded?). There are a lot of great stories on the blog, and Leanne has some unique experiences of her own, so I feel humbled to have the opportunity to contribute to such an important dialog.
I’m happy to guest post on other blogs covering topics related to Constant Cogitation, so please let me know if you have the need for a new perspective.
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 - Segments can be positioned on a matrix by their key values, with bubble size representing market potential.
As a marketer, you are undoubtedly familiar with the concept of market segmentation, where you divide your market into identifiable customer groups to improve your targeting. A key concept for proper market segmentation is that customers should be grouped by values (needs and wants) and the behaviors these values drive. Additionally, well-executed segmentation assures that the priorities of these values for each customer in the group are similar. While this concept was originally developed in the consumer marketing arena (and has been far more thoroughly researched there), it is a key tool for building growth strategies in industrial markets as well.
Segmentation helps you develop more effective product development and marketing programs by differentiating your offerings and message to meet key segment needs. It also helps you define where your capabilities best align with customer needs to better focus your limited resources and achieve greater returns on your efforts. Showing that you understand a segments needs also helps to engender customer loyalty; think of Apple and the love they have long received from the graphic design community, for example.
Unfortunately, too many marketers confuse segmentation with classification. If you are defining your “segments” by the characteristics of the customer, instead of their values, you are guilty of this mistake. For example, it is tempting to use SIC (or NAICS) codes, number of employees, location, or size, or company structure (public vs. private) to define segments. While classification has its place, it is insufficient for providing the insights you need to develop a meaningful market plan. The customers within each classification will differ; for example, participants in the medical device industry (a classification based on an NAICS code) may differ in how they procure equipment, or the factors that provide them a competitive edge, as just two examples. Thus, one solution will not fit all medical device manufacturers; even worse, trying to meet all their needs with one solution and message may lead to satisfying no one.
Segmentation is challenging because it requires the kind of knowledge that is not possible by web research or internal meetings and analysis. You have to spend time with numerous customers to understand their values and priorities. This requires significant planning in developing the questions that will give the insights you need; such questions touch on how customers make decisions, what their most important metrics are, how receptive they are to new technologies, the type of relationships they want with suppliers and customers, and similar topics. It is only through numerous data points that patterns may start to emerge; you will know that you are reaching some definition when you can start to explain the differences between groups and define value propositions that would appeal distinctly to members of each segment. It can be helpful to use visualizations, such as matrices, to position your segments and make sure they are truly distinct.
Once you think you are done with your segmentation and have tested it to ensure that the segments truly are differentiated, you need to assign some estimates of the market opportunity in each segment to make sure they are sufficiently large to target. If you have cut too fine, you may need to combine adjacent segments to achieve scale, but be careful to make sure that there are still enough common values within a combined segment to communicate a meaningful and unique offer. It is then typical to assign catchy names to the segments based on their characteristics to remind you of their driving values. You should then develop profiles of each segment that drive your action plans, keeping in mind that “ignore” is an action plan that will be appropriate for some of your segments, due to either limited potential or a poor fit to your capabilities.
Segmentation can yield tremendous benefit for your business when done properly and is well worth the time invested, especially when related to key initiatives such as new market development or new product commercialization. But if not done properly, a segmentation exercise yields little better results than just taking a shotgun approach and hoping you hit a target. The next post provides an example of how market segmentation is executed to identify attractive segments for growth for a new product.
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03-09-10 4:14AM
9.23 mi in 67:42 (07:19 min/mi)
