Marketing in a small market
Last week I was travelling for work to a smaller market where we are establishing a presence. During the week we presented at a "user group" style meeting along with 4 other application vendors, most of whom are local and most of whom have been around for many years.
We are definitely the foreign outsider company, and are seen as somewhat of a threat, especially with some of the recent wins we've had.
For a change, I was able to stand back during the presentations instead of being up front, and it gave me a chance to put some perspective on how we (as a company) compared to the others. What I saw, and what amused me most was the way the other vendors either apologised for not being as advanced as they should have been and how they were working hard to catch up, or the approach that "you can't trust" the newcomers since they "don't know the market as well as we do".
The catch up approach was interesting since it basically told the audience that "we know we've had you as customers for years, and we've done nothing to try and advance your cause. We didn't care that you were falling behind technologically or that our service sucked. Since you had no one better to turn to we couldn't be bothered improving ourselves." In terms of marketing, this is not really a position you want to present to your customer base, although it does show you've woken up to youself and want to improve.
The other approach of not trusting outsiders is basically a concession that "we can't deal with you well enough now, and we don't believe that we'll be able to improve. If you deal with the newcomers they don't know you as well as we do and they might actually treat you better which means we'd have to get better and we don't want to". Also another classically brilliant marketing non-position. Unfortunately this doesn't even promise improvement to the customers, but rather states that there is no future, except through fear.
Other than that, the general level of professionalism displayed was really poor. Poor quality graphics in powerpoints, "interesting" choices of colours & fonts, inconsistencies in the message being portrayed, "used car salesman" sales tactics and software demos that crashed. To me, as an observer it was a really shoddy performance from all the other vendors and showed that being in a small market leads to relaxed attitudes and an assumption that you can take your customers for granted. This is something we'll have to watch out for.
One other thing that struck me was that all the other vendors competed and positioned based on price. Price is not a marketing position. Software features, product quality, service, longevity, etc can all be marketing positions but not price. Why? Because someone can always make the same thing for less, and then where does that leave you?
Positioning yourself on other factors is positioning yourself based on values that will not change over time and justifies a higher price.
Overall, it was quite a learning experience (of what not to do), and I'm looking forward to seeing what will happen in this market over the next 12 months.
We are definitely the foreign outsider company, and are seen as somewhat of a threat, especially with some of the recent wins we've had.
For a change, I was able to stand back during the presentations instead of being up front, and it gave me a chance to put some perspective on how we (as a company) compared to the others. What I saw, and what amused me most was the way the other vendors either apologised for not being as advanced as they should have been and how they were working hard to catch up, or the approach that "you can't trust" the newcomers since they "don't know the market as well as we do".
The catch up approach was interesting since it basically told the audience that "we know we've had you as customers for years, and we've done nothing to try and advance your cause. We didn't care that you were falling behind technologically or that our service sucked. Since you had no one better to turn to we couldn't be bothered improving ourselves." In terms of marketing, this is not really a position you want to present to your customer base, although it does show you've woken up to youself and want to improve.
The other approach of not trusting outsiders is basically a concession that "we can't deal with you well enough now, and we don't believe that we'll be able to improve. If you deal with the newcomers they don't know you as well as we do and they might actually treat you better which means we'd have to get better and we don't want to". Also another classically brilliant marketing non-position. Unfortunately this doesn't even promise improvement to the customers, but rather states that there is no future, except through fear.
Other than that, the general level of professionalism displayed was really poor. Poor quality graphics in powerpoints, "interesting" choices of colours & fonts, inconsistencies in the message being portrayed, "used car salesman" sales tactics and software demos that crashed. To me, as an observer it was a really shoddy performance from all the other vendors and showed that being in a small market leads to relaxed attitudes and an assumption that you can take your customers for granted. This is something we'll have to watch out for.
One other thing that struck me was that all the other vendors competed and positioned based on price. Price is not a marketing position. Software features, product quality, service, longevity, etc can all be marketing positions but not price. Why? Because someone can always make the same thing for less, and then where does that leave you?
Positioning yourself on other factors is positioning yourself based on values that will not change over time and justifies a higher price.
Overall, it was quite a learning experience (of what not to do), and I'm looking forward to seeing what will happen in this market over the next 12 months.