HOW INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES HOW INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES

How can large industrial enterprises master the online space, find new customers\clients and painlessly integrate digital into their business model? Our client, a clinker and ordinary brick factory, is currently under rebranding and has made a similar request to us. In addition, the client wanted to understand the online brick market, see his competitors online and their strategies, learn more about potential buyers, their behavior and their choice factors.

To solve the above tasks, we offered the following strategy:

• to assess the demand for the plant’s products on the Internet, to determine the top request regions;
• analyze competitors, identify their strengths and weaknesses, which should be taken into account while developing own promotion strategy;
• define portraits of potential buyers, find out how they search for products on the Internet;
• assess the state of client’s current advertising and other marketing activities, perform an audit of the website to prepare it for further promotion;
• draw up a tactical plan of online promotion, select appropriate channels, determine required budgets taking into account the information received during the first 4 stages;
• set up channels and launch online activities. Analyze the first results and determine the next steps.

The first thing we did was to see if the demand for bricks was growing online. The client thought the market was shrinking, but the graphics showed the opposite. The market demand shows a positive dynamics. At the same time, we have identified seasonality, which should be taken into account when planning further promotion strategy and budget allocation.

Fig. 1. Dynamics of brick demand in Ukraine for 5 years according to Google Trends

Then we analyzed what users are looking for online, namely what kind of brick and how often. By a wide margin queries on general topic “brick” were leading. This number confirms the presence of formed demand.

Fig. 2. Frequency of demand by thematic groups on average per month

In addition, we have identified with the client the most interesting regions in terms of business. Revealed online demand for the products in them and evaluate how the client is now covers local demand. It turned out that in each region there is an opportunity to strengthen its position.

Fig.3. Local online request for brick and the share of existing demand coverage by the client
The graphs show how the client receives traffic to his site, by region, with assembled volume of demand. The ratio of all regional demand to the share of traffic received from it.

Further, together with the client, we identified TOP 5 competitors. At this stage, we wanted to understand how competitors present themselves online, which channels they choose, what they are betting on, and what they overlook. Identifying strengths and weaknesses has become an important part of building own online promotion strategy.

What we did:

• we analyzed the competitors’ websites, looked at their usability for the client and technical accuracy;
• we evaluated their PR-activity and representation in social networks. Besides, we defined the key messages that competitors enter the online space with;
• analyzed advertising promotion strategies: from channel definition to creativity.

What we discovered:

• as a rule, competitors are long known brands with established reputation on the market;
• all own channels (website, social networks) take into account who the client is, what are his motives and what is important for him;
• in most cases, all digital channels are used in promotion to one degree or another. This means that competitors are active and quickly master new approaches in Internet marketing, despite the specifics of the industry;
• advertising is aimedon different audiences. For each representative of the target audience, their own advertising messages are selected, separate approaches to promotion are built.

Knowing your client is equally important for a business from any field. Therefore, for the subsequent work, together with the client, we identified 3 main portraits of clients. Having taken information about current customers, we formulated:

• social demographic portrait (gender, age, geography);
• interests of potential buyers, which can be found out by searching through social networks and target communities;
• goals and objectives that buyers solve using plant’s products;
• fears and barriers that may become an obstacle to brand selection.

These are the portraits.

Another advantage of describing your customers in the form of portraits is understanding which channels are best suited to communicate with them and with which messages you can reach potential customers.

Before switching to tactics, it is important to audit the current state of existing channels.This will help to identify errors or shortcomings in advance, eliminate them or take them into account in further work if it takes some time to solve problems.

For example, in case of our client, we faced following points:

• company’s official website has a unique CMS system, which makes it difficult to implement necessary changes. Realizing this, we divided implementation of the promotion strategy into several stages.
• absence of CRM system for collecting and processing requests. It also adjusted our actions.

Besides, when applying to us, client has already tried to run advertising with other specialists, but the desired result was not obtained.

Taking into account the data obtained from the analysis of the market, competitors and target audience, as the existing capabilities and limitations of the client, we have prepared a media plan for promotion for 4 months.

We have clearly indicated in the media plan which channels we are going to use, for which target audience and what results we expect to get with a given budget.

Work results:

1. The plan for the number of requests was exceeded by 130%.
2. A system of communication with contractors was established, which helped to introduce the necessary changes to the site in the shortest possible time.
3. A system of analysis and reporting that is understandable to the client has been built. He can review the results at any convenient time.

When the basic work is configured, our next tasks will be:

• improving the site in terms of customer experience (for example, creating new pages, implementing an online calculator);
• adaptation of the promo strategy for the “low-season” period;
• strengthening brand awareness through PR and content marketing.