Still quite often ‚Marketing‘ is misunderstood to be ‚PR‘ only. For many industries like apparel, food or even automobiles this is true, to a certain extent. Not so for investment goods or long-lasting consumer goods.

The aforementioned industries need PR to attract interest and to inform the public about new products/new trends which ‚are absolutely needed‘ and at the same time they support their own brand - as e. g. in the apparel industry.

The AIDA-principle

A = Attention, I = Interest, D = Desire, A = Action

is completely valid and the importance of PR within the marketing-procedures is accordingly high.

Especially if this is supplemented by targeted action of regional sales partners, at some point in time ‘everyone’ realizes that there is something new for them to buy.

When marketing investment goods, long-lasting consumer goods or any service, however, the procedure is totally different. In that case PR has solely an accompanying role, i. e. to be published in special periodicals, the Internet or any other industrial publication dealing with this kind of industry. More important, however, is it to be in direct contact with the corresponding clientele, e. g. following the ‘one-on-one’-principle and to inform them on a direct way about new/different/enhanced products/services for their production processes.

When marketing investment goods it is thus important to analyze the respective market-segments, on all available/reachable/desired world markets, and thereafter – together with the respective sales channels – to contact and inform the relevant potential clientele.

A first step has to include therefore:

An analysis of the respective market-segments on the worlds’ markets of interest, taking into consideration the/all core-competencies of the company, but also having in mind that possibly some changes would/could be necessary for the products itself, for a specific regional market. That means: How many potential clients would be available where – a task which could e. g. also be outsourced.

The second step consists of a further analysis: Which competition is available on the respective regional market already and how, i. e. with which local partners, do they co-operate there.

Thereafter one can make up one’s mind which sales-, synergy- and/or alliance partners would be available/best for our company. This becomes even clearer as soon as it is known which buying-procedure and or way is followed by the potential client - also with regard to after-sales-service, customer care, and more, depending on the companies’ product/s.

The following third step (= calculation step) will result in values, i. e. we can roughly calculate – based on known values from the past – which ‘sales potential’ would be available from clients as found out during the analyses. Furthermore this step can be used for the evaluation which ‘entrepreneurial risk’ would/should be necessary to really reach these clients in order to increase turnover and profit.

The result of this 3rd step could also be used to discuss and agree on market-/sales-targets with respective local marketing/sales partners.

Only after elaboration of all these steps – and also after first general discussions with potential partners on the spot have been held - it will become obvious if

• the potential is sufficiently big for us to go there

• good and experienced marketing partners are available

• local fairs would be available for further support

and only again thereafter further steps can be elaborated to implement the targets as derived from the analyses.

During the implementation promotional papers needed to show the ‘fingerprint’ of our company to the potential clientele can be elaborated and we can ‘convince’ them that we will serve them – or even their clientele ! - with our products and its features best/better than the competition, and much more, depending on the individual product.

Conclusion:

While for mass marketing PR has a greater importance – and such companies are aware of/can accept a bigger spreading loss – the marketing of investment goods is totally different.

It has to be aligned more towards specific mentalities, buying procedures, direct client benefits, customer advantages and so on. In other words: Marketing investment goods makes by far more use of the whole marketing system …

… and thus becomes a success model – independent from the world market served.

Michael Richter – International marketing and sales consultant concentrates for more than 35 years on strategic marketing planning as well as marketing and selling of investment goods and long-lasting consumer goods in/to all 5 continents. He offers this knowledge and experience to his worldwide clientele. From 1991 he works as an independent marketing consultant, especially for SMEs worldwide. In addition he holds national and international, internal and external lectures on international marketing matters – especially for the European Union countries.