This assignment requires you to find out all you can about your top 5 competitors. Extra credit will be given to those students who collect the most information. Be sure to include the following points in your paper:
a. SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)
b. Examples of messaging and collateral
c. Channels and partnerships
Great marketing depends on having a clear picture of your target audience−understanding their motivations, needs, preferences, how they communicate and where they get their information. Creating a persona, or personas, that represent your target audience is a great way to guide your messaging and marketing tactics.
Let's take an example. A technology company is marketing a new navigation and tracking application for mobile phones. The process of creating a persona for their target audience involves some analysis of their customer base, customer and prospect interviews, and feedback from their marketing, sales and customer service teams. In dry demographic speak the target is predominantly male, in their mid-forties, an early adopter, management level, found in all verticals and most often found in medium-sized businesses. They care most about making their teams more productive and cutting expenses.
The persona created paints a much richer and more vivid picture:
Gary "Gizmo" Green is the VP of sales for an electrical engineering firm, employing 45 people. Gary has one kid in college and one in high school. He follows his son's high school football avidly. He is an active user of LinkedIn to expand his professional and social network, and is experimenting with Twitter for business purposes.
Gary is on the road a lot, mostly driving but sometimes traveling by air, to visit customers and prospects. He mainly subscribes to RSS feeds to keep track of news he cares about and is a subscriber to an e-newsletter from his trade association. He loves gadgets, was the first among his friends to own an iPhone, and is excited to try new applications for it. Gary is concerned about the productivity of his sales team and is always on the look out for tools that can help in that area. Once sold on a product, Gary is a great evangelist.
This persona not only puts a human face on an audience segment, but can also be used to identify the marketing tactics that are likely to work best. Gary would probably download a podcast describing how a mobile phone application could benefit his sales team, but would probably not read a white paper on GPS technology or attend a half-day seminar. Once a customer Gary might be willing to comment on your blog, write a review or pass on a free trial to his social network. Keep Gary loyal by allowing him to get product news and tips by subscribing to your RSS feed, as he is probably not going to read a whole email newsletter.
For more details and discussion on personas, visit http://www.buyerpersona.com, a great blog from Pragmatic Marketing's Adele Revella.
We often get client requests to create a certain piece of collateral for them−a product datasheet, company overview, sales guide, or Web copy. We always ask if they have a messaging document that we can work from. The answer is almost always "no".
So what in a messaging document or platform would be useful when creating a new piece of communications? The answer is everything!
A good messaging document is the go to place to understand the essence of what should be communicated about a product, service, brand or company that is written with a specific audience in mind. A messaging platform can include:
With a messaging document in hand it is much easier and more efficient to create any communications vehicle, from product brochures to interactive demos. You will also benefit from having consistent messaging across all of your communications−regardless of how many different writers produce the pieces.
Bottom line, invest the time upfront to create (and update) a solid messaging platform. It will pay dividends time and time again.