White Papers
Understanding Your Competitive Position In A Changing Marketplace
One challenge companies often face as they seek a stronger position in the marketplace is the issue of prioritizing. Our Competitive Positioning Process helps focus on priorities that can claim maximum benefit.
- Who do your customers & prospects consider when making a purchase? (confirms your competitive set)
- What factors are important to them when making a purchase decision? (key drivers of choice / key drivers of loyalty)
- How do your customers & prospects view your strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis your competitors? (competitive positioning modeling)
- How best can you prioritize your efforts for greatest effect? (improvement priorities matrix)
Our competitive positioning work starts with gaining a basic understanding of your customers’ needs that shows us which customer needs are critical for on-going customer satisfaction, retention, product development, and marketing success.
1. The first level of needs are termed entry tickets. Entry tickets are the fundamental, rudimentary, and substantive stakes of your business. These are the prerequisites; without them, a product or service will fail.
2. The second level of needs are key drivers. Key drivers establish the purchase criteria for customers. Your product or service may only sell if you are meeting these expected customer needs.
3. The third level of needs are valued-addeds. Value-addeds augment what your customers expect. You do this by delivering products and services that the customer does not experience on a regular basis from your competition.
4. Finally, the last level of needs are unmet needs. Unmet needs encompass those things that might be done in the future to attract and hold customers. Working on unmet needs is only limited by your imagination and budget.
We map out the four levels of customer needs into a straight-forward depiction your executive team can focus on, add a competitive overlay, then take the concept one step further by helping focus your team on the priorities that will have the strongest impact.
Why Go Through This Process?
Understanding customer needs and expectations can be specifically linked to bottom line improvement in obtaining customers (opening the front door) as well as in maintaining customers (closing the back door).
This approach not only helps find strengths and weaknesses within specific customers of concern, it also helps prioritize what management should focus in on for best results.
…A bottom line approach that takes the guess work out of implementation.
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of the Competitive Positioning White Paper
Putting the Value into your Value Proposition
A common concern among Marketing and Sales Managers alike is how to avoid losing business due to the lack of a compelling value proposition.
This is where Brand Strategy and Business Strategy go from being an esoteric exercise to a pedal-to-the-metal necessity.
Over the years, we have found that all the research in the world without a guiding strategy has limited impact on the bottom line. Conversely, all the strategy in the world without relevant research can also end up sitting on a shelf.
Bottom line: For Brand and Business Strategy to work, managers must be able to deliver practical tools to the members of the organization tasked for making them work. Tools that work are grounded in a fundamental value proposition.
Why Go Through This Process?
The creation of a Value Proposition is a key element of Brand and Business Strategy and becomes the foundation for everything you do. A successful Value Proposition is a guidepost to measure your choices against and to institutionalize throughout the corporate culture.
Implementation of a Value Proposition serves as a Strategic Roadmap that can be specifically linked to bottom line improvement in obtaining customers (opening the front door) as well as in maintaining customers (closing the back door).
This customer-centric, bottom-line, approach gives you a common-sense approach that insures you are communicating with relevance to your customers and prospects.
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of the Value Proposition White Paper
Customer Account Revue™
Obtaining accurate customer feedback is a priceless resource in business today and one not to be taken lightly. Too often, companies take anecdotal information from filtered comments from field reps or occasional customer contacts -- allowing the “squeaky wheel” to frame business choices.
At ADR, we design a unique customer feedback process based on your business environment in order to provide you with truly useful (“actionable”) information.
The Customer Account RevueTM process is more than a simple measurement of customer satisfaction. Instead, it assesses the customer relationship from a 360-degree perspective.
- Who in your organization do your customers interact with? (TouchPoint analysis)
- What are their expectations and evaluations of each type of interaction?
- How does your fulfillment of these expectations impact satisfaction, and importantly, loyal customer behavior? (key drivers of satisfaction / loyalty)
- How best can you prioritize your efforts for greatest effect? (Performance/Importance Mapping)
The Customer Account Revue™ is suited for those companies focused on monitoring satisfaction so that adjustments can be rapidly implemented to maintain happy customers. Ongoing Customer Account RevueTM tracking can positively impact internal processes designed to build business revenue by keeping a happy and loyal customer base.
Why Go Through This Process?
Monitoring key driver attributes that are specifically linked to bottom line improvement in obtaining customers (opening the front door) as well as in maintaining customers (closing the back door) becomes a first line of defense against defections, and of course, supports efforts to maintain and grow market share.
This approach not only helps uncover operational strengths and weaknesses, it gives management tremendous insight into customer expectations and strategic concerns, and assure customers that your company is unique in its interest in listening to them.
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of the Account Revue™ White Paper
JumpStart Workshops
Creating an environment where new ideas can percolate to the top is a rare achievement in business today where companies are more likely to manage by “silo” than by “teams”.
Even when cross-functional teams exist to share critical information, a consensus style of management can hamper personal accountability and individual excellence. Typically, we find that cross-functional teams, regardless of management style, simply do not know what they don’t know.
Our Red Hawk Ranch Consulting Team understands these obstacles and is here to assist you in getting past them. JumpStart workshops provide a non-linear experience where what is not known comes to the forefront through the invaluable discussions that occur over the two-day period. Through active listening and facilitated team participation, we get your team to a point where at the end of the day you can say you have truly accomplished your goals and are on a path forward.
This effort gets your team offsite, away from day-to-day distractions, to a location that allows for productivity…a “jump start” of your thinking process.
Why Go Through This Process?
Our clients typically go thru this JumpStart process when…
- the executive team is stuck in their thinking and needs a “Jump Start” to the creative process
- new business challenges are in need of being addressed as a team
- new information presents the opportunity for a different way of looking at the business strategy
- the adage “two (or more) heads are better than one” pops into mind
- a fresh, creative look at old issues or new concerns is needed
- they have realized they don’t know what they don’t know
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of the JumpStart White Paper
Meeting Your Business Objectives Through Brand Management
The term “Brand Strategy” has become an overused, vague and even meaningless term for good old fashioned business strategy and market positioning.
We find that a successful business strategy starts with an effective brand strategy and that the management of the brand carries thru in nearly everything you do.
An effective brand strategy is a powerful business tool that can…
- drive change
- drive customer preference
- drive differentiation
- justify pricing premiums
- defend from the competition
- provide stability in tough times
- enhance performance in expansion times
- and more…
Why Go Through This Process?
All too often, companies go through the pain of creating consensus about their brand identity and STOP THERE.
We have to remember that everything we do effects customer perceptions of who we are (our BRAND identity). New business development choices for products and services, implementation of these products and services and sales must all follow brand strategy.
The desired outcome:
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of the Brand Management White Paper
How Segmenting Your Customer Base Helps Strengthen Relationships
Customer retention is arguably one of the best predictors of company profits.
- The longer a customer stays with a company, the more that customer is worth. Long-term customers buy more, take less of the company’s time, are less sensitive to price, and bring in new customers.
- Best of all, there are no acquisition or start-up costs associated with them.
We know from previous research we’ve conducted among various industries that a key factor in the retention (and loyalty) of customers is increasing their perceptions of the relationships value.
- In a recent example, we found that approximately half the customers complaining about value used their relationship for nothing more than the basics (placing orders, paying bills…). Another one-third used additional products or services sporadically(without loyalty). These customers were also less aware of the products and services available to them.
- Conversely, those who described value in the relationship were making use of the full menu of products and services available to them. These were also the most loyal customers
By becoming more customer-focused, you can create products and services, even service levels, that are targeted to specific customer segments…thus increasing the likelihood that they will use them, find value in them, deepen their relationship with you, and (bottom line) become more loyal.
Why Go Through This Process?
The creation of Customer Segments is not for everyone. The worst is to go thru the expense and end up with “Segments” that are not truly useful.
We avoid this by going thru a careful process to make sure the research needed to create customer segments matches up with the way you do business. And at the backend of the analysis, where Art and Science meet, we make sure to include you in the process to make sure the segments are named and described in ways that are clearly identifiable throughout your organization.
With actionable Customer Segments in hand, you have the huge benefit of target marketing to enhance profitability among existing customers and to increase your opportunity among targeted prospects.
…A bottom line approach that insures you are communicating with relevance to your customers and prospects.
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of the Segmentation White Paper
New Product Development Process – Paths to Implementation
The days of being product-focused instead of customer-focused have all but disappeared as the cost of bringing goods and services to the marketplace amplify the treacherous magnitude of mistakes. The old notion of “build it and they will come” is insufficient in today’s competitive environment.
At ADR, we believe that Product Development is a customer-focused PROCESS that when done correctly and systematically will provide you with the business information you need to make intelligent decisions.
The process typically includes the following steps:
- 1. Idea Generation
- 2. Idea Prioritization
- 3. Concept Refinement
- 4. Concept Screening
- 5. Concept Optimization
- 6. Business Plan Creation
Why Go Through This Process?
Incorporating Concept Testing into the Product Development Cycle is an important step toward insuring success…but it takes time and money.
The business reality today speaks volumes for new products that hit the market without a clear target, fulfilling no customer need and providing no new benefit. With even the simplest form of Concept Screening, these costly mistakes can be avoided with a Product Development Process that is adhered to…a bottom line approach that takes the guess work out of implementation.
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of the New Product Development White Paper
Focus Group Interviewing
Focus groups are an important market research technique for generating useful information about your customers’ attitudes and perceptions. As opposed to more quantitative research methods, focus groups are qualitative in nature and are geared toward drawing out in-depth answers that help build understanding of the issues and concerns that might not otherwise come out in a more “closed-ended” line of questioning.
ADR Associates typically conduct 6-12 focus groups a month among key client constituents.
Uses of Focus Group Research
We find focus groups to be particularly useful for the following purposes:
- New product development studies
- Positioning studies
- Behavioral and usage studies
- Packaging assessments
- Attitude studies
- Advertising/copy evaluations
- Promotion evaluations
- Idea generation
- Employee attitude and motivation
Abuses of Focus Groups
Bottom line? Focus Group research has its place in the modern market research “arsenal” of tools, but some cautionary words of wisdom should always be in the back of your mind.
Be careful NOT to use Focus Groups…
- As a cheap alternative to quantitative research
- To generate data that they are not intended to generate
- Implementing more groups than are necessary, using different locations unnecessarily
- Taking the technique too seriously, or not seriously enough
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of the Focus Group White Paper
Price Sensitivity Modeling
Price is a potent marketing tool which contributes to a product's positioning. Thus, when choosing the price to charge for a product (or service), a marketer must consider not only how much customers are willing to pay for the product, but the impact the selected price will have upon customer perceptions of the product.
Customers generally have in their minds an "expected" price for a category of products. Although this expectation varies across individuals, market consensus indicates an acceptable range. A particular product can be successfully priced anywhere within this range of expected prices, but where within this range the product's price falls can influence customers' perceptions of the product. When customers feel that the price is low, but not so low as to indicate poor quality, they feel they are getting a bargain. When they feel that the price is high, but not so high as to make them find a substitute, they feel they are getting a high quality product. Consequently, bargain and premium pricing are common positioning strategies.
Price Sensitivity Modeling is a survey research technique designed to determine the expected range of prices for a category, and establish the bargain/premium associations of particular price points. This approach has a number of benefits when seeking customer-based pricing guidance:
- It requires little data collection time: four simple open-ended questions.
- It is versatile in its application, being applicable to products or services, both new and existing (though the pricing for new products should be tested only among concept acceptors).
- It requires a relatively small number of respondents because it does not require separate cells for several prices.
- It can identify respondents who are more or less price sensitive.
Why Price Sensitivity?
Use of this basic price modeling tool, when adapted properly to your needs, will take the guess work out of your pricing strategy and get you closer to a go / no-go product or service development decision faster.
Taking this customer-centric approach gives you a common-sense and cost-effective way of meeting market demands…a bottom line approach that insures you are communicating with relevance to your customers and prospects.
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of the Price Sensitivity White Paper
About ADR Associates, Inc
ADR Associates specializes in strategic marketing and communications counsel.
Founded in 1994, ADR’s expertise lies in the areas of marketing and communications research used for strategy development. ADR specializes in helping clients deal effectively with changes in their competitive environment.
ADR has earned a strong reputation for helping clients understand their competitive position in the marketplace and for research providing clear, useful and insightful strategic direction for managing change.
Based at Red Hawk Ranch, a unique executive off-site location in the Temecula Valley Wine Region, ADR brings the customer voice into management’s focus. Thru the use of executive team ideation, customer focus groups, in-depth executive interviewing and quantitative telephone studies, ADR helps executive teams better understand customer perceptions…a level of involvement that is often the foundation of ADR’s involvement and becomes a driving force for creating and fine-tuning successful business strategies.
A “virtual” company comprised of contract consultants with various specialties and backgrounds ADR Associates affords a unique opportunity to provide a specially tailored team that fits precise project needs and timing requirements. Existing client projects include work throughout the United States as well as in Western Europe.
Why ADR?
Over the years, ADR has distinguished itself from other research firms by focusing on the concept of interfusion with our clients.
We prefer to maintain a short list of current clients where we can provide the level of support more typically expected of an internal staff. Our success comes fromdeveloping relationships that are responsive, easy to deal with and fiscally responsive to your needs.
This becomes a win-win for everyone involved. You tap into highly skilled associates who are specially trained and suited for their role on your team. We are flexible resources to use as necessary, but not carried on your payroll. We maintain extensive relationships among like-minded research professionals who can be called in on your work on an as-needed basis. In return, we have the fun of seeing our work get used and seeing it make a difference in your organization.
We are all motivated as entrepreneurs who are not satisfied until the client is happy. And here’s something we are VERY proud of…In the 12 years we have been in business, ALL of our clients have been referrals from happy clients.