The Client:
Rubric, a
decade-old language services provider that
helps technology firms ready their products
for international markets.
The Situation:
Rubric's
executive team contacted Silicon Strategies
with a simple request: to help them grow
beyond the plateau they had reached. For a
number of years, Rubric had not been able to
expand their revenues or market share.
Silicon Strategies Role: Marketing
strategy consultant and researcher.
Silicon Strategies Marketing started our
engagement with several focused
investigations to inventory Rubric's
strengths and weaknesses. The process
identified a common malady of smaller
companies: Rubric had no institutionalized
understanding of their market, their buyers,
or their competitive differentiators. Though
Rubric had been moderately successful, their
success was based not on strategy but sheer
drive and an intuitive feel for needs in
some market spaces.
The Research: Silicon Strategies
Marketing conducted several research
initiatives. The first developed a thorough
understanding of Rubric's
buyer genotypes and what motivated them.
Several rounds of facilitated management
discussions also drove development of
Rubric's go-to-market plan, documenting what
regions, markets, and buyer types would be
approached.
Through formal surveys and management
studies, Silicon Strategies Marketing also
brought to light the one key differentiator
Rubric offered. We compared this core value
proposition against a competitive check
list. Silicon Strategies Marketing uncovered
Rubrics chief differentiator, unique value
proposition, and the company's
brand essence - a brand that even the
largest competitors would struggle to match.
Finally, Silicon Strategies Marketing
conducted a customer satisfaction survey to
prove the new brand definition was based in
reality.
The Strategy: We then led a
corporate-wide rebranding effort, resulting
in the development of new
market messages, a new web site, new
collateral, new presentations, and new
promotional methods. All materials - down to
the email signature block of Rubric
employees - carried Rubric's brand.
From a tactical perspective, there was a
complete realignment of marketing effort and
budget. Money was shifted away from
activities which had little bearing on sales
and revenue. Instead, Rubric used their
brand to carry several viral promotions.
It was critical to leverage the strength of
Rubric customers to deliver the Rubric brand
and messages to other people in their
organization, and to peers in different
companies. This approach included brand-focused
testimonials and customer quotes throughout
Rubric materials.
The Results: Initial results
are very encouraging. Web traffic doubled
from that of the old web site. A new periodic
newsletter, whose first edition had a strong
70% open rate, produced new leads even from
established Rubric contacts. Rubric's sales
team is refocused, and Rubric customers are
volunteering to be references for Rubric
case studies, which in turn amplifies
Rubric's brand.
The Lesson: Companies are often
too close to their existing customers to see
the obvious. In Rubric's case, they had
tremendous core brand values that were not
reflected anywhere in their images, their
market messages, or their promotions.
Rubric's CEO told us that "Silicon
Strategies provided the focus and guidance
we needed to get to the next level.".
Contact Silicon
Strategies Marketing for a telephone
consultation on establishing your brand and
market differentiation. |
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