by Alan Gladish

At Praxis, we typically begin every new strategic relationship by conducting some brand perception research. We've been doing this for over 15 years because we really value the information we obtain from listening to our clients' internal staffs, their sales channels, their customers, and – most importantly – the general population of prospective customers in their markets. Getting agreement to do this research isn't always an easy sell, though. Many company owners and marketing execs will tell us they know everything they need to know about their own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of their competitors to go to market successfully. Others say that, while they believe it can add value, they don't want to hold up much needed lead generation activities while the research is being conducted.

So why bother going to all this trouble? Because by positioning our clients, based on their relevant differentiated benefits, and through careful planning and a strategically defined creative approach, we can craft an integrated program that leverages the critical message throughout all media. We can meet bottom line objectives for inquiry generation and awareness building, and strengthen brand preference at the same time, allowing our clients to command better margins on their products and services. What we don't do is react to the crisis du jour. We can do this because we use what we learned from positioning (an internal discipline) and apply it to the activity of branding (an external communications process).

This approach, while logical, demands something of a leap of faith. We ask our clients to trust the judgments we make early in the program, based on what we've learned in the situation analysis. But after several months' worth of consistently applying these principles, we know what works and what needs improvement. We continually learn more about how to effectively deliver the important positioning message to the audience. And over time, the market gains a clearer, more focused understanding of how our clients' products or services can benefit them.

Not only that, through positioning research, each client gains some important new insight into the audience's perception of their business and their competitors' businesses, which can immediately help the sales team capitalize on their identified strengths in certain areas.

Must every project wait until the research results are in? Not necessarily. There's actually quite a bit of concurrent work that can be done to promote the business, such as public relations and search optimization. But the big programs that rely on getting the message right, such as a website, advertising campaign, or direct marketing, benefit significantly from taking the time to learn anything we can to get a competitive edge.

So what exactly do we gain through research?

From surveys of the client's staff, we learn who their strongest competitors are, what they believe their own strengths and weaknesses are, what audiences and titles we need to influence, whether there are impediments to sales that we need to overcome, and insights into why the company wins (and loses) new business, among other things.

Then we survey their sales channels, such as representatives or distributors, for their opinions on the same questions. This group tends to be just a little less myopic than the client because they have regular exposure to their customers and competitors in the field.

The customer surveys tell us what they like and dislike about doing business with our client, where the client is succeeding, and where they could make improvements. We also learn what media is important to them, and what new products, services, or capabilities they're going to need in the future.

The prospect surveys are typically conducted through a third-party media source that has a direct connection with the audience we need to reach and influence. When possible, we ask the publication to send the survey invitation on their e-masthead so it appears impartial. The results we get from this group help us to directly identify their needs, the competitive situation, and market opportunities available to us.

Once all this information is assembled, we compare it with the client's unique strengths to find just the right positioning we can lay claim to. And out of this comes the creative messaging and marketing strategy, the foundation for the whole game plan. So while there are often hundreds of ways to articulate a creative approach, after doing the research, we certainly have a lot more confidence that the core message is a homerun.

Contact Alan at agladish@praxisagency.com.