GMT helps its clients to address their most pressing challenges in many areas of their organizations—from senior team alignment and culture management to supply chain management and e-business optimization.
Some of the biggest challenges we have helped clients to overcome lie in developing a top-level marketing strategy that leads to significant growth. Following is a "virtual roundtable" discussion that we've assembled from the individual interview comments we've collected from some of our most successful clients over the past few years.
We think that almost anyone can learn something about marketing strategy success by listening to these client thought leaders—and their opinions on ensuring marketing strategy success.
Before undergoing a formal market strategy development process, how was your company defining its growth opportunities?
Charles Whipple
Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Hayward Pool Products
The information that I had when I joined Hayward was practically nonexistent—a lot of it was intuitive. There were a number of people who had been here for 25, 30, 35 years that could quote you anecdotal information about the market. There was a smattering of information that was available from our industry association. But there was nothing that was really concrete.
Gary Jones
Vice President—Consumer Marketing
The Coleman Company
For many, many years Coleman had migrated to developing products and delivering products to the marketplace that the trade—our retail customers—were asking for. So we had kind of a "death grip" from the trade regarding what we could bring to market. And there was a disconnect a lot of times between what the trade felt that Coleman should be doing—and what was best for them—and what the consumer need really was.
Mark Hollingworth
Director—Strategic Supply Chain Development
Textron Power Transmission
The old way of doing business was very much based on this philosophy: "This is what we think we are good at, from an operational point of view. Now, Mr. Salesman, you go out and find me a customer that wants to buy what I'm good at doing." And we survived in the past, and even prospered, by doing that. But recent times have proven that's not a very good strategy going forward. So the concept of looking for market opportunities first—and then trying to match our strengths to them—was the reverse of the process we would have used before.
What kind of initial fact-gathering phase did you undergo to overcome this traditional approach?
Brian Rawson
Vice President—Brand Management
The Coleman Company
Within an eight-month period, Coleman did probably more consumer research than in the previous 99 years of Coleman's history. That helped us begin to understand what the consumer truly was looking for in product, in pricing, in packaging. We did extensive analysis and dissection of each channel by product category, by margin, by wholesale margin, and retail margin. We really dove into those numbers, probably for the first time. GMT also helped us study consumers shopping in the aisle. When that process was complete, Coleman—maybe for the first time ever—had the ability to state with confidence what the consumer was looking for in some of our product categories.
Charles Whipple
Vice President—Sales and Marketing
Hayward Pool Products
We needed to quantify our demographic growth opportunities for pool products in the US, so that we could make rational decisions in advertising and marketing. We gave that assignment to GMT, and they provided back at a zip-code level where the key demographic opportunities existed. Much to everybody's surprise, they were not in the typical markets that we expected.
Gary Jones
Vice President—Consumer Marketing
The Coleman Company
GMT's ability to really "slice and dice" our market information to a very channel-specific, very product-specific level has really helped us understand where different products fit in segments within the channels. Today our product managers understand the holes in our marketplace where the competition is delivering products to specific channels, and have been successful in expanding their market share.
Why is it important to bring together a broad range of perspectives to develop a high-impact marketing strategy?
Mark Taylor
Vice President—Sales and Marketing
Textron Power Transmission
We do have businesses all over the world. It was pretty important for us to draw on the experience in all of those countries. So people out of South Africa, Australia, Sweden, the United States, and the UK were all involved in drawing market data together. For the first time, we got a view of Textron Power Transmission as a global company, not as a bunch of individual companies in individual countries.
Larry Miller
Senior Vice President—Independent Dealer Channel
United Stationers
Some of the best ideas came from the places we never expected—in fact, some of the most eye-opening sales and marketing related issues were often addressed by people in operations jobs in the fields. So, first, this process made us realize that we have good people across the business that can contribute to our marketing strategy. But there was another benefit. By virtue of having so many people involved, we realized it was something we had to be committed to.
Bill Phillips
President
The Coleman Company
Even though Coleman operated 13 different business units, we collectively designed the company's vision and a single agenda. As a result, the conversations that take place in our hallways and in our meeting facilities around Coleman today are absolutely directed. I don't have to worry today that we've got one piece of our organization pursuing one path and another piece of our organization pursuing another path.
What benefits have you realized from the marketing strategy development process?
Charles Whipple
Vice President—Sales and Marketing
Hayward Pool Products
The most critical thing that we've been able to do is understand the consumer and then develop products that solve that individual's need. That knowledge can then be merchandised by our dealer network and our builder network. By Hayward understanding where the consumers are and what their needs are, it makes us a better manufacturer, it makes us a better product designer. We have a better standard of quality than our competitors have.
Jim Fahey
Senior Vice President—Merchandising
United Stationers
As a result of the planning process we're really a much more formidable competitor in our marketplace. Operationally, we are focused on key measures, on understanding what our consumers and the resellers that serve them need—and focusing on the issues that will really drive their satisfaction. But also the planning process has helped us to open our eyes to new opportunities, to understand how we might be able to grow in the future by getting into new markets and differentiating ourselves from our competitors. Finally, the market research that we did and our ability to take that research to our dealer customers really sets us apart as a thought leader in the industry, and not just the traditional wholesaler.
Mark Hampton
President
The Order People
We have improved our relationship with our customers through our more in-depth understanding of the market. We interpreted the results of our market research, and then we turned around and shared our insight with them. We helped them interpret our findings, helped them draw conclusions related to their own business, and worked with them to develop new initiatives and campaigns to revitalize their own business. That whole process just brought us much, much closer to our customers from a relationship standpoint.
Anton Elsborg
President
Textron Power Transmission
The greatest impact to me has been the dramatic change that it's brought about in my management team. This business is fundamentally changed, and changed for the better, as a consequence of the experience. Textron Power Transmission now knows how it's going to grow, and where it's going to grow. We know what we need to do to make that growth happen. GMT's marketing strategy process has been absolutely fundamental to delivering that confidence within the business.
