The heart of Genieomics is a cutting-edge technical solution, but this is not the ideal method of presenting ourselves to our customers, or to their customers. In fact, customers of the RetailGenie are known to be relatively slow adopters of new technologies. As such, our intention is to position ourselves as an organization that understands their current needs, anticipates their future needs in a dialogue, and addresses them using technology. We intend to present a company that is thorough, meticulous, and quality-conscious, but above all, customer focused. With this strategy, we will avoid the image of the "bleeding-edge" engineering firm, the fly-by-night technology provider, or the "solution looking for the problem."
Marketing the RetailGenie implementation consists of four distinct steps:
- creating a brand strategy and identity;
- positioning the brand and its unique propositions to the customer base;
- inviting partnerships while discouraging competitive efforts; and
- facilitating the private-label branding of the associated services among the customers.
Each of these focus areas will be explored in this section.
Crafting the Brand Strategy for the RetailGenie is planned as follows.
- Defining the Target
An initial set of studies will help to profile the decision makers relevant to adopting the Genieomics products and services. By identifying the stakeholders in the purchase, we can determine which identity elements will garner the strongest response, which media will position the message most effectively in front of the target, and will allow us to measure the success of the strategy at large.
- Corporate Identity
The Corporate identity consists of the visual elements, mottos, slogans and other signature components of the company to match the profile of the target. Initial corporate identity material will also provide basic direct marketing material to support early sales efforts and attract investors. The Corporate identity will be consistently presented in physical documents and electronic material (emails and websites).
While preparing an awareness campaign, Genieomics will encapsulate the strategy into a Request for Quote document and circulate the RFQ to a number of marketing and advertising firms in the United States and Canada. The Positioning and Awareness strategy is made up of the following tactics.
- Communications Plan
This plan outlines both the form and function of communications initiated by Genieomics. The company favors a formal, conservative message delivered with clarity and simplicity. At all times we will strive to keep the customer engaged and informed with direct, simple messages that are timely and relevant. We would like our customers to know about our mistakes as well as our successes, provided we can keep the message positive by expressing what we have learned and how we have adapted to prevent re-occurrence. This strategy is proven to make the customer feel like a stakeholder, and prevents conflicting messages from arriving from other sources.
- Advertising
Most of the guidance for the advertising plan will come from the advertising firm. There are a number of well-known media for reaching the decision makers critical to Genieomics, including periodicals and journals for every niche market. We will also work with the many of the credible industry watchers that publish well-received reports who can provide the company with tremendous industry visibility. A consistent advertising strategy will present the brand information, illustrate a key concept, and drive the customer to an information-rich medium or a sales representative. Genieomics will not make any initial attempts at negative advertising or direct comparison advertising, but rather concentrate on its unique selling proposition.
- Conferences and Trade Shows
Although the cost of travel and presentation is high, the exposure at the right conference will produce excellent leads and deliver a comprehensive message. The semiannually Marcus Evans' Retail Technology Conference, for example, is an excellent platform for Genieomics as a solution provider.
Building a complex set of products and services, establishing a trusted brand, and implementing them in the marketplace can take a tremendous amount of time. To shorten market adoption and gain customer trust, Genieomics intends to invite strategic partners into almost all aspects of customer associations. Relationship Marketing consists of two distinct strategies: inviting members of the value delivery chain into the sales and deployment process, and simultaneously discouraging competition from newcomers and established market players. The tactics for accomplishing this are complementary.
- Developer Network
Establishing a developer network involves creating a toolkit for developers, and distributing it freely to interested parties. This resource creates a vehicle for clients to build unique applications under the supervision of Genieomics, and for entrepreneurs to address their business ideas, while reducing the risk that they will launch competitive efforts. It also implies a favorable licensing agreement that will provide incentives to entrepreneurs, while maintaining a steady influx of innovation into Genieomics. Complementary efforts include a technical knowledge base, participatory working groups, and "birds-of-a-feather" sessions. The cost of a developer network is relatively inexpensive, since much of the effort is community-driven. These types of effort have also been shown to reduce support and training costs, disperse technical changes more efficiently, and provide insight into customer concerns.
- Partnerships
Partnerships will be chosen to extend operational capacity (geographic or manpower), or to allow co-branding and bundling of services. It is in fact preferable to partner with a large system integrator to perform installation, support, and hardware rather than build up a large organization under the Genieomics umbrella. This model exists for many enterprise software and service organizations that prefer to stay within their core competencies. Examples of ideal partnerships include IBM and STS Systems. Partnerships include exchanging sales leads, shared revenue, and non-compete agreements. There also exists the possibility of creating complex services and support architectures in partnership with a client.
- Strategic Alliances
Unlike a partnership, Genieomics identifies strategic alliances as lacking a necessary dependence and by avoiding an exclusive relationship. Strategic alliances will be formed with 3rd-party product and service providers to leverage short-term procurement spending with long-term revenue possibilities. If an interested company wishes to offer the Genieomics products and services alongside other offerings for the same market, they would be positioned as an alliance as opposed to a partnership. Examples of strategic alliances include PriceWaterhouseCoopers or Accenture. These partnerships include preferential resale rates and exchange of key business intelligence.
- Anticompetitive Marketing
Part of the overall marketing objective is to hedge against the competition. This goal will be achieved by focusing on two strategies. First, we will consistently project an image of corporate professionalism and competence that will discourage newcomers into the industry. Delivering on our promises, and avoiding the long-range delivery forecast, will ensure consistent trust among customers and investors. Second, we will discourage incumbent competitors by sending a carefully crafted message to established companies with an existing presence in the retail infrastructure space. The message will have them believe that the market will be dominated with Genieomics' infrastructure and brand awareness, and that any subsequent efforts to enter the market would most likely succeed only if in concert with Genieomics. This type of anticompetitive campaign has served niche providers in other areas, such as Palm Computing and Amazon.com.
Further guidance and references for the marketing strategy comes from the Wizard of Advertising.