INDUSTRY NEWS COMMENT: MARKETING MATTERS Elizabeth Sparrow
HOW brand makes price irrelevant: Many companies mistake brand for impressive logo design when in reality it is the brand that should lead all marketing activity. It is the foundation on which a company will build its strategy and it is at this initial stage that key proposition factors are unearthed alongside market demand. Companies falling in to the trap of believing a logo will change the brand
perception all on its own and those who subsequently spend hundreds of pounds on redesigning logos and fail to address this may as well be burning money. It is important to have a great logo which helps portray a relevant company image, however if left unsupported by company branding it will not provide any type of return. The brand is the personality of the company and should portray your values, but most importantly it should be intrinsically linked to your unique value proposition, also known as the USP. It communicates to your clients what sets you apart. It should be easy to understand, engaging, unique and relevant and should deliver to current as well as future needs of your target market. Brand delivery is where marketing assists and it is vitally important that communications remain consistent across all media, including brand design. Once you have created the brand you can then create the awareness. Failure to do this makes it unrecognisable by customers and ultimately encourages your competitors to set the brand for you. The most successful brands connect on an emotional
level creating a ‘want’ over the ‘need’. It is at this stage that price becomes irrelevant. For example, most people need a car to get them from A to B, but some lucky people want a Ferrari to do this. And ask yourself, do you ‘vacuum’ or do you ‘hoover’?
Elizabeth Sparrow, MD, Blabbermouth Marketing
Aiming high with Upshot
A NEW portal launched by Upshot enables resellers to manage all aspects of their busi- ness processes. The Trinity Portal is inte- grated with the systems of all the major telecoms carriers in the UK and has the capability to interconnect with other third party suppliers, such as CRM specialists, to provide one plat- form for the whole business. The platform integrates cus- tomer management, order man- agement and financial manage- ment capabilities to deliver a tailored end-to-end solution. Upshot’s MD, Peter Francis, said: “Businesses working in the channel rely not only on their own business systems working effectively, but on hav- ing access to the systems of their suppliers, for example, to provide quotations or to get pro- visioning updates. “Customer communications, automated quotations, provi- sioning and ticketing, billing, revenue assurance – everything is covered.”
Inspiration for the solution
came from Francis’ own con- sultancy experience in the tele- coms industry. “Over the past 15 years I have worked across the sector, for carriers and resellers.
Avnet set for DDoS
DISTRIBUTOR AVNET Tech- nology Solutions has launched a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack control service for UK business partners to take to their mid-market enterprise data centre customers. Working with DDoS mitig-
ation supplier, Webscreen Systems, Avnet’s UK business partners can now offer a four hour response to a DDoS attack to enterprise data centres. Bruce Hockin, Head of
Peter Francis
Despite the differences in their businesses, I found that they all faced similar issues with IT, such as vast upfront investment in terms of costs and time, inte- gration issues and continuing resource demands to upgrade and maintain in-house systems. “Critically, as companies struggled to get their individual systems talking, data was not being retained or was becoming corrupted, leading to lost rev- enues and unhappy customers. “By leveraging the advan- tages that the cloud offers, Trinity is able to address many of these issues.”
Got a news story? email:
sgilroy@bpl-business.com
Solutions Strategy, Avnet Tech-nology Solutions UK, commented: “A consistent denial of service can seriously damage any company and a method to quickly deal with such attacks provides an important element of protection to organisations faced with the possibility of lost revenues or service.”
SHORT CALL
A Customer Reward Club introduced by Chess offers a potential discount of over £2,000 on services purchased from the telco. The Club also allows Chess customers to claim additional services for free each month. Alan Taylor, Head of Marketing, stated: “We reward loyalty.”
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