www.psneurope.com
June 2014 l 41
livenews
The EMEA HQ’s foyer illuminated blue during an event. Eiffel 65 were sadly not involved
(“The Germans love the technical stuff, while in the UK, it’s more about brand and ‘feel-good’ stuff…” remarks Proesser.) Recognising this community – but elevating the interaction above the normal Facebook-style website – has been another winner. Look no further than last year’s ‘Remix Snow Patrol’ challenge, or the ongoing ‘Call for Legends’ “coolest band” competition, which saw 200 bands upload their tracks and 140,000 plays on SoundCloud.
“It’s not about generating quick sales – it’s about doing something only we can do, which is building the brand based on user interaction (User Experience Campaigns). Next time they think about buying a mic, Shure is on the top of the shopping list.” Proesser says Call for Legends saw a major (up to 60%) increase in dealer enquiries to the associated dealers during the campaign. And so to the fifth, and perhaps most important, overarching strategy: the decisively named ‘Distribution 2.0’. In a nutshell, it’s a fundamental analysis and re-evaluation of the partner network. Shure looked at the current model, and decided it was better to supply qualified leads to a limited network. In other words, not every dealer gets to sell every product, resulting in resellers being reclassified by their primary market focus.
“We say: can this dealer really sell a ribbon microphone, or is it just cool to have one?”
In short: in the three vertical markets, certain resellers can only sell certain items – physically and online. Retailers are divided into Shure Centers, Shure Premium Partners and Shure Partners, each with a certain number of lines to sell. With self-reference, Winkler smiles: “If all a dealer can do is discount a 58, I know an organisation that can do better than that….
“That’s not the long-term goal here.” At the lowest tier, Shure Partner status, the store gets only nine products to sell. “And you can imagine that they are not happy to hear that, having got 100s of products from us over decades. And the big reveal here was that even those resellers generated 5% more revenue with fewer lines to sell – a first indication from the German market. “So it works,” says
Proesser. He adds it was like “taking a toy from a child, but one that they never played with”: they found they missed it but – in reality – they didn’t miss it at all. The bonus stage to the new arrangement, if you will, is the Shure Academy European Audio Network, or SAEAN. “It’s not just a way of best advising people how to use our products, it’s also a networking platform,” says Proesser. The Academy has rolled out in Germany and the UK, and will go direct to end users in four-to-five other territories. And where content is king, Shure are ensuring that information and education is plentiful. There have already been over 20 events since the German launch in October 2012. Much more is planned: video content, boot camps, all the learning you can eat.
Of the training programme and SAEAN, Winkler says: “In preparation of products and systems you are going to bring to market, if you don’t have the basic infrastructure in place, you can’t sell them. That’s what we are doing.” He continues: “Then aside from that, we thought, can we bring more benefit? Can we help guys develop their business alongside us? Retailers, integrators, rental firms…”
Proesser highlights the Shure Brand Space, the ‘shop within a shop’ device: a 2m x 2.4m installed ‘booth’, showing clear demarcations between the various categories of microphones, between analogue and digital, etc. He says sellers scoffed when they saw them, but when Shure offered to provide training too, the brand space came into its own. “The ‘knowledge high’ was much greater… and sales increased. It all paid off.” Now there are 250 such Brand Spaces in over 18 countries.
So, ultimately Shure will supply quality and competence. And that, in the end, is the real key, says Winkler. “It’s all about how you differentiate yourself. How do you compete in the future? “You can have the best products on Earth. But if you fail to engage, the business won’t come back. So, it’s about great products, good technologies, and quality support.
“It’s quality and competence.”
www.shure.eu
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