Understanding an organization’s various audiences is critical to creating impactful messaging and strategizing the best ways in which to deliver those messages to drive action and awareness. Integrity PR’s target audience research not only informs our public relations strategy, but is often used by our clients’ sales and marketing teams.
The Challenge
EnGenius Technologies, a leading provider of networking and voice communications solutions for businesses, sought to learn about how resellers and solution providers selected the products and services that they offered to their customers. This information would be critical to growing their reseller program in a very competitive industry.
The Solution – Focus Groups
Integrity PR sought to understand how resellers and solution providers learn about products and select the vendors they work with. We conducted a series of focus groups which would seek to learn:
- Brand perceptions;
- How they select brands to recommend and sell;
- What influences them to change brands;
- Importance of marketing materials in making those decisions;
- Preferences for participation in reseller programs;
- How they get their information on products;
- Most important product features.
A series of three focus groups each included 5-6 networking and telecommunications resellers and solution providers. The focus group was told that EnGenius was conducting the study. Some of the participants were EnGenius resellers, but the group was very familiar with competitive brands including Cisco, D-Link, Netgear, TP-Link , Ubiquity, Meraki, Linksys, and Ruckus.
Using the focus group format, we were able to pose strategically-worded open-ended questions that enabled the discussions to be organically driven by the participants, and steered by the moderator, to gain valuable insights and perceptions regarding the brand strengths and weaknesses.
As a result of the focus groups, Integrity PR was able to provide critical insights regarding brand awareness, brand selection, marketing messaging, product reviews, website resources, and publications that the EnGenius sales and marketing team utilized to adjust PR, marketing, and advertising strategies.