Driving thought leadership In a highly-fragmented skills training market, getting your voice heard remains a constant challenge. For
Huthwaite International, its research-based SPIN® Selling methodology
has for many years continued to provide a strongly-differentiated
product proposition. Yet the company needed to
strongly reinforce this by getting the message across that it fully
understood the different pressures clients now faced, if it was to
continue to be relevant in a rapidly-changing commercial environment. At
the same time, in meeting this objective the resulting PR programme had
to support both the corporate campaign and each of Huthwaite
International’s five key target sectors. The Challenge Long-established in the UK, Huthwaite International is a leading behaviour change consultancy specialising in the area of sales performance improvement. Yet in looking to establish skills improvement as an issue of strategic importance, the company continued to suffer from training’s continuing low corporate profile. The challenge for Whiteoaks therefore was three-fold. First, it was essential create a core piece of intellectual property (IP) which would sit at the heart of the corporate thought leadership campaign and provide high quality support across five divisions. Second, the campaign had to be capable of delivering continuous support over an extended 12-month period. And finally, it had to be topical and provide strong evidence that Huthwaite International understands and responds to today’s problems – by providing direction and solutions to organisations affected by the economic downturn. The Response Whiteoaks
developed an industry survey to probe the views of of 100 key
decision-makers across all key vertical sectors and a variety of sizes
of organisations. This was carried out by an independent third-party research company. The
findings demonstrated Huthwaite International’s grasp of current
business issues, by identifying issues of greatest corporate pain and
highlighting areas where support was needed to help them respond. Data
was analysed by vertical sector, providing compelling insights and
comparisons between individual markets: similarly, the size of
respondent orgainisations was also analysed, with resulting content
developed around the specific issues facing each type of business. The
resulting piece of core ‘IP’ was then supported by a ‘toolkit’ of
materials designed to meet Huthwaite International’s corporate and
sector objectives. The Result As
part of the IP toolkit, Whiteoaks developed three press releases,
issued at three month intervals and focusing on different aspects of the
survey findings. Tailored for each key industry
sector and issued to vertical media lists, this proved a highly
cost-effective strategy, creating an additional 15 press releases from
one central piece of IP. As a result, it
successfully boosted coverage and built momentum for the company’s
authority positioning across its target markets. Further,
four corporate opinion articles were developed and placed with gold
tier press, with another 20 articles tailored and placed in the key
vertical press relevant to each of Huthwaite’s business divisions. And the benefits did not stop there. Huthwaite
was also able to use the findings to support other elements of its
marketing and business development programme – in seminars, customised
proposals, direct mail and other collateral - showing how Huthwaite
International could help tackle the real issues facing customers and
prospects.
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