A week in marketing

As a possible topic for a blog I kept note of what happened during one week, day by day working at Technical Marketing Ltd.

Not really a good idea as it turned out, or put another way nothing happened that would be of much interest to anyone else.  Working days planned to accomplish specific tasks but diverted by new instructions, changed briefs, urgent last minute requests and the steady pinging of arriving emails . Thank goodness spam detection is  much better now, so that the stream of offers for fake Rolex watches, impossible medical enhancements and news of untold millions of dollars waiting for me in frozen Nigerian bank accounts, go straight to the junk folder.

What it did reveal is how much time is spent on the detailed implantation of plans on a day to day basis and the challenges of actually completing a project in one session compared to the reality of stopping and starting while missing material is sourced or client approval received. A typical day starts early morning with a goal of actioning the overnight emails and planning tasks for the day and ending late evening clearing the last of the day's email quota. Now everyone works through a desk top computer or mobile device, the telephone is much quieter, but communication channels are open all hours.

Back in the early 1970s the marketing department where I worked was a very different working environment. Computers weren't on desks, they were housed in climate controlled rooms attended to by white coated acolytes who changed tapes and fed in punch cards. Beyond the inner sanctum where the actual machine lived was an open office with around fifty young girls busy punching cards to feed the computer. We ourselves occupied a smart high rise company headquarters in London's West End - the computer was located at a factory site in Leicester where space cost per square foot was much less. On our desk we had a blotter and a telephone. The only other piece of furniture was a steel four drawer filing cabinet. Pretty much the whole marketing team was male, or at least appeared to be, but outside of our offices sat our secretaries who took dictation in short hand and typed up letters, memos, meeting minutes and forms on early IBM golf ball electric typewriters. Few of us arrived in the office before the 9 am start time, took an hour for lunch, often spent in a nearby West End hostelry and left for home at 5.30 pm. By 6 pm the cleaners had finished and the place was locked up for the night. There were clear working hours and nobody - customers or suppliers - expected to telephone outside those prescribed working hours, because they worked much the same hours themselves.

Marketing in the seventies was for us mainly about managing a rip-roaring success. Demand for product effectively meant rationing supply as we built more production capacity, invested in new production lines and tooling - all incidentally UK based. Inflation was a convenient reason for publishing a new price list every three months. We didn't need to sell, we just took orders and examined voluminous sales reports each month on concertinered print-outs delivered from that computer up in Leicester. In retrospect it was something of a golden age. It certainly was for the advertising and design agencies. Nearly every marketing communication was in some form of print and the process of transforming our marketing briefs into a finished piece of print went through many, expensive and 'skilled' stages along the way. The bills for producing, even quite modest printed documents, were eye watering with scope at every stage to ramp up the costs - a particular favourite being "authors corrections". Artwork was actually type and images glued to a board ready for a special photographic plate making process and the risk of a bit falling off during the final review and sign off - yes actual signatures on each page - meant the final printed piece could be missing a letter or two.

But if the graphic design agencies and printers were licensed to charge well for access to the many arcane skills in the brief-to-print game, then the West End advertising agencies were masters of the art of swinging huge fees and expenses. They mostly occupied glitzy offices with elaborate receptions, decorative and arty staff luxuriating in lavishly appointed and smartly furnished offices. They would arrive by cab, often with the metre left running throughout the client meeting, before then departing for an alcohol fueled lunch at a fashionable restaurant with a similar attitude towards exorbitant pricing! But once the computer displaced the blotter on the desk top, productivity tools such as desk top publishing and email arrived, then away went the secretaries, out went the complex print processes and down went the fees. Probably the real winners in the game are the computer manufacturers, the application programmers and ISPs. The marketing people are now doing more as individuals simply because it has become possible.

Talking about technical marketing

Why is it consumers will pay a premium price for a product far in excess of its intrinsic cost? The answer is that the product bears a logo representing a brand that is desirable to the consumer. They are not just purchasing a product – they are investing in a life style choice, ownership of that product is aspirational and makes a powerful statement to their friends and associates about their own values and status. Of course the brand owner has invested serious money to create that desire and positioning of their brand intended to convey instant recognition and comprehension.

So do the same marketing techniques work for the less glamorous world of business-to-business marketing, where budgets are considerably less? The answer is that the general principles of marketing still apply – the challenge is how they are applied. People buying business products and services are also consumers who experience the world of consumer marketing every day, but in their professional capacity will be less influenced by emotional appeals. When buying or specifying b-2-b products the process is not characterized by a spontaneous desire for instant gratification. It is a process of evaluation and consideration which may be quite lengthy. But what might ultimately differentiate one similar product from another is the reputation of the brand of the supplier. Although price will always be important, quality, reliability, technology, availability, post sales support and many other factors may figure in the final purchase decision. Building that reputation for a brand is where marketing performs a vital role in creating an environment where purchasers will ultimately demonstrate a preference for one product over another.

Marketing should not be confused with sales. It is far more to do with planning for the future, with strategy to keep ahead of fast moving trends, the routes to market, and the means of promotion and delivery that provide the essential environment in which selling can be successful. When marketing technical products, there are many facets to the marketing role. Technical marketing will typically embrace new product development, marketing communications and protection of intellectual property. Instead of the emotional appeal of consumer marketing we recognize that in the marketing space we address of industrial, technical and entertainment technology products, we are more typically engaged with engineers. Accordingly we have introduced an engineering approach to marketing. Engineering brings discipline to marketing, a discipline much needed in controlling the flights of fancy of the creative media types in getting the i's dotted and t's crossed, keeping feet firmly on the ground and keeping sight of the purpose of marketing a product - not in winning design awards. And if bringing engineering into marketing might seem a strange notion, unless marketing is properly controlled and brought in on budget then it will be a disaster. Engineering projects are as much about planning, adherence to schedules and budgets as they are about technology. In fact engineers are increasingly being employed in some surprising areas including many types of management consulting even in the financial sector. 

Technical marketing brings the same engineering methodology and thinking to marketing - introducing staffing structures, building the team, setting objectives through the marketing plan, formalising budgets, introducing financial controls, defining schedules and setting specifications for creative projects. Too often companies launch into building a web site, designing a brochure, booking an exhibition stand or commissioning an advertisement without first deciding on what they need to achieve. Design led agencies naturally play to their strengths - a flare for creative designs - and wow clients with exciting images. Arguably engineering marketing, or as we call it technical marketing, lacks some of that wow factor, but what we have discovered is that clients recognise the benefits that our approach can bring to the bottom line. We supply the rationale. And with the increasing importance of the Internet in marketing, a technical competence and comprehension of what works online too.  Of course there is a need for professional creativity, but it requires purpose and direction - in short planning, organisation, discipline and control. So engineering marketing solutions works - our clients testify to that.

Common to successful engineering projects and successful marketing is the importance of planning and testing first. Our technical marketing philosophy helps engineer marketing solutions that support and aid delivery of company objectives. Starting at the beginning of the planning process is the marketing plan. Very few companies actually seem to have one any more than they have a formal business plan. There is too often the impression conveyed that the only marketing plan is to repeat last year's pattern of expenditure - usually the last several years - which makes it difficult to find budget for new concepts. All at a time when marketing is rapidly evolving. The usual reason given for not having a formal marketing plan is lack of time. But what is the point in spending money without knowing why or having any benchmark to measure whether it is successful? We recommend not only reviewing the marketing plan at least annually, but also setting the budget that will help deliver the results and company objectives. 

Planning needs to be followed by effective implementation. This is an important part of our client involvement – working as part of the team to actually implement the plan at an operational level. By working in partnership with our clients, changing circumstances can be easily accommodated in the plan. We bring experience in a range of marketing disciplines from traditional to evolving online techniques and can handle some or all of these to an agreed plan. The mix will differ according to each client’s own specific needs and resources. Most of our clients now regard Technical Marketing Ltd as part of their team thanks to long standing business relationships.

If you market technical products and think your business could benefit from working with us then get in touch. If you are just interested in what we do then sign up for our e-mail newsletter or just follow us on Twitter or any of the other options offered on the web site. We are here to help businesses succeed.

The art of Imperfection

Why is it that some marketing projects fly through to completion and others get ground down to dust before limping home? It is better to sign off a marketing initiative and move on to the next, than to seek perfection and miss the point. Accuracy and truth are demanded and expected in all things marketing, especially in the b-2-b arena, but the sequence of checking, correcting and proofing isn't always the reason why some initiatives take so long to reach fruition. Indecision can be a killer to creativity and success.

Every marketing initiative – be it an advertisement, press release, technical data sheet or website page – needs a champion, someone who can specify, agree and take responsibility for the result. There are times when we seem to have lost the benefits of decision making we enjoyed in the pre-electronic network days. Remember when people met in a room to receive a pitch and make a choice there and then, or the time when one person was given, and accepted, responsibility for a marketing decision? Now it seems that material sent for client approval has to be distributed far and wide for comment, usually with time-consuming and unwanted consequences.

Successful marketing campaigns rarely rely on a single initiative. The elements of a 'marketing mix' should combine to magnify the stimulus to buy a product or service. Don't be afraid of giving a green light to a piece of copy or a graphic design; asking 'n' others will usually result in 'n-1' different responses. Many people think they have to find something to criticise or else they will be seen as an ineffective non-team player. The resulting task of assessing all the responses and different views and trying to walk a middle path, will inevitably annoy n/2 colleagues while delaying the process, diluting the result and costing more in creative time.

To misquote the Duke of Wellington, as long as it's not misleading or illegal, "print and be damned"and get onto the next marketing initiative - because that's the only way your well-prepared marketing plan will be effective.

you can follow Technical Marketing on Twittter @technicalmarket

Follow and comment on the Technical Marketing Diary.

The story of the sweet shop

In difficult economic times there are two main targets for cuts - marketing and stock. One drives enquiries and the other provides goods customers want, now.

We have previously commented on the dangers of cutting marketing investment during tough times and allowing competitors to gain market share while advertising space costs are lower. But attracting customers then failing to deliver the product is not going to create loyalty and repeat business. So the temptation is to review product sales and delete the less popular from the range as a stock reduction strategy. This in itself in some manufacturing business models will  cause their contribution to factory overheads to be transferred to the more popular products, in turn increasing their cost and reducing margin.

However there is an important marketing issue here as well - one of presenting choice. The chairman of a company I worked for some years ago had a cautionary tale about the owner of a sweet shop of the old fashioned type that displayed sweets in a range of jars arranged on shelves behind the counter - a merchandising method for confectionary that appears to be enjoying a revival incidentally.  Each week the shop owner decided he would delete the least popular confectionary item and remove that jar from the shelves. After a few weeks he was able to clear a whole shelf, but as he worked to delete jars from the next shelf he began to notice that sales of the popular lines were declining and so was footfall. In short he was loosing business.  Customers, especially young children actually enjoyed the opportunity to have a big choice, but as stock rationalisation proceeded the choice reduced inversely to a point where customers perceived that there were only the most common and popular types on display and they could get those anywhere.  Although they usually purchased their favourites, part of the shopping experience was savouring what else was on offer and when that went, so did their custom.

A direct b-2-b analogy was with the marketing of floodlighting products. The main sellers were floodlights that lit wide areas, rather than narrower beam spotlights that could illuminate a small defined feature. In particular a very tight beam model that could illuminate a clock on a church tower which not surprisingly sold in small numbers. But of course the thing was that having that 'tool' in the range demonstrated that the company understood the challenges facing lighting designers and in doing so helped create specification for the more common products as part of the package. A purely accounting analysis would simply eliminate the specialist product whereas a marketing analysis would look at package sales and understand that volume alone was not the whole story.

How well do companies merchandise products online?

With the web site often the first sight of a product, it is important that prospects get a complete and positive view to convert visitors to buyers. And yet few b-2-b companies fully exploit the possibilities of photography, video and user reviews, relying instead on one low resolution product image and text description to turn prospect interest into a conviction to buy. Some times there isn't even a picture!

There are 4 important opportunities for presenting a product to best advantage - product description, photographs, video and user views. Unlike a 'hands on' opportunity, at an exhibition, potential buyers cannot touch, explore and test a product online. Take most electrical products - it is just as important to see round the back, to see what sockets there are, to understand how it is installed and these features can easily be shown by offering other static views of the product. Instead of the traditional product shot from the front, why not show other important views - the inside, the fixing locations, connections to other systems, profile views? If however the product has performance features such as how it works, opens up, transforms for different tasks, then these are better shown in a video. It is also important to offer independent reviews. Case studies can provide valuable third party endorsement and the views of recognised authorities carry considerable weight. 

Finally, a full technical specification and content highlighting and differentiating the product should not be forgotten - plus of course a 'call to action'. Having virtually demonstrate the product you still need customers to call and place the order and this should be made simple to do and a seamless part of the process to close the sale. 

Thought leadership

Continuing the theme of the last two blogs prompted by research that White Papers are rated "the most influential sources of information and their content figures early on in the buying process", leads to how this can help establish market authority. A company publishing an authoritative document confirms a level of expertise and knowledge that helps gain the 'moral high ground'. There is a strong inference that a company that is fully conversant with the technology, the applications and pros and cons will have also transferred such knowledge to developing their products and should there be problems then they are more likely to have the knowledge and skills to solve them. It can be an important differentiator that introduces a value consideration rather than evaluating products on price alone.

According to Wikipedia, "A white paper (or "whitepaper") is an authoritative report or guide that is often oriented toward a particular issue or problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to documents used by businesses as a marketing or sales tool." 

Similar to the White Paper but nonetheless performing a different role in influencing buyer behaviour is the Guide to a subject.   The Guide also imparts knowledge but the education and information role is different - it seeks to explain how to evaluate or choose the right product for the buyer's application. We have developed guides for several clients over the years and  these can be very useful for introducing products where the prospect may be less familiar with the technology, where by nature of the product purchases are infrequent, or where there are several options to consider to select the optimum product solution. A guide is also an authoritative document but can be a branded sales document more so than a white paper which ideally should be more neutral.

The Guide can be presented as a well designed and branded document that has high retention value to the person that requests it. It offers a great 'call to action' opportunity in advertising too. The offer of a free guide promises greater value than simply asking for a sales brochure and helps generate enquiries and potential sales leads. One technique we have successfully used is to launch the guide content initially as a series of articles in the leading publication in the market, before consolidating the content into a more formal document. The endorsement of the journal then works to confer approval and also be used in response to readers questions. Creating the definitive guide for a market in this way also makes it difficult for competitors to do the same.

Finally by controlling release whether by sending printed copies or offering a download there is a valuable opportunity to engage with interested prospects and nurture their interest. 

Getting it right first time

It is now 20 years since the advent of the World Wide Web but like most inventions ideas had been mooted, tested developed and improved as far back as WW2 for a network to share knowledge. It was coincidentally also 20 years ago when we started to map out the rationale for marketing in the world of engineering, technology and b-2-b in general. Many of the emerging technologies were indeed to prove vital to what we later termed technical marketing but it was a further 10 years before we publicly promoted the philosophy. 

The technologies enabled by the world wide web and Internet although important are merely useful tools, but without an under pinning purpose cannot be effectively used for marketing. Although people have enthusiastically embraced the hardware and software of personal computing and mobile communication what few have grasped is that to be effective they must control these devices and not be ruled by them. In short to have a clear plan designed to achieve objectives. In the absence of a marketing rationale, a formal plan and clear business objectives the tendency is to simply be 'busy fools' rushing about, attending meetings, forwarding e-mails, making calls without purpose while creating the impression of being very busy.

In the early days of building web sites it rapidly became apparent that gathering the content material was actually the most difficult task often because few clients fully 

understood all aspects of their business. This lack of clarity was brutally exposed by the 

engineering reality of building a web site without a valid business model and relevant content 

that would lead to building, rebuilding and modifying the site as missing content dribbled in 

and existing content changed. Despite counseling clients to plan first, collate content, then 

build and do it just once,it usually proved impossible to achieve in practice.  Take another example - display advertising. Doing it once by negotiating and booking an annual plan avoids being 

dragged into a piecemeal plan reacting to incoming advertising space sales offers, rushing to 

meet deadlines and generally spending more with less effect than from a planned approach. 

The same is true of other marketing tools and techniques. Don't react to people selling 

exhibition space, direct marketing, advertising and the rest, have a formal marketing plan that determines which marketing tools will be most effective to you, then negotiate with suppliers instead of having them sell to you. In short have clear objectives, a marketing strategy that details how the objectives will be delivered and how the appropriate marketing tools will be deployed and integrated to optimum effect. 

Working with a marketing company that understands the importance of a technical marketing approach can not only help companies clarify their own aims, but bring in new ideas, wisdom and experience to change the culture to one of being in control of marketing.

Are blogs changing PR?

An interview carried by iMedia Connection – ‘Steve Rubel on how blogs are changing the face of PR’- brings forward a debate of the technical possibilities versus their relevance to the target market and the interest, uptake and commitment of clients to participate. The figures seem compelling. According to emarketer "Once a haven for techies, there are now blogs for everything from celebrity gossip to political commentary to the most mundane personal minutiae. By 2012, more than 145 million people - or 67% of the US Internet population - will be reading blogs at least once per month." 

They reckon 12% of US internet users, some 25 million write blogs. Surprisingly more than 100 million internet users, more than 50% are also blog readers. Big numbers then. Consider now some unofficial statistics from our own research in PR activity in the UK industrial market. Whilst the most active portal web sites carry news free of charge and archive thousands of stories, a sampling revealed that the vast majority were generated by relatively few companies or their PR agencies. The larger group of companies submitted very few stories. Some just one token story before presumably losing interest or running out of news. 

Talking to other PR people confirmed that news output from their clients was hardly prolific. Most needed quite a good portfolio of clients to make their PR business work. In our experience many clients don’t even think they have any news and a key task of a PR professional is teasing out stories in the first place. Then few have any people in-house that can write anything about their business sufficient to interest and editor, let alone a reader. 

But blogs demand a far bigger commitment by company personnel as there is both an immediacy and inside knowledge that the traditional PR practitioners will find difficult to embrace. For example not just getting the story, but getting client approval introduces a delaying factor. The blog is more of a personal view and works against the secrecy culture many clients have. 

Only recently a PR professional was lamenting a decision by a client to stop all case studies and third party endorsement stories as they did not want their competitors to know. We all have clients like that – great stories are blocked because the credibility associated with their blue chip customer cannot be mentioned. So the challenge is getting not only the commitment to write a blog, even if ghost written by an agency but also the openness to actually reveal the sort of compelling inside news content people want to read.

Looking back at marketing in 2009

Looking back across Technical  Marketing Diary blogs in 2009 certain themes can be seen to emerge, in a year that was one of unrelieved economic gloom and one still with no obvious signs of recovery. An early theme was a reminder that cutting marketing budgets was probably the worst thing to do. But true to form that is what many businesses did. Despite well documented evidence from previous and arguably less deep recessions, marketing budgets were cut simply because it is both easy and does not involve cutting staff. Feeling the crunch were the publishers of printed media in a long running print v online debate. The fact is that in the b-2-b world advertising has been leaking away from display media in print to pay for other marketing activities for years and despite predictions of the end of the printed word a significant number of publications still operate. Of course print has evolved too, both in the technology of CTP and mass customisation that offers interesting new cost effective mailing tools to marketers. In terms of company literature few companies are bothering to print data sheets and technical documentation, leaving it to customers to download and print them. Is this an acknowledgment that sellers have kind of lost control of the buying/selling process? Such small details as the presentation of company material, nicely printed and packaged is switching to data output on someone else's cheap ink jet printer. Because the advantage in evaluating purchase options has shifted to the buyer, it becomes essential that the information on which your product or service is being judged is accessible, easy to use and clearly presenting the benefits - i.e. what's in it for them.

 In general online news publication has remained free and supported by an advertising model rather than moving to a subscription service. However expect this to change for the big news organisations that have reporting staff to support unlike many b-2-b publishers that simply publish, at a price, news supplied to them. In the b-2-b sector any business can publish their own news, both directly through their own web site and on industry web sites. Content whether in print or online remains a crucial marketing tool. 

Probably the most interesting Internet marketing development is the rise of social media. It is a topic that has echoes throughout the year. Will, what some consumer marketers are apparently successfully achieving by joining the 'conversation' with consumers work in the b-2-b space? There are certainly some enthusiastic advocates and blogs, Twitter and Faceboook offer interesting possibilities. But as with anything else, the company needs to commit resource and effort to get a return and this may best be achieved through an external marketing agency.

As 2009 draws to a close with the coldest pre-Christmas weather for years in Britain, Europe and North  America with heavy falls of snow causing traffic chaos, spare a thought for the people marketing global warming in the face of contrary indications. Maybe 2010 will be the year when environmental and green issues become more popular in industrial marketing too. We noted that some industrial magazines are planning 'green' issues for the new year and suggesting what product features would render a product green. Perhaps the trick is to use these green credentials as part of the social media conversation.

Marketers as publishers

Content Marketing, the subject of the previous blog, discussed how the Internet had moved in favour of marketers to the detriment of media owners. During the current recession there have been many job losses in journalism and a trend towards journalists working on a freelance basis and delivering their work via a blog rather than submission to a sub editor. But the media still has an important role to play. Although a company can now publish anything it likes on line, there is still a need to apply some basic criteria to judge the value of the content. For example, is the story actually news, something that the target audience will find of interest? Matters the company may find all consuming might appear as irrelevant internal politics to readers. Is the story written in a style that is clear, consistent and authoritative? Is there a persistent theme through all stories that uniquely positions the company in its market sector? In short there is expertise required in dealing with these and other issues best dealt with by a PR specialist. So while actually writing the piece has its own challenges reaching the target audience is still an area where the traditional media has an advantage. It is far easier to pick up a magazine or visit a web site that covers the whole industry than visit various company web sites. There is also the question of independence and objectivity. Readers of trade publications are used to the benefits of news aggregation and will place more credibility on stories that appear in their pages than those in a company specific publication. It is better to use company published news to impart expertise that is not easily found elsewhere and establishes their credentials in a market. So although there are many tools available for the self publisher, to be successful they should be deployed as part of an integrated marketing strategy. This is where the experience of a marketing agency can be a good investment, to take an independent view, mix traditional and new media into a cohesive programme that delivers results at a number of levels. Technical Marketing Ltd has years of experience in developing and implementing integrated marketing communications plans that provide the right balance by selecting from the tools available and tailoring to each company's unique situation.

Do consumer marketing methods work for B2B?

There are probably far more similarities than differences between consumer and business-to-business marketing methods. One big difference is the size of marketing budget, so when new and inexpensive communication means are adopted in the consumer marketing space it is well worth taking note. It is often remarked that the Internet has enabled small businesses, through access to the same media as major global brands, to be on a 'level playing field'.  Whether small businesses enjoy the same visibility as their big spending competitors is another matter. So when consumer companies start claiming success with social media maybe it is time to discover what is working for them. Where web sites once caused businesses to clarify and detail more carefully exactly what they were selling, so the very nature of social networking will demand more openness - probably much more than many are prepared to concede. Businesses already unwilling or too nervous to publicise any reference to customers, projects and business initiatives will probably find this a step too far. In traditional public relations it is still customary for a press release to be minutely scrutinised for accuracy, legal concerns and customer approval for example. This can take some time. But Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter require not only a quick response, but a non-corporate one if  'followers are to be kept interested. So what is the benefit of Twitter when communication is restricted to just 140 characters? Well it seems some editors are actually asking for news to be sent this way on the grounds that if a news story cannot be made sufficiently intriguing in 140 characters, then it is probably not of interest to them. Twitter certainly offers a useful way of issuing not only news headlines, but also links to the full story which can reside on a blog or a Virtual News Office. It offers a far faster route to news publication than through traditional print media.  It can also be used for exclusive offers, coupons, discounts and promotions - the success of which can be measured. Other companies are finding Twitter useful for proposing solutions to customer problems and offering demonstrations. It seems with the advent of real time search and inclusion in Google search results, Twitter may be a useful addition to the b2b marketing portfolio. 

Charging for design advice

In a recent blog – The China Syndrome – I discussed a problem that a client had identified of customer development support. The problem being encountered is that traditionally working with a customer on prototype development had been an essential part of the marketing plan; using expertise and knowledge to provide a solution through using their products. Once the product had been demonstrated at a test level then volume sales could follow thanks to this earlier specification work. It is or was a familiar business model using technical sales activity to build a specification so that boxed goods products could then be supplied for the volume production needs through distribution networks. Of course holding ‘spec’ has always been an issue, but now with the massive price difference between product produced in China and in home based factories not only are buyers switching, but the price and margins are destroyed. It leaves companies like our client with the knowledge but without a means of charging for this expertise. I return to this subject because another client, this time operating in the building services sector, has a similar problem. Here prospects might recognise they have a problem but need help in identifying its exact nature before selecting and installing products that will provide a solution. The design support required does not stand the cost of a specialist consultant but typically calls for a site visit leading to a report and recommendation for supply and fix. The real issue they have to confront is that the design advice is essential to a successful outcome, but not traditionally chargeable as it is part of the quotation process. The question now is can this be made chargeable. This is where marketing to build trust in the brand can create an environment where the relationship created in the specification phase carries over to the implementation where a price premium for the safe option can be traded against the risk of using a remote low cost supplier. It only takes a container to go over board in the South China Sea and suddenly the supply line comes to an abrupt halt and what does that do for reputation of a carefully nurtured brand?