Brand perception: in-depth interviews and marketing plan for FPZ spa

Project Tags

March 2013

FPZ Spa is a lively company operating in the side channel blower sector, with branches all over the world and a wide range of products for countless applications from the industrial sector to agriculture.

Precisely for this large audience of B2B users with different needs, we were hired at the beginning of 2013 to study the perception of the brand in the market and then define a marketing plan to define a more precise company positioning.

the information to be obtained

The company, in addition to a consolidated presence in the Italian market, has a consolidated customer base throughout the world, with distribution peculiarities in the different areas.

Side channel blowers are products with a relatively simple technology that operate in a competitive market in which Chinese products make price incursions: for this reason it was necessary to work to identify the differentiating elements of the brand.

research process

Before drafting the marketing plan, we therefore proposed an integrated research project to detect the perception of the brand by distributors and customers around the world, mixing: in-depth interviews with Italian and foreign top management, in-depth interviews with the main foreign distributors and an online survey aimed at "end customers" (always B2B) where relevant and possible.

This internal vs external approach also allowed us to detect any discrepancies between the company's perception of itself and the message it sends to the market.

Approximately 20 managers, including internal staff and distributors, were interviewed, and an online survey was launched among approximately 1000 buyers, translating all research materials into English.

result

The research project lasted a total of 1 month and allowed us to outline (among the many pieces of information collected):

brands perceived as direct competitors
building the market map
the key success factors in the market
the key elements that buyers evaluate during the purchasing process and the perceived misalignment (if any) for each of them

The data finally allowed the study of a B2B marketing plan based on reliable information and data.