Going to an outside agency is daunting - you don't really know what you want or what you need until you get started, and the overall project is often bigger than you think it is. But partnering with KPC has been so worthwhile and we're a better company as a result of all the work we've done together.
Nicola Welling, Commercial Director, ITAL
ITAL is a specialist software company that has developed a range of solutions for the rail industry. Initially coming to KPC for a new website, the company soon realised that it needed a more ordered approach to its product branding and a clearer business strategy.
“We came to KPC because we knew they had previous experience in our industries – both IT and rail – and it seemed logical to work with someone who understood our market,” says Nicola Welling, Commercial Director at ITAL.
“We hadn’t properly invested in marketing before, so we needed some expert advice and guidance, as well as someone who could actually produce the digital and print materials that we needed to support our products.”
Before we got to work on producing anything physical for ITAL – websites, brochures or other collateral – we took a good look at the company’s internal focus. We found a lot of fantastic products that met niche requirements and had great potential.
We also found that there wasn’t a clear, consistent way of talking about the company, and that customers were confused by the way it presented itself.
“We wanted to know what ITAL wanted to achieve with the business overall,” says KPC MD, Deborah Kingsley. “From there, we could be clearer about who the target audience was and why they might need the products and services ITAL was providing.
“Getting to this point involved getting into the heart of the company to understand what makes it tick. Clearly this was a company who specialised in taking the complexity out of everyday tasks. That’s a proposition everyone wants, which meant it was far easier to organise the many and varied ITAL services into a more ordered portfolio which allowed customers to navigate their way more easily to the services they need.”
We developed a ‘house of brands’ for ITAL and freshened their look with an updated design across all products. This established an umbrella brand for the company, and sub-brands for each product that were distinctive from each other, but clearly belonged to the home brand.
This immediately made the company appear more professional and helped the staff to start to categorise each product properly, with separate audiences, messaging, pricing models and marketing activity plans. The Board, which had previously been unsure about outsourcing marketing support, were delighted with the brand organisation and its impact on customer engagement with the business.
“We started to get much more traction with potential customers than we had before,” says Nicola.
“And that’s because of the way we were presenting ourselves. KPC helped us to elevate our messaging, update our proposal documents, making them easier to read and understand. We also had a really positive response from our existing clients, who started to feel much more that our professionalism matched their expectations.”
One of the things that sets KPC apart from other agencies is the way we offer ongoing support and advice to our clients to help them in practical ways. Sometimes that’s with internal communications, sales team management and employee engagement. And sometimes it’s with one-to-one mentoring so that people can make the most of the strategy and tools we’ve helped them to put in place.
“We wouldn’t be where we are today without input from KPC,” concludes ITAL’s Nicola Welling. “Their re-branding and strategy work, alongside mentoring, coaching and convincing means they deliver the whole package – in fact they often go beyond the remit to make sure your business is really going to be the best it can be.”
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