How The Marketing Of An Accounting Package Went From 0% to 5% Response Rate

  
The PNM Group is an Accountancy based in Caboolture. They developed an accounting software package called Eclát, for small businesses.

The Problem They Faced:

Eclát required considerable education of the market. So the PNM Group wanted to go through fellow accountants, educate them, and then recruit those accountants to educate their own clients.

But approaching a competitor and introducing a software system and asking for access to that competitor's clients... is a considerable challenge.

The material our client was using, and the process they were using, were not working. They had sold the programme to their existing clients, but not a single accountant had responded to their existing sales process.

The Strategy:

We introduced a process of supporting two agendas of work.

The first was publicity where articles were written about industry changes that peers would have noticed and why a system like Eclát might be of value. We published these in National Accountant, a magazine targeting accountants. This would give our client credibility as an agent of change.

The second agenda was to point to these articles in a letter seeking an interview with accountants about their situation, since many accountants had never had such an opportunity to talk with a peer about common dilemmas and seeking to find ways around them.

The interviews would gather and circulate ideas, and provide the means of introducing the software not as the sole reason for communication, but as one of a number of efforts at changing the relationship between accountants and clients back into something of more value for them both.

This was, indeed, the original reason for the software's creation.

The Results

Before this combination of publicity, interviewing and direct selling, no accountant had been progressed even one step.

After this process, and after filtering responses through each step, the client gained a regular 5% response rate.

Key Principles

1. In this case, the use of the status of ‘peer' proved valuable... it helped remove obstacles and gate-keepers.
2. The delivery of up front non-sales agenda helped foster rapport, helped establish a friendly relationship, and helped establish a perceived obligation


To find out how a new sales process might help your own company, contact us today.		 Publicity_Within_Integrated_Approach_For_PNM_Group_Accounting_Package_The_Great_Compliance_Time_Bomb.jpg

The great compliance time bomb was a problem identified by our client and the reasons behind his product development.  We helped him create an integrated approach that was inexpensive and worked... publicity, direct mail and a sales process

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