Marketing Consultancy

Communications & marketing is an essential ingredient for the survival and success of any business. For every business, it is key to find and keep its customers, and to communicate with them. Without communications & marketing, a business may offer the best products/services in the industry but none of its potential customers would know about it.

Communications & marketing means more than simply informing the outside world about your products or services. It is a creative industry, concerned with anticipating the customers’ future needs and wants, often through market research. It covers a wide variety of activities including strategic communications planning, public relations, advertising and branding. Businesses with limited resources may choose to engage only in a few of these activities. This makes effective communication and marketing for these types of businesses even more important.

PUM can provide comprehensive expertise to both communications and marketing businesses of various kinds as well as communications and marketing expertise to businesses in other market sectors. We support businesses by collaborating on translating corporate strategies into operational communication and marketing plans. Such plans may focus on corporate objectives, or support the market positioning and categories of specific individual products. Our experts can advise on the use of traditional and technology- enabled marketing communication tools and assist in building the conditions for their successful introduction and implementation.

Areas of expertise

Corporate communications

Corporate communication is a set of activities involved in managing and orchestrating all internal and external communications aimed at creating favourable point of view among stakeholders on which the company depends.

Product promotion, product PR

It is one of the four basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four P’s: Price, Product, Promotion, and Place. Promotion is also defined as one of five pieces in the promotional mix or promotional plan. These are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity.

Marketing strategies/branding

Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B. An effective branding strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets.

Public affairs

Public affairs is a term used to describe an organisation’s relationship with stakeholders. These are individuals or groups with an interest in the organization’s affairs, such as politicians, civil servants, customers and local communities, clients, shareholders, trade associations, think tanks, business groups, charities, unions and the media.

General

• Advertising
• Service information (incl. call centers)
• Mass media empowerment (radio, television)
• Market research, product evaluation
• Marketing implementation activities
• Online Marketing/ E-Commerce
• Sales

Client examples

Radio station reinvents itself

A privately owned commercial radio station requested PUM assistance to generate more revenue by attracting more listeners and more advertisers. At the PUM expert’s advice, the station started with conducting market research into the preferences among various target groups of listeners. Guided by the research results, the station developed special programming for children and women and introduced a business programme that brings the latest news on the financial markets. With PUM advice the station also made progress in other areas. Towards its advertisers it worked out special deals. For example, advertisers were to receive a discount on air time if they were able to produce commercials suited for filling spare studio time. With natural partners, such as leading newspapers, the station concluded barter agreements, which helped to free up ready cash. All these changes and enhancements resulted in improved operational efficiency, more productive employees and better overall financial performance.

Marketing advice for pipe and fittings company

A plastic pipe and fittings company asked PUM assistance to expand their business by introducing new products and exploiting opportunities for export. The first step was to come up with a strategy to guide the business expansion. The PUM expert collaborates with the company’s owner to draft a business plan, building on the findings generated by a SWOT analysis. Through this analysis, it became clear that there was a pressing need for solid market research into the plastic pipe and fittings market. Until then the owner was only aware of its larger competitors. The expert showed how to investigate the market, using local statistics, customs, chamber of commerce and by visiting local fairs. The owner found out that expanding business could only be successful by investing in equipment for larger diameters of pipe and fittings, or by cooperating with a business with these kinds of facilities

Promotion of an objective TV format

Objective and unbiased broadcasting is a major challenge in many countries. Private media stations here often struggle to run their business while standing firm in opposition to state- owned media. PUM was asked to collaborate with a television station on its quest to provide neutral news reporting, leaving it to the viewers to arrive at their own interpretations and judgments. The expert assisted the station in the development and implementation of a presentation format which ‘packaged-&-sold’ both ‘objectivity’ and ‘journalistic integrity’ as ‘products’. Through this format, the television station was better able to reach its audience with a free, independent message and succeeded in improving customer satisfaction.

Professional people for positive impact

Looking to grow your business or organisation sustainably and build a brighter future for your community? Contact one of our representatives in your country for criteria, more information and guidance on the application process.