As markets tighten across various commodities, a flare for marketing in the boardroom is becoming increasingly necessary.
Image, service and communication with customers are hardly unknown avenues to growing a business but in the deceleration phase of a boom they take on a renewed importance.
“Since things have changed in the mining industry and are now moving from a construction phase to more of a processing phase, the size of what is required or the demand of services is going to lessen,” Id Strategic founder Simone Williams told MiningNewsPremium.
“The problem you’re faced with is that the industry was booming so companies were able to grow without necessarily having the opportunity to sit down and work on their business.
“It’s a cliche but it is completely accurate.
“While we’re in our business, we’re not getting the opportunities to work on it and to look at ways of keeping growth sustainable once the market stops moving.”
Id Strategic moulds growth strategies for mining companies by analysing methods of embracing global trends at the boardroom level.
Williams says it is largely a matter of recognising opportunities for growth that are often overlooked in more inviting market climates.
“Growth markets are sometimes outside of the product,” she said.
“There’s a whole raft of other mechanisms that you can manipulate in order to create greater value around your offering.
“A lot of businesses pursue activities that they think are adding value to the process but really, at the end of the day, the customer doesn’t care – that’s profit out the window.”
The key to the enterprise is identifying the changes that need to be made through customer contact, which in turn promotes deeper relationships and more potential for growth.
“I hear a lot that all customers value is price but that’s not necessarily the case,” Williams said.
“Once you dig down and once you create value around the offering, price can become a very tenable thing to build a relationship on.
“It’s finding out what it is they want and it’s not just about price.”
Developing delivery, reliability, invoicing and methods for regularly analysing the market may often be the most accessible means of achieving growth while improving flexibility and control of company direction.
“It’s only when you focus on price that you lack flexibility,” Williams said.
“Ongoing evaluation means that because you’re used to being flexible, you’re able to change what you’re doing and its’ not like steering an enormous titanic to another part of the ocean.”
Increasing the marketing mix
Speaking with clients, evaluating competitors and reanalysing the current economic landscape also represent the first steps in the review of a business plan that entails a comprehensive marketing strategy.
Williams says improving marketing savvy in the boardroom is essential to promoting growth and acting on macro trends at the micro level.
“A lot of people that are making up the advisory panels or some of the boards in companies are not necessarily marketing-skilled and marketing is the science that looks at generating revenues for the future,” she said.
“If you don’t have someone sitting in that advisory circle who is a competent marketer, you may overlook that.
“It’s not within the discipline or skillset of people who aren’t qualified marketers.”
Indeed, chief marketing officers are becoming more prevalent at the board level and they’re not there for promotional or advertising reasons.
Marketing personnel are among the few corporate players who focus primarily on external factors relevant to the company.
This impacts growth by adding depth to customer relations and a more unbiased leadership perspective.
“The reason marketers are so valuable is they have a more independent view,” Williams said.
“They look independently rather than operationally, so they are able to take that top-down view and really look at what the competitors are doing.
“Because nine times out of 10 clients say ‘I know what the competitor is doing’ – and then give them the analysis and they say ‘oh, I didn’t know they were doing that’.”
