Strategic Marketing Associates offers a broad range of construction marketing services that can be broken into two primary classifications:

1) Market Research Services
2) Planning & Development Services

MARKET RESEARCH SERVICES

Client Surveys
Business opportunities go to the suppliers providing the greatest value, as seen through the eyes of the client.

We can help you find out what’s most important to the client, how you stack up against the competition, and what you can do to increase sales and profitability with your client base.

We design and conduct client surveys aimed at identifying client needs, perceptions, attitudes, and insights to be used as a basis for continuous improvement.

• Client or Customer Satisfaction Surveys
• Won/Lost Business Autopsies
• Needs Analysis
• Image Assessment Studies
• Attitude & Awareness Studies
• Customer Value Analysis
• Membership Surveys

Image Assessment Studies
What is an organization’s image? It’s what comes to mind when a customer thinks of your organization.

Most companies understand that an organization’s image is determined by its history of experiences, core competencies, and marketing communications capabilities. What often gets overlooked is the dynamic that takes place in the customers’ mind as a result your competitors’ history of experiences, core competencies, and marketing capabilities. In other words, image is a relative concept, driven in part by the actions of competitive firms.

The breadth of questioning that is employed in image assessments is based on the objectives of the client. At the very least, an image assessment will measure your organization's perceived image based on your attributes.
The image assessment may also include segments that investigate attitude and awareness, and/or strengths and weaknesses (performance issues).

Because it’s important to be able to view changes in perception over time, it’s necessary to employ a quantitative research technique that provides measurable data that can be compared over time.  By using a quantitative technique, we can eliminate much of the subjectivity from our interpretation of the responses given.

In addition to the quantitative line of questioning, we recommend the addition of open-ended lines of questioning (qualitative) that allow the researcher to further probe areas of critical significance to the organization. The qualitative interview technique adds a depth of information to the findings that should not be overlooked.
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Market-focused Research
Knowing where to allocate your organization’s resources to maximize return on investment is a critical key to the future success of any organization.

Whether you’re an A & E firm considering expanding your geographic focus or a specialty chemical company considering taking existing product technology into a new market segment, we can help you identify and select the most promising opportunities; gather the necessary information to approach the target market competitively; develop a realistic action plan; and put a monitoring and evaluation system in place to measure your success.

Our market-focused services include:

• Construction Trend Analysis
• Market Profiling
• New Market Studies
• Market Segmentation
• Opportunity Assessment & Prioritization
• Competitive Assessment
• Merger & Acquisition Analysis
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Product-focused Research
From the assessment and development of stage gate processes, to the evaluation of a new product’s features, we provide a full palette of services aimed at facilitating a continuous flow of qualified new products to its clients’ portfolios.

Some of our more popular product-focused services include:

• Conjoint Analysis
• Product Features Evaluations
• Product Feasibility Studies
• New Applications Research
• Competitive Assessment

Conjoint Analysis
Conjoint analysis is a research technique often used to identify the importance and weight of factors that drive a purchase decision. It helps clients to identify the importance of factors like price, warranty, service, durability, appearance, lead-time, and quality, and the specific combinations of these factors that customers see as most valuable.

Through conjoint analysis, customers are placed in mock buying situations and given several packages of offerings to select from. Their selections, and the reasons for those selections, are retrieved and analyzed, providing us with a window into the decision making process of the customer, as well as their buying preferences.
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Promotion-focused Research
Most organizations understand the difference between an investment and an expense, one yields a return and the other doesn’t.

Having said that, when it comes to promoting your organization, it’s not always clear which of the two you have.

Have your promotional dollars increased the awareness of your organization, product, or initiative?

Has your image evolved in the direction you’ve tried to move it?

Have your sales increased as a result of your promotional efforts?

These are a few of the questions our promotion-focused research can begin to address to guide your future resource investments.

The following are typical promotion-focused research themes:

• Advertising Effectiveness Studies
• Brand Awareness Studies
• Image & Awareness Tracking Studies
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Price-focused Research
Price improvement represents the one improvement that goes directly to the bottom line, and yet the pricing of many organizations is often out of sync with objectives, product life cycles, and value provided.

We employ a variety of techniques to address the pricing issues and challenges your organization faces, including:

• Price Sensitivity Analysis
• Conjoint Analysis
• Right-pricing Studies
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Distribution-focused Support
Do you have a new product and not sure how best to get it to market? We conduct channel assessments and distribution program audits to help ensure that you get your product or service to market in an efficient and effective manner.

We also identify, evaluate, and select manufacturer representative firms in situations where in-house sales don’t make sense.

• Channel Assessments
• Distributor/Program Evaluation
• Manufacturer Representative Program Audits & Procurement
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Sales-focused Investigations
• Sales Audits
• Sales Force Restructuring

Organizationally Focused Research & Analysis
• Employee Surveys
• Marketing Audits
• Benchmarking Studies

Our Research Techniques
The objective of our research is to retrieve pertinent information, convert that information into useful knowledge, draw implications and strategic considerations from that knowledge, and deliver high impact strategic marketing counsel.

We employ several data retrieval processes and research techniques in that quest – both quantitative and qualitative. A few of the techniques we use are listed below.
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Retrieval Processes
Telephone, Electronic, & Mail Surveys
Proprietary Panel Inquiries
Focus Groups
One-On-One Interviews
Council Development and Facilitation
Collaborative Peer-To-Peer Forums
Web Reviews
Business and Technical Database Reviews
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Market Research Techniques
Direct Inquiry
In-depth Interviewing (qualitative, open-ended, probing)
Tracking Studies
Laddering Interviews
Role Playing
QFD (Quality Function Deployment), incorporating the Voice of the Customer.
Conjoint Analysis
Product Testing Clinics
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PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT SERVICES

In addition to our research services, we provide several consultative services aimed at initiating processes or behaviors that facilitate client success.

The primary Planning & Development services we provide are:

• Strategic Market Planning
• Market Segmentation, Assessment & Selection
• Customer/Client Retention & Optimization Program Development
• Right-Pricing Programs
• Marketing & Departmental Audits
• Manufacturer’s Representative Identification, Evaluation & Selection
• Competitive Intelligence Program Development
• Collaborative Peer Group Establishment and Management
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