Online use is here to stay, and it's important to do it now! | KERNEL Consulting, Ltd.,
Mr. Hitoshi Takagi, President, Kernel Consulting, Ltd.,
Online use is here to stay, and it's important to do it now!
KERNEL Consulting, Ltd.,
| Location | 4F Kabuto-cho 6th Hayama Building, 17-2 Nihonbashi Kabuto-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo |
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| Business Activity | Franchise business consulting |
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Check out the speed of the launch will be a useful reference for those who are going to work on MA.
Please introduce your company
Mr. Takagi: We provide support for building and rebuilding franchise headquarters for customers who want to start up their own franchise headquarters or who are operating a franchise headquarters but it is not going well. We have a wide range of clients, from major corporations to venture businesses, and we believe that BowNow can be used not only for our own sales activities, but also to help our clients develop franchisees.
【How BowNow was introduced?】Reviewed web marketing in the time during COVID-19 pandemic.
Until then, most of my sales activities were through referrals, and although I had a website, I thought of it as just a place to introduce myself to the people who referred me. It is true that I was skeptical about whether it was really possible to do business on the Internet.
However, in March, at the end of the fiscal year, just as I was wrapping up various projects, there was an outbreak of the new coronavirus and I suddenly had time on my hands. So, I decided to take this opportunity to do something about attracting customers to our website, which had been a problem for us.
Among the various web marketing methods available, I decided to work on MA because I thought that MA was compatible with BtoB and that it could be used not only for our own sales, but also for our customers, the franchise headquarters, to recruit franchisees.
At that time, due to the effects of the new coronavirus, large events to recruit franchisees had been cancelled. Also, franchise headquarters could not make sales calls if their offices were not open in the first place. I thought that if I could master MA myself and use that know-how to attract customers from the web, it would be a new weapon to support the franchise headquarters.
【Selection Points】Simple functions and user friendly pricing were the deciding factors.
What was the decisive factor for you to choose BowNow among the many MA tools available?
Mr. Takagi: BowNow had a free plan, so I thought it would be good to try it out first. In my past experience, I had a feeling that someone usually provides this kind of tool for free, but I expected that the functions of a completely free tool would be limited. In this respect, BowNow is a paid tool, but even with a paid plan, it's not that expensive.
In fact, I started with the feeling that "it looks easy to set up, and for 5,000 yen, I'll just give it a try," but after setting it up with advice from the support staff, I was able to get it running easily. I also liked the simplicity of the system because I am a one-man sales force.
【Measures and Usage】Website review and whitepaper led to a surge in inquiries
What kind of measures are you currently using BowNow for and what kind of results are you seeing?
Mr. Takagi: BowNow has a function that can tell us who is visiting our website, so we are using it to analyze the site and download white papers to capture leads.
Site analysis tools such as Google Analytics could not tell us who from what company was visiting our site, and could only give us mass information, but by analyzing the logs with BowNow, we found out that there are two major attributes of people who visit our site.
As a result of reviewing the site with the visitors in mind and choosing the right words for the columns, we were able to increase the ranking of the site on search engines. In addition, we used to receive only one or two inquiries per year from the website, but in the past month or two, the number of white paper downloads has increased to 10 per month and inquiries to about 5 per month.
We have only been implementing web marketing for about three months, but we are now confident that we can do business through the website if we do it right.
【Future Outlook】Focus on sending emails to collected leads and making proposals to customers.
Are there any points or issues that you would like to strengthen in the future?
Mr. Takagi: Currently, we are in the process of accumulating leads, but we have not yet taken measures such as sending e-mails to the acquired leads, so that is an issue for the future. We have also started to propose BowNow to our customers, the franchise headquarters, little by little. Franchise headquarters also have limited manpower in the early stages of their operations, so I think BowNow is a good fit for them because it is simple, easy to use, and has a price tag that is easy to implement.
The impact of the new coronavirus has changed the way we do business, and we now have proof that some Japanese companies can use the Web to conduct sales and business negotiations. I believe that the use of the Internet will continue even after the spread of the infection has subsided. That is why I think it is important to start working on building web-based sales methods and using tools like BowNow.
【Customer's Voice】Totally appreciate BowNow's customer centric support system
Please tell us your message to prospective customers and what you expect from BowNow in the future.
Mr. Takagi: I can recommend BowNow because of its simplicity, pricing, and the fact that it offers good support for its price. I would like to propose BowNow to our customers after I myself have a good understanding of the MA system and BowNow's functions.
What I expect is that a dedicated application will be developed to make it easier to check the information from smartphones. It may be difficult because of the large amount of information, but it would be nice to be able to immediately check on any movement from the road.
