To the right person at the right time.- The basic principle of marketing for SMB | TANREN, Inc.
Mr. Katsuhiko Sato, President and Representative Director, TANREN Corporation
The basic principle of marketing for small and medium-sized companies is to make proposals to the right people at the right time.
TANREN, Inc.,
| Location | 1-5-6 Kudan Minami, Risona Kudan Building 5F KS Floor, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo |
|---|---|
| Business Activity | Operation of knowledge sharing application TANREN (video platform for corporate employee education and training) |
| URL |
Corporate website http://corp.tanren.jp/ |
Tips on one-stop marketing for small businesses!
Please introduce your company
Mr. Sato: To put it simply, TANREN is a service that is like a "video version of Red Pen Teacher. We operate a platform that allows companies to conduct customer service training, sales presentation practice, role-playing, etc., as part of their staff training through video, and to retain the skills through evaluation.
I myself have more than 20 years of experience in the field of corporate sales training, and have undertaken staff training for many companies, including customer service training for sales staff at cell phone stores. However, as people's purchasing process is changing, we felt the need to visualize sales skills from sensory and human knowledge. We also felt that the education method should not be a conventional one-size-fits-all approach, but should provide appropriate tasks according to individual abilities and weaknesses. In order to achieve these goals, I thought digitalization was essential and launched TANREN in 2014.
TANREN enables top salespeople to acquire practical skills while visualizing and sharing their tacit knowledge
【Challenges before implementation】The challenges were visualizing the numbers and leads.
As can be said for face-to-face sales, the key to success in sales is "lines, not dots. Every customer goes through various steps of consideration before finally deciding to buy, so it is necessary to establish the optimal flow and timing for closing as know-how. All salespeople subconsciously think, "I'm about to sell, will they buy?" and go out to make a sale, but the timing must be visualized, not just "sort of.
【Selection Points】No scenario design or scoring required, just get started!
What was the decisive factor for you to choose BowNow among the many MA tools available?
Mr. Sato: We originally knew that MA tools could solve the aforementioned issues, but at first, the only option we had was an expensive MA tool from a foreign vendor, so we waited and watched. Later, we started to hear about the reputation of affordable MA tools developed by Japanese vendors, and we started to consider them.
BowNow has a free plan, so I was able to start using the free plan first and consider it carefully. I've used some sophisticated MA tools from overseas vendors, but those tools require a lot of time to set up and operate, such as scenario design and scoring. BowNow is promoting a simple ABM template marketing method, and the idea is that scenario design and scoring, which are easy for marketing beginners to stumble upon, can be done later. This was the overwhelming differentiating factor for us when we compared with other companies.
At our company, I do most of the marketing work by myself. There is the problem of limited man-hours, but since I work alone, I focus on speedy business decisions. That's why I sympathized with the concept of BowNow, which has no unnecessary functions and allows me to reach my goal simply.
【Measures and Usage】Visualized customer's line of sight beautifully!
What kind of measures are you currently using BowNow for and what kind of results are you seeing?
Mr. Sato: Currently, we are using BowNow to check when, who, and how the aforementioned content is being accessed. For example, a person who sees a press release visits a case study, watches YouTube, and ends up at an LP... We can visualize the flow of customers' consideration in a straight line, so we can clearly understand when to go for closing.
In general, if you focus only on the PV of your content, people tend to think that marketing is not possible without hundreds or thousands of PVs. However, if you are a small business or a start-up company, you don't need to have that many PVs. For small businesses, it is difficult to spend a lot of money on advertising or invest in content creation to increase the population. I think the key to marketing for small and medium-sized businesses is not to acquire a large number of potential customers, but rather to keep up with the timing when the current leads become hot, even if it's only a few, and how to single out the targeted customers. The key to marketing for small and medium-sized businesses is how to uncover the leads you have and carefully visualize each lead line to ensure a successful closing.
【Future Outlook】Try to manage both status and content creation!
Are there any points or issues that you would like to strengthen in the future?
Mr. Sato: We would like to customize the status management criteria of the ABM template to suit our company rather than the default settings. For example, the default vertical axis can be divided by company size, but in our case, it can be divided into two major categories of customers: "BtoB corporations" and "stores.
The next step is to regularize the production of contents such as step emails, articles, and videos. It will be difficult to do this with limited manpower, but we will keep working on it.
【Customer's Voice】Looking forward to improving the app and email features while keeping the simple goodness!
Please tell us your message to prospective customers and what you expect from BowNow in the future.
Mr. Sato: I log in to BowNow quite often and use it a lot, but I think it would be great if it were easier for frequent users to view it from their mobile devices. It would be better if it could be viewed from the app at hand.
I also hope to see improvements in the HTML email editor. It would be great to be able to create free layouts more easily. I think the simplicity of BowNow is very appealing to small and medium-sized companies and start-ups, so I hope you can improve the usability of BowNow without changing its concept.
