The Problem
An industry-leading 3D printing hardware manufacturer needed to maintain its category dominance. With young upstarts entering the market, our client’s marketing team needed to understand the awareness and perception of their brand relative to the competition, and how best to stay top-of-mind.
The Approach
We fielded a survey-based study with professionals who purchased, or influenced the purchase of, 3D printers for their organization.
We started by capturing metrics on the unaided and aided awareness of different 3D printer brands. We followed this with questions to measure brand perceptions and product evaluation criteria to help support messaging intelligence. Lastly, we included questions to assess marketing channel relevance to support our clients’ channel prioritization and spend.
The Results
Objective Awareness Metrics
We captured objective measures of unaided and aided awareness for our client and their competitors, providing visibility into how much competitors were gaining ground.
Positioning Framework
Data on reasons for outsourcing 3D printing helped inform our client’s in-house service division about how best to position their offering.
Message Planning
By understanding the primary and secondary criteria used to evaluate prospective vendors, we supported our client in prioritizing their messaging hierarchy.
Go-To-Market Planning
The research findings demonstrated the relevance of category conferences and events for our client’s customers, helping justify sustained spend in a relatively expensive channel.
Did You Know...
You should leverage a brand awareness study to also capture intel on brand perceptions, category needs, and other relevant data points. Because an upfront investment is already being made to measure brand awareness, organizations can piggy back on that investment to get more learnings for their marketing spend.
