Steingrobe is a problem solver for garden owners. The garden machinery supplier based in the German federal state of North-Rhine Westphalia is known as a leader among many in the garden supply sector. Upon its 25-year anniversary, the company wanted to professionalize its marketing. The GfK GeoMarketing partner Laute + Partner helped Steingrobe implement a geomarketing approach.

The Steingrobe family laid the foundation for their successful company in 1985. Their focus is on proprietary brands and a fast, reliable repair service for private, commercial and public authority customers. Today the company is well established and provides a large selection of brand-name appliances and carries out an average of 7,500 repairs every year. Company founder and owner Heinrich Steingrobe is pleased about his company's future prospects. "There's still untapped potential in our region that we can take advantage of," he comments.

The year of the company's anniversary was chosen to coincide with a sales offensive for the systematic acquisition of new customers. Together with the consultancy company and GfK GeoMarketing premium parnter Laute + Partner, Steingrobe adopted a geomarketing approach.

Attracting the right customers

The advertising budget was to be strategically deployed in order to reach the most interesting target groups. But who are the "right" customers for Steingrobe? A first step toward answering this question involved analyzing customers who purchased from Steingrobe in the past. Laute and Partner classified these customers according to garden size, income bracket, household size and the type of commercial and public authority usage.

Steingrobe used the geomarketing software RegioGraph Planning to import and analyze its customer databank, whose key features were then displayed on digital maps. The visualization of customers' places of residence surprised Steingrobe's management, as the geographic reach of the company exceeded their expectations. Further valuable information emerged after using RegioGraph to calculate drive-time zones. This made it possible to create radii around the various business locations that took into account the actual travel time rather than the mere geographic distance.

How does one find the right customers?

This allowed the company to analyze its existing customers and catchment area. Steingrobe now had precise information about the driving times its customers would accept. The company was then able to more concretely evaluate the extent of untapped potential - specifically, the potential for new customers in those locations where large numbers of Steingrobe customers already resided. 

Using regionalized market data such as GfK Purchasing Power and GfK Demographics, it's possible to precise-ly locate and visualize target groups and desired customer groups. In the next step, Laute + Partner calculated the number of potential customers at the postcode level based on the following attributes:

• Two- / multiple-person households
• Above average purchasing power
• Residing in 1/2 family house, multiple-family house, town house semi-detached house or farm house
• Possess a garden

These regionalized data were imported into RegioGraph, analyzed and then visualized on digital maps. The geographic evaluation of the data also took into account Steingrobe's most important competitors in order to more realistically assess turnover potential.

More targeted advertising with geomarketing

One of the goals behind Steingrobe's new sales concept was to ensure that its high-quality catalogue would only be sent to the correct customers.

"Thanks to geomarketing, we can now conserve resources by distributing our mailings and marketing material in a more targeted fashion," explains CEO Heinrich Steingrobe. "We plan on corresponding more intensively with existing and potential customers in 2010 now that we've pinpointed the right locations and target groups. This allows us to more efficiently and effectively advertise our activities and events during this anniversary year."

Ready for the new garden season

Steingrobe is approaching the new year with optimism. The identified areas of potential can now be systematically exploited. CEO Heinrich Steingrobe sees geomarketing as the key that unlocked this potential: "We were amazed by the comparison of our existing catchment area with the available potential. We can now use our advertising budget much more strategically. All of our future marketing efforts will take a geomarketing approach!"

Author: Gunther Laute

Gunther Laute has many years of experience in the specialized trade branch. He is CEO of Laute + Partner, a consultancy company that focuses on sales and marketing in the specialty retail sector.
www.laute-partner.de

The geomarketing service was provided by Beloch & Franzbach in cooperation with Laute + Partner.
www.beloch-franzbach.de