Aalto Henkilöstöpalvelut

Adworks

Anpe

Auttamisesta Arkea

Bevsmart

Black Donuts

Defour

Drop Design Pool Oy

Framecomp

Eco Weedkiller

Grafipro

Huvilupa

Jujo Thermal

Konevel Oy

Laitila Coating

Lapp Connecto Oy

Loimaan Kivi

Macring

Mepu

M&M Niemi

Naficon Liitin Oy

NoLimits

Oriplan

Otto Brandt

Navidium

PK-Puu

RCP Software

Safire

Sikla

Sim Sport Oy

Sodexo

Stera

Stiftelsen för Åbo Akademi

Suomen Henkilöstötalo

Technion

Tietopartio

Toygroup

Vertek

Farmcomp 

To execute the project, Farmcomp chose Smartbutlers as their cooperation partner.

“I invited several service providers to tender and got a strong recommendation from one of our cooperation partners to turn to Smartbutlers. Moreover, their offer proposition corresponded with what we wanted”.

The cooperation started in May 2020. It included a large site renewal for a total of five sites, of which one is a company site and four are product brand sites. The most important goal of the renewal was to create a channel for Farmcomp to communicate and share product and user information through the brand sites to the end users of the products. Farmcomp’s sales is done through resellers, so the company does not have a direct interface with the end users.

Smartbutlers is the first WordPress site developer I've encountered, who doesn't come up with excuses for why something does NOT work! 

”The new site helps the end users find information about the products, how to use the products correctly, and to receive good tips”, Merene Hovilainen explains.

”And what’s best: this site does not only offer good solutions to the customers, but it is also very functional and user-friendly to me as an administrator”.

Since Farmcomp has customers all over the world, the new sites will be available in many languages. The first executed brand site, olli.fi, was made in four different languages. There will be a total of 22 different language versions for the company site and the brand sites.

”At present, I’m working on the language versions for both Farmcomp and our brand sites. There are so many of them that the work will last far into 2021”.

Merene Hovilainen says that the cooperation with Smartbutlers has proceeded very well.

”Things really work. Andreas is a developer who truly knows his stuff. Whatever you come up with, he can do it! There is always a solution for everything. Smartbutlers is the first WordPress site developer I've encountered, who doesn't come up with excuses for why something does NOT work!

Will the cooperation with Smartbutlers continue?

”Yes, absolutely. Apart from further developing our freshly built sites, Smartbutlers also functions as a supporting hand. The websites need to be a vivid, continuously evolving environment that matches customer needs, while also paying attention to an evolving web and its requirements. The sites will therefore never be finished, but remain under continuous development”.

Digital solutions

Farmcomp now speaks directly to the customer

Scale Up

The cooperation started in November 2019. ScaleUp had received support from the ELY centre to develop their business and decided to outsource their marketing development. 

"We chose Smartbutlers since it was easy to communicate with a local firm. We met Meri and Patrik and they had a good vision of how our brand could be strenghtened". 

The cooperation project included, among other things, brightening ScaleUp's brand considering international markets, creating a growth plan for brand expansion, planning and organizing internationalization, and ensuring competitiveness. 

A competitor analysis helped building the brand

At first, Smartbutlers made an extensive analysis of the competitors. "Our competitor field was mapped. Thanks to that, we got a wider understanding of what to compete with on the field, both on the domestic markets and abroad. This helped us in crystallizing the brand message. In other words, what we do and what we know needs to be crystallized as clearly as possible", Laura states.

ScaleUp also received help in argumentation, communications, visualizing the story, identifying target groups and customers, utilizing references, and designing digital material.

"Our brand story is now deeper". During the project, we have had regular meetings and video calls. "We have had good communications. Smartbutlers has been a suitably sized partner for us: agile and efficient".

The cooperation continues in the future as well

"At this stage, Smartbutlers knows us very well. In the future, we will focus on, among other things, developing our communications".

Business and brand strategy

Productization

Internationalization

Sustainability

It's more than furnishing

Betta Digital

"Now we know better where we position ourselves in relation to our competitors".

Klaus Mäkelä, who is in charge of sales and design at Betta Digital, is satisfied with the cooperation with Smartbutlers. "At the end of the cooperation project, we received a final report, which explains the current situation of our company in a great way", he says. 

"We have strengthened our team with two people and moved into new premises as a sign of a new era. We have gone through the growth plan carried out by Smartbutlers internally, and based on that, we have started to implement actions to develop our services and communications piece by piece".

The cooperation with Smartbutlers started in the autumn of 2020 when Betta Digital had been operating for four years. The company had decided to hire a new coder, and at the same time, strengthen their communications.

"We saw it as a good option for an external partner to dig deeper into our current situation and the opportunities of the future". The company had been offered several consulting services before, but they were never carried forward.

"Smartbutlers's strong strategical knowledge of marketing impressed us. We operate in the same industry, but in a different sector, which made the cooperation attractive", Klaus explains. 

Smartbutlers's assignment became the making of Betta Digital's growth plan

Meri Anckar from Smartbutlers says that it involved business development and service productization. "In the project, it was also clarified how Betta should position themselves, which customer promise should be used to market the services, and which services should be focused on".

We also cleared up which the company's best preconditions to grow are and which actions should be taken to look for growth. "The result of the project was a brightened brand story and the customer promise "The code to productivity", Meri explains.

The pleasant cooperation did not burden the staff

According to Klaus Mäkelä, the cooperation was easy and pleasant.

"Meri made sure that we know where we are in the project and which the next steps are".

During the project, we had meetings where we went through the progresses carried out by Smartbutlers.

"In practice, we did not need to think about the project apart from in the mutual meetings. In other words, the project did not burden our staff, which was a really good thing during the busy autumn. The conversation of the meetings was of high quality and brought our thoughts forward on both sides of the table".

Is the cooperation project still continuing?

"This project is finished. But in the future, cooperation of projects focusing on different new sub-areas might be current".

The code to productivity

We have been cooperating with Technion since 2017. The characteristics of outsourced marketing are a dynamic and flexible way of working according to the customer’s needs. Our work with Technion includes content production, website updates, translations, and graphical material production. The larger projects have been linked to productization, such as product information and document management development. One concrete result is an implemented product search function for the website.

Outsourced marketing is a continuous service, which includes an agreed amount of work per month. Good planning reaches far, but sometimes the situation and needs change fast, which is why flexibility and expediency steer our everyday work. If needed, we execute the tasks with a customized timetable. “We meet up with Mathias and Meri from Smartbutlers a few times yearly and plan what’s to come. However, we mainly collaborate through emails, phone calls and web meetings. The character of the marketing know-how we need keeps changing, which is why Smartbutlers’ concept where we can get help with everything from translations to video production has been a functional solution for us”, sales manager Toni Lomakka from Technion describes.

Technion has customers in almost every continent. Therefore, fast reachability and reaction are important. Functional communication and keeping in touch are the basics of cooperation. It is important to get to know the customer well, so that communications in both directions feels natural. This way meetings are usually relaxed and all partners can bring up their ideas freely.

One of the most interesting common projects is the guide and feature introducing videos that introduce Technion’s XCrane product family. XCrane is a control system for forestry cranes. In the videos, the features and customer benefits of the basic XCrane, XCrane PLUS and XCrane PRO systems are introduced. When producing the videos, we utilized Technion’s mobile XCrane system, which works with the Farming Simulator. Apart from the simulator videos, still images of the XCrane screen and system are used as well as animations to help follow the videos. Mathias, who was in charge of the project, describes the project like this:

“The project was extremely interesting. The challenge was to internalize industry terminology and the operating logic of the machines and applications. I would describe the videos as living manuals that give the customer a realistic image of how the control system adjustments affect the crane operations. With these videos we can conveniently guide users despite distance and improve customers’ user experience”.

Promoting sales of forestry machinery control systems

Towards international markets through conceptualization and productization

SW Energia

Bringing the values of a sun representative to the limelight

Competence optimization

SteraLux is a Turku-based industry focused manufacturer of LED lights, which is part of the Stera Technologies concern. The sales in Finland have started well, which has increased the interest of expanding the sales to the Nordic countries. We gladly took on this task and went to assist SteraLux in their internatinalization. 

The Swedish market and its practices are known to us since before. However, each project is unique and requires customization. During our cooperation, our assignments have included market analysis, competitive analysis, product statements, determining price levels, channel choices, partner identification, and representation agreements. The latest event in the project was the Elfack19 expo in Göteborg, where we participated in launching SteraLux on the Swedish market.

In the picture the SteraLux team and our representative Mathias (on the right).

Sustainable and high-quality lighting to Sweden

We have many theories, guides, and decades of experience of what marketing includes. However, each customer is unique and so is our job description as our customer’s marketing partner. At Jujo, we have been participated in marketing communications, productization, and sales support. A significant part of our work is supporting internal sales work. It is important to implement the marketing goals into practice, and part of this implementation is creating the needed tools, be it then enhancing product management or creating sales material. We also work with matters such as responsibility and employer image development.

In outsourced marketing the cooperation is based on a continuous agreement of agreed monthly workdays. The workdays are carried out in the customer’s premises or in our own office according to the situation. Our customers have their own contact person who is responsible for all the work. At Jujo, our employee Meri is the contact person. “I work in the customer’s premises weekly on an agreed day. On other days, tasks are done over email or phone. To me, being reachable daily is one of the most important preconditions for a functional collaboration”, Meri explains. “Jujo’s industry is very interesting and at the same time challenging. The competition is harsh, and success requires continuous innovation and quality development. Paying attention to the environment and work safety are the most important values that steer all work. My work colleagues at Jujo are specialists in their own fields and success requires great carefulness. I have learned to appreciate carefulness myself as well as good planning skills and understanding its value for the result”, Meri continues.

The basis for goal-oriented work is created by a careful annual plan. At Jujo, we plan and execute an annual marketing plan together with the persons in charge. The foundation of the annual plan is made of the company’s strategical long-term goals. The practical action plan starts by defining the annual goals. The goals are linked to both sales and continuous development of the employer and company image. The goals are given indicators that make it possible to follow the improvements. Next, it is time for a monthly and weekly plan of actions to reach the goals. “To me, a year clock of actions in all its simplicity is one of the most important tools to follow the execution”, Meri says.

One of the more interesting cooperation areas is productization. Product information management development is a continuous project. The product search function on the website is one example. Meri says that the product search that was launched three years ago is one of the best in Jujo’s industry with its functionality and user-friendliness. On the product search site, the product lists and individual product cards are automatically printed as pdf’s based on the site’s newest information. This way, the PDF’s are always up to date. Technically, the PDF prints are created so that the product-specific printout is always of standard format. This is important as Jujo’s customers are located all over the world, which means that the computers, browsers, and browser versions used are very different from each other.

When it comes to productization, we also have the pleasure to be part of product category or product launch planning. In a carefully planned launching process, it is crucial to define at what stage product news can be marketed externally as all the needed sales material must be ready at this stage. There are, for sure, situations where customers are given a pre notice of coming novelties, but even then, the sales team needs clear instructions on what to answer the customers. This way, the launch attention value can be maximized. Regarding launches, we have participated in these things:

Planning the launch timetable from an external communications point of view

Materials (brochures, presentations, videos, product information, website updates)

Communications planning and execution (news, press releases, newsletters, other external communications)

Marketing communications & content production

As part of the marketing plan we make a communications plan for external communications. We plan the content themes per channel beforehand. We also make goals for the communications amount (i.e. website news, LinkedIn activity, press releases). The plan is specified throughout the year. It is important to decide the themes and campaigns beforehand to support the marketing goals. From planning to execution, the list is quite versatile:

Event, such as exhibition, planning and arrangements

Brochures, business cards, Christmas cards and other printed material

Websites, newsletters and other digital material

Videos, sales presentations and other presentations

Jujo has customers in tens of countries and almost every continent. The sales are executed through the own sales department and local sales agents. We have planned and executed sales tools such as

Work

Our clients