Dawn Foods is an internationally operating company with the mentality of a real family business: Go-getters and a heart for the profession. Dawn Foods aspired to further growth in Europe, including the Manufacturing segment. To achieve this, Dawn Foods wanted to improve its communication strategy, attract new leads and fill the sales funnel with the right prospects.  

GROUP7 provided 2 internal workshops in which, with the help of the available knowledge and experience, 3 buyer personas were created. After a practical interview training (also from GROUP7), the team of key account managers conducted interviews in the market themselves. As an end result, we delivered 3 validated personas and a concrete plan of action that Dawn started working on themselves.  

 

The challenge 

Janet Spiering (Cluster Director Benelux) of Dawn Foods was already familiar with GROUP7’s knowledge and experience in this area. She asked us to help them improve their communication strategy step-by-step, in order to eventually fill the sales funnel. The wish was to be available at any relevant moment, when the (potential) customer is thinking about bakery ingredients and solutions. 

 

The solution 

To be more accessible to potential (new) leads, you first need to know what your most important customer groups are: what are their objectives, pain points and expectations? Where can you reach them? Based on that knowledge, we create buyer personas. These form the starting point for your communication strategy and content development. 

In order to arrive at buyer personas, we worked according to our Insight – > Direction – > Action – method.  

Insight 

Together with the Key-Account Management team from all over Europe, GROUP7 collected the existing internal information & experience in 2 internal workshops and clustered it into 3 draft buyer personas.  After a practical interview training (also from GROUP7), Dawn’s sales team conducted interviews in the market by themselves. We used the results of the interviews to sharpen the personas. 

Direction 

The validated personas provided a concrete tool for Dawn to be able to create European content that matches what is going on in their market. In addition, we have drawn up a concrete list of recommendations for each persona for both the local and central departments within Dawn. 

Action 

We have prioritized all recommendations and created a Roadmap with a concrete timing per step. After our presentation to Dawn’s stakeholders, we handed over the project and Dawn started implementing it on their own.  

 

The result 

A few months after the last contact, we contacted Janet to find out how things were going. Her response was as follows: 

“The salespeople felt seen and heard and the marketers are going to use the personas for online communication. Furthermore, the information obtained is used by the management for a project on improving the internal processes. In parallel, it has supported me to get a customer centricity training approved for the entire Dawn staff.” 

 

Explanation of the customer 

Janet Spiering (Cluster Director Benelux) of Dawn Foods:
‘In the first discussions we had in preparation for the training of the salespeople, GROUP7 picked up the specific terminology of Dawn, so that the salespeople were directly connected to the purpose and context for the interviews with the customers. We have discussed all the steps well, GROUP7 has helped me to gain support in the Dawn organization for this step.’ 

How does Dawn proceed with the result?
‘The biggest challenge lies in keeping the acquired knowledge active and keeping our team sharp in this different way of approaching customers and maintaining customer contacts. Identifying personas is the first step, but there are many steps to eventually change your team’s behaviour.’