Sun sought to capitalize on its loyalty among scientists, engineers and designers as well as the growth of distance-learning to penetrate colleges and universities. Yet the company had no formal data with which to develop a sales and marketing strategy, and time and capital constraints ruled out conducting primary research.
Sun turned to Bustin & Co. to estimate the market opportunity and develop a strategy to increase sales in this market using only secondary research data. After collecting, collating and analyzing more than 1 million data points, Bustin & Co. established a “propensity to buy” formula among 10,000 institutions. Interestingly, more than 80% of the opportunities were identified among smaller institutions. The results: more than 1,000 prospects were identified and ranked showing market values higher than Sun’s existing customer base, a PC-based tool was established to measure sales performance, and most significantly, the methodology developed by Bustin & Co. was adopted by Sun as a system-wide standard.
