Will Firefighters Use Your Stuff? …Understand Your Target Market

Marketing Challenge 101!

As a former Fire Chief, I frequently got many “sales pitches” for the latest and greatest innovation to solve a problem that I did not know I had. Listening to some advertisements, it’s a wonder how the fire service made it for hundreds of years without the latest and greatest innovation.  What I have come to learn over the years is that not every product is needed by every fire department. In fact, there are many products out there only wanted by a few.

Consider this —A company has plans for a new product or service or they want to repurpose a product to enter the public safety field.  What should be their first task?  Do they understand the fire service?  Do they have a relationship with successful departments? Have they done a financial analysis?  Is there a need by the field nationwide or is there only a need in certain areas of the country? Inventors, developers, and entrepreneurs that are designing new products, services, or apps would be well served to understand the public safety market before development begins.

This doesn’t mean stopping by the local fire department and talking to “B” shift about an idea and then taking that as the gospel.

I once met with a company that had developed an extensive on-line strategy and tactics class. It was very advanced for that time, but as they showed how it worked, it was evident that it was riddled with mistakes and numerous safety violations and terminology that was not well known. In talking through their presentation, it became evident that they had worked with one very small fire department in a small town. The department was doing the best they could with the resources they had, but they were not what would be considered a modern fire department by any measure. Unfortunately, the developers did not want to hear that. They felt the overall benefit of the program would outweigh all the inconsistencies in the program.

Fast forward by one year — the company discontinued that software because they could not find a department that wanted to buy what they were selling with their outdated operations. Had the developers taken time to conduct a good market review, they may have saved themselves lots of time and money by simply starting with a reputable department that could have given them credibility.

Considerations for Successful Marketing

Establish Relationships.
Successful companies that sell to public safety agencies often have long working relationships with the department. They listen to what their customers want and need to be able to deliver quality emergency products and services. Without first building a relationship with the department, the company cannot know the inner workings, the culture, or the environment in which they conduct fire safety.  I have seen successful apparatus manufacturers take time to learn from every customer what the latest wants and desires may be. They have then been able to design a custom vehicle for one department that could also be appealing to other departments.

Building a strong relationship with the department also prevents having false assumptions upon which a product or service is built.  For instance, companies often have a perception that public safety has unlimited money and is a great potential market to increase their revenue. In reality, public safety is most often a government service, and that means money is always tight. In many cases, fire departments are not willing to be on the “cutting edge” to buy untested products.

Determine Need.
The other issue that departments see from time to time is that the company has a solution looking for a problem. The fire service knows that solutions typically are driven by the desire to enhance their capabilities to address challenges they see on incident scenes. Companies must be able to articulate how their products, services and software address specific fire department needs. Additionally, a product may have multiple uses and many of those are not thought of until it is in actual use at incident scenes. If the problem and need cannot be clearly aligned with a company’s solution, the product may fail.

Determine Realistic Costs for Product or Service.
Funding is always an issue, and very few departments operate with unlimited resources. Fire Chiefs spend an inordinate amount of time making sure they meet their budget. In the corporate world, $25,000 may not seem like much, but to a fire department, that $25,000 is a huge expenditure. All of this is to say is that companies must determine if their product is affordable by a significant number of departments or is the price point high enough that a few departments can provide the return on investment the company needs.

I met with a virtual reality company years ago when realistic VR was an emerging technology. The company had been a defense contractor that had set up scenarios that were perfect duplications of a city and its buildings. Soldiers were then able to practice their assault using the technology to see the terrain and buildings as they would in their actual attack.  They could practice over and over until they had perfected it. When they rolled onto the battlefield, they had done their assault many times and they were very successful. As the war was winding down, the Department of Defense decided they no longer needed the company’s VR program. The VR company decided to expand their market to the fire service.  Their approach was that they had a solution, and the fire service had a problem that could use their solution. They did a great presentation and it looked like it might be a great way to do almost real-life training. A fire department would simply video their high-risk areas, or their entire city and turn it over to the VR company. When it came back, they could run numerous training scenarios.  Sounds great, right?

Then came the tense part of their presentation. How much does it cost? They were very happy and pleased to let everyone know that they had been able to get their cost down to $1 million per building. Some of the chiefs in the room actually laughed out loud. We explained that the fire service would not be able to afford that. They asked what the price point was that most departments could afford. Collectively the room agreed that it would need to be several hundred dollars per building. The VR company thought everyone was teasing them. It was a reality, and no one was teasing at all.  Had the company understood their market, they would have saved themselves time and effort in not developing a product line that their target market could not afford.

Make Marketing Work!

So, what does all this mean? It means that entering the public safety market requires a systematic understanding of that market. A number of questions must be addressed, such as:  Who is currently serving the market; what is the experience of the competitors; what are reputable departments currently using; what do large and small departments think about what is being considered; what are the cost points that cause concern; how long is the purchasing process for departments; what would it take for departments to transition to a proposed new product, service or software.

Taking time to understand the market before developing and rolling out a product to fill a perceived need can save money, time, and in many cases reputations. It is a complicated process and one that cannot be understood by simply reading this article.  Good planning and understanding the market on the front end will ensure success at the end of the day.