Basware: Communication with decision makers from departments and management teams

The Task: Target Group department: PR campaign puts business benefits in the spotlight Basware develops and markets software for purchasing and invoice processing that allows departments to automate many of their processes. The benefit to the company: You reduce your costs, accelerate workflows, meet compliance requirements, and prevent fraud. The impetus to utilize these solutions normally comes from a company's management team or decision makers within departments. Our job is to support sales efforts by making the business benefits of Basware products known among these target groups - without distracting them from the central messages with tech-talk.

The Implementation: In the initial phase, we developed individualized core messages which get to the heart of the direct benefits Basware offers the respective target groups (management teams, purchasing directors, finance staff). And we did it completely without IT-related statements, since these arguments are not that important to the target groups. We also supported these core messages with verifiable facts and figures - mainly from projects for existing clients - in order to strengthen credibility.
Our second step was to develop an issue management strategy. We linked the core messages to topics that are currently being discussed by the target groups (purchasing fraud, compliance, process efficiency, etc.) and transported them by placing articles and case studies in professional publications in addition to issuing press releases and interviews. Here we focused on the business and trade press.

The Result: " One of the special strengths of Dr. Haffa & Partner is how they work with business and trade media. We profit from the good contacts and comprehensive expertise these communication specialists possess because our target groups are executive and departmental decision-makers."
Michael Mayr, Director of Marketing & Business Development, BaswareWith this approach, we were able to position Basware as experts for efficiency and transparency in purchasing and financial management in relevant business and industry media including the FAZ, Financial Times Deutschland, business media specifically tailored towards SME such as Creditreform, and leading professional publications in Basware's main target industries (industrial companies, logistics, public administration, and facilities management). The case for the business benefits was the central focus. IT topics were generally avoided. In this way, it was possible to communicate the added value this software provides without even talking about software.