You are allowed to try, allowed to experiment, allowed to make independent decisions – and allowed to fail. Ecom encourages its employees to be courageous and find new kinds of solutions. The company’s strategy also includes a strong investment in marketing.
Commercialization is about making things clear. It is about shaping a complex entity into a solution that makes sense to buy. This is how Mikko Ruoho, Commercial Director of the Turku-based company Ecom Oy, puts it.
Ecom Oy, located in Trivium in Turku Science Park, provides software and financial management services to companies in the electrical, HVAC, and construction industries. It is the largest operator in its field in Finland by number of customers. The company, which employs about 30 people, is part of Accountor, known for its financial and HR management services and software.
Ecom wants to offer its customers specific solutions, not just products.
– The most important thing is customer retention. It doesn't matter how many customers you acquire if they don't actually use the product they bought. It's the same as buying a channel package for just one show – when the show ends, the package is useless. Customers must be trained so that they know how to use our solutions and they benefit from them genuinely.
At Ecom, they constantly measure how customers and potential customers behave. Does a person arriving on the company's website understand within a few seconds what it is all about? Does the customer quickly find help for their problem? Do customers have practices that would benefit others too?
– Digitality is a vital condition for us. We are constantly refining our website and software so that nothing in them comes to a halt, Ruoho says.
The lessons learned are also applied to new products, through which they seek further growth. In addition, the skilled staff is encouraged to be creative and find courageous solutions.
– Here, everyone is allowed to make their own decisions and try things out, and failure is not a problem. We then analyze the successes and failures and learn from them.
Ecom invests heavily in marketing. Ruoho estimates that the marketing budget has multiplied over the last five years.
– If a company wants to grow and be visible, it doesn't come cheap, Ruoho says.
Because Ecom wants to reach specifically people in the construction industry, one important tool is the radio. It is always on at the construction site.
– Through radio, we are specifically looking for conversions. For a little over a year, we have been doing radio advertising for a week once a month, and we see the results immediately in our website visitor numbers.
– The most important thing is still digitality, and not just in a commercial sense. Most of the traffic coming to our website is organic, and good content helps with that, especially YouTube, where we have many informative videos. YouTube is also a quite effective advertising channel that converts well.