Divers Group

Divers Group is an established full Information and Communication Technology (ICT) lifecycle solutions supplier to New Zealand businesses.  Founded in 1978 with its current operation of ICT Acquisition, Deployment, Operations and Retirement since 1999.  Divers operates as a B2B business with the Tech Traders brand delivering it B2C operation through selling refurbished IT equipment to the general public. 

Divers has worked with New Zealand’s largest corporates. They are able to procure to a specification ICT equipment, build an image and deploy the assets into the client’s premise.  They provide the ongoing support, can carry loan equipment, and manage office moves on behalf of the client.  When it is time to retire and replace the equipment, Divers is able to certify the hard drive is wiped and recycle or resell the ITC equipment.  They aim for a less than 2% waste entering landfill target with their recycling of beyond life equipment.  They are the internal IT Support team’s force multiplier for their clients. 

Through the impact of COVID, Divers Group’s growth had stagnated after previous year on year growth.  The challenge for Divers was to generate acquisition leads from corporations, large enterprises, and SME businesses for their full ICT lifecycle solution. 

Max Marketing used Scott Rees, FCIM Chartered Marketer, to deliver their MaxCommunications and Digital Enablement programmes to develop Divers’ marketing plan, build their digital presence as an acquisition funnel and target the key businesses they could offer their ICT solutions too, including entry into niche segment of the education sector (schools ITC). 

The MaxCommunications programme focused on defining Divers’ key market segments, gaining insights into the drivers for acquiring ICT solutions for each segment and understanding Divers’ critical capabilities to meet each segment’s needs.  Through formally developing the value proposition for each segment Max help Divers tailor their messaging to each layer of the key decision makers using personas, for CIO/CTOs, IT Managers, Business Managers & Owners to specialty segments like Principals. 

To drive the acquisition of new prospect leads, Scott developed four key engagement strategies for Divers’ communication channels 1) Search Engine Marketing (SEM), 2) Content Marketing (social media delivered), 3) Print & PR and 4) Direct Marketing.  A critical component of the strategy was giving the website and Divers’ social media channels purpose to ensure the website was the hardest working employee and at the top of the acquisition funnel.  The output for Divers was a strategy that the business could action, a 12-month content plan and the performance tracking system to monitor progress.  Regular Work-In-Progress sessions were held, and Scott was available to coach the Divers team through the implementation of the plan. 

The final component of the plan was coaching Divers’ digital marketing specialist through the Digital Enablement programme.  The coaching sessions focused on two areas of development: content creation for their Content Marketing engagement strategy and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) with Google and Social Media.  This coaching was delivered over 9 weeks, usually with two sessions a week along with ad hoc sessions to work through time critical actions. 

Divers now has a clear acquisition and communication strategy along with an implementation plan and communication calendar.  Their internal team’s capability has increased, and these new skills are being used daily to grow the business.  Divers has undertaken to redevelop key aspects of the Divers’ website and insights from the programme were applied to the new Tech Traders website. 

Internally the team has developed their first White Paper on the benefits of IT Asset Management including an IT Asset Management online audit tool on their website to qualify leads through their content marketing efforts.  This new asset will also underpin their direct marketing prospect acquisition campaign currently being developed for launch.