The Solutions Marketing Group (SMG) has the knowledge,
strategic insights, and innovative programs to create loyalty-building
relationships between companies and people with disabilities. Our
consulting firm helps clients reach a market larger than any other
minority group in the country: the nation’s 54 million people
with disabilities.
The Solutions Marketing Group’s team understands that marketing
to people with disabilities involves more than the basics of placing
a universal access symbol outside a business, using a person with
a disability in an advertisement, or including disability inclusive
jargon in promotional material. Effective disability marketing also
entails
- having buy-in from your company’s senior leadership,
- conducting research to understand the disability community’s
culture,
- training your staff to have the knowledge and skills to provide
excellent service,
- planning, developing, and implementing a comprehensive, integrated
promotional strategy that touches consumers with disabilities,
and
- recognizing that the loyalty you gain from the disability community
will also touch the people in their circles of influence.
Research
SMG offers a broad spectrum of qualitative and quantitative research
services. To perform quantitative research, we use programs including
Interactive Voice Recognition and web-based data collection. We
also offer qualified lists targeted to particular groups, design
research surveys, and analyze research data.
Qualitative research allows clients to understand the experiences
and beliefs of consumers with disabilities. Clients also discover
and explore disability-specific trends. For qualitative research,
SMG’s team conducts interviews, holds focus groups, and moderates
round-table discussions. SMG’s team provides these services
end to end—from recruitment, coordination, logistics, and
discussion guide design, to facilitation and reporting.
Strategic
Direction
The Solutions Marketing Group utilizes the research it conducts
on behalf of its clients—as well as our existing expertise
and refined knowledge—to assist clients in the development
of strategic direction regarding disability marketing programs.
Internal
Communications
Since the needs of the disability market are distinct, SMG develops
internal communications strategies to support external communications
to consumers with disabilities. The objectives of the strategy are
to create buy-in and educate employees about services offered to
the market.
Event Management
SMG provides clients with creative, well-executed event management
expertise to draw and engage consumers with disabilities and fortify
brand loyalty. Currently, SMG’s President is Education Director
for the Abilities Expo, the largest national consumer show for people
with disabilities. In this role, Carmen Jones is responsible for
recruiting potential speakers and creating informative, relevant
workshops to draw attendees.
Communications
The Solutions Marketing Group includes media planning as an aspect
of our marketing services. We provide key contacts in the mainstream
media and the disability press with story ideas and hot-button press
releases that focus on disability topics. SMG’s articles have
appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, HME News,
Home Care, and New Mobility magazine. SMG can facilitate press conference
management and point-of-contact communications services.
Grassroots
Communications
Effective marketing campaign managers must maintain and cultivate
relationships with the grassroots disability populace throughout
the nation. SMG regularly activates its vast disability community
communications network: list-servs, disability media outlets, and
personal contacts within disability organizations. We contact appropriate
segments of the disability community to perform marketing services
such as focus groups sessions, and targeted research projects, to name a few.
Creative
Services
The Solutions Marketing Group develops copy and ad design for
print ads, manuals, brochures, and web sites. We develop strategies
that maintain a client's brand image, while still speaking to the
needs of the consumers with disabilities.
Direct
Mail Promotion
SMG designs direct mail campaigns that hit home with people with
disabilities by writing winning ad copy, designing and printing
mailing pieces, and brokering the most active and responsive lists.
Education and Training
Companies that are working to become disability-friendly realize it is imperative to have employees throughout the company with awareness and practical skills to interact with people with disabilities, as fellow colleagues and consumers. To meet the on-going needs of clients, SMG has added Education and Training to its suite of services. This new division is headed by Bill and Cheryl Duke, of W.C. Duke Associates, who for 16 years has been the international leader in helping businesses comply with the human side of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) through customer service, diversity and disability, recruitment and retention, awareness, and leadership trainings.
The Opening Doors® training programs provide the key to train employees and managers to be disability-friendly, to establish a comfort level in serving guests with disabilities, and to develop a company culture that is inclusive of people with disabilities. The Opening Doors® programs are practical, skills-based, interactive and entertaining.
