Marketing – Some Basics on How and When
4 ספטמבר, 2010 -
You have the idea – now should you wait until you have a product to begin marketing? Or should marketing start in the product development phase? I've been doing marketing for start-ups for years now and know from experience, even though Marketing should be done from the very beginning, it's typically held off until the product is close to finished. Why do I think this is a mistake? Because without some market research and understanding quite often products are made that aren't actually needed in the market or good products have features that most people won't like. Or the price to manufacture is seriously above the original planned market price (I did mention research is needed). And, as Google Buzz showed – what engineers think is important isn't necessarily what the market will enjoy. (Remember how they thought automatically following people that you correspond with via Gmail would be a good idea – people didn't like it. I'm not saying engineers aren't people – but most people aren't engineers…) Google Wave would be another great example of what was expected to be a revolutionary product ended up fizzling out to a sad meh of a death.
Marketers (if they are good) should understand the voice of the customer and with that the needs and desires of the customer. Making a good that isn't aimed at a customer is a waste of time. Products are meant to be sold, after all. And once that product is made – when is the right time to start the product launch? In reality – about 6 months before.
Yes, that's right – at least 6 months before actual launch.
Why? Because launching a new product means buzz is needed – and unless you are Google, who can mention and launch a product in a day and every early adopter will be frothing at the mouth to get it (Hello Priority Gmail Inbox), then buzz takes time. If you're a startup and don't have the power of Google behind you, then you need to start your groundwork early. Who is your market? If you're B2C (business to consumer) then you need to start targetting and building relationships with key influencers and bloggers in the arena you will launch. If you are a B2B (business to business) then the same relationships are required - but the aim is smaller, more focused. Either way your goal is to be mentioned with a positive tone in whatever publications your customer is interested in and by industry leaders that others listen to and respect. That can only happen by building up the relationship slowly, by giving a lot and by not asking for anything in return for a very long time.
When the time comes, you're going to ask for one simple small thing: would you please try out my [product or service] for free? You aren't going to ask them to talk about it. They'll do that on their own if they like it. Which is exactly what you want – an honest opinion that people trust reported online.
The Launch – Some of the Basics
Every form of social media that you choose to engage in should be updated regularly. Blog posts should be at least once a week if not more – realistically it should be business week daily. Same with Facebook posts and Twitter. YouTube should be maintained. All pages should have backgrounds that are properly branded and a call to action should be optimized on all fronts.
Have your Facebook page ready to go and make sure it's optimized (landing tab, videos if you have them, FAQs tab if needed etc…). The method on Facebook changes depending on what kind of product you have. For B2Bs the focus will generally be on engaging the customer and giving them information that they will find helpful in their day to day operations. The goal here is to build reciprocity. If it's a B2C product then typically the goal is to build community – which means that an editorial calendar is a good idea. Things to keep in mind:
- Which posts are getting the most response – and then figure out why.
- Which posts aren't getting a response at all – and then figure out why.
- Call to action (i.e. Like, Share & Comment) - only one to three (one is best) per posts. More makes people confused and they end up doing nothing.
Blog
The main purpose of a blog is to grow your email list. Even with all of the different forms of social media marketing out there today – nothing beats a great newsletter campaign to get people to do things. The blogs should give information that is important to your customer. Posts should end with a question to encourage commenting – unless the goal of the post is to get people to buy, and then the comments should be turned off and a call to action should be at the very bottom of the post (this should be done very very very sparingly).
The content has to be good and helpful or else people won't sign up or read your blog.
My favorite way to engage. However, it takes time and effort. There are various ways companies use their twitter stream:
- Promote sales & new products (DellOutlet)
- Social customer relationshionship management (Ford Customer Service)
- Building community and relationships (Scott Monty for Ford)
YouTube
It's the #2 search engine online and you'd be amazed at how companies are using YouTube to market themselves.
Conferences & Events
Nothing beats meeting face to face. Planning which industry events are essential for networking should be done ahead of time. Especially since most major conferences start selling booth space at least 8 months before the next conference begins. Find out from organizers who will be at the conference and set up meetings with potential clients about 1 to 2 months before the conference begins.
Webinars
Want to let a lot of people worldwide know what your product or service does? Do a webinar (and then post a portion of it on your YouTube page).
Advertising & Sponsoring Events
If your potential customers are at an event then sponsoring is a great way to get mind share. If they aren't at the event then it's a big waste of money. Make sure you're certain they are there before spending the cash.
Same goes with regular advertising.
There's loads of other ways to engage your market (location based services like Foursquare, Google Places and Yelp for example). Having a strategy mapped out ahead of time with goals and timelines in place is the best way to get there. Do you think I've caught the main basics? What else would you add?