The fact is that these marketing mistakes are easily avoided; and yet people make them all the time. Are you sure you too are not committing these mistakes in your own business?
Your new products are conceived
in a wrong place and in a wrong sequence
Your new product process starts with an "idea" but you forget whose idea is it. Is it your internal idea or is it from an external customer? Unfortunately, many companies start with what they think is good and is based on internal inspiration / reason : it is "the latest", "it can be made on our existing machines", "we know how to procure the main material at a good price", "how can we not have this product?", "we already know the customer so half the job is done already", "the CEO himself likes it" etc. You should invert this process and start by asking which customer's what need is strong and urgent and this is likely to make you succeed more often. This is called as market positioning. Doing things in the wrong order is delightful but a proper way produces better results.
You treat casual feedback
from untrained sales force as facts.
Sales people are not always right about what the market wants. Their 3 standard formulas are "improve the product", "reduce the price" and "spend more on promotions". The sales people are focused on "how to sell more next month and exceed targets"; everything else is secondary to them. In any case, many times the sales people do not get to meet the people who truly influence or make decisions. That is why you should not consider the sales force feedback as undiluted truth. I suggest you put a good salesperson on a team along with marketing and
technical colleagues and (a) train them in the methods of ferreting out facts (b) establish direct contact with the customers. How to listen to the market is an important skill and needs to be developed in the organization - not as a specialist discipline - but as general skill that is needed widely.
Your managers taking marketing decisions
have no direct contact with customers
Your managers rely on "gut feeling". Your marketing managers think they are the "market" themselves. They conceive new products and services based on books, discussions and fads alone without input from the live customers. Probably your managers avoid complaining customers like a plague. If this is true, you definitely need a develop a "customer culture". You must encourage all in the company to take every opportunity to interact with the customer and learn what are their needs and "pain points" and how do they go about purchasing. One low-cost approach is to train yourself and all of your employees to routinely interact with customers for the explicit purpose of gathering intelligence about their needs or handling their grievances . Sometimes the best information can come through casual comments. Soon you'll begin thinking like your customer - which is the first step in overwhelming your competitors.
Your managers taking marketing decisions
have no direct contact with customers
Your managers rely on "gut feeling". Your marketing managers think they are the "market" themselves. They conceive new products and services based on books, discussions and fads alone without input from the live customers. Probably your managers avoid complaining customers like a plague. If this is true, you definitely need a develop a "customer culture". You must encourage all in the company to take every opportunity to interact with the customer and learn what are their needs and "pain points" and how do they go about purchasing. One low-cost approach is to train yourself and all of your employees to routinely interact with customers for the explicit purpose of gathering intelligence about their needs or handling their grievances . Sometimes the best information can come through casual comments. Soon you'll begin thinking like your customer - which is the first step in overwhelming your competitors.
You do not know your business, customer, purpose.
You blindly copy methods.
You blindly copy methods.
There is only one universal truth in marketing - "KNOW WHO IS THY CUSTOMER AND LISTEN TO HIM"; everything else is situational and need not be done under all circumstances : better product is not needed in all circumstances, lower price should not be the objective in all situations, wider distribution need not necessarily result into better results, you do not need to advertise or promote all the time, you need not appoint dealers for everything. For example, B2B customers tend to be more measured
and rational in their approach to purchasing, and they are far fewer in number.
They're smart and will make you smarter if you engage them in a peer- to-peer
dialogue. Let them lead you to their areas of interest, probe with skill, and
you'll be shocked at how much you'll learn. In such situations do not use surveys because they are used by B2C companies selling mass consumption standard products.
You gather only qualitative customer feedback.
You gather only qualitative customer feedback.
The partner of a business spent months interviewing customers, only to hear his partner say that he didn't believe what customers were saying. Managers and owners often hear what they want to hear and then parade some customer quotes for support. What you need is quantitative data, which measure customer importance and satisfaction on key outcomes. Skip quantification and your new product will be based on assumptions, bias, and wishful thinking.
You listen only to existing / immediate customers.
Unlike B2C producers, your
product might become part of your customers' products, your customers'
customers' products, and so on. It's a mistake to interview only your direct
customers, because they are usually unable or unwilling to disclose downstream
needs. It is also very important to know why your non-customers are not buying. Or why your competitors' customers are not buying you.
6 comments:
quite insightful. if the market place is blue ocean, and in absence of any competetor in the begining of the game: I think it solely depends on one's experience and imaginative skills how to delight customers with innovative products and keep on improving on them to overwhelm potential competritors. they will not dare and the market shall remian blue for quite some time!!
Good read .. if i relate to software industry, 2 things stand out - one is rush for that latest idea floating in market (be it big data, internet of things or cloud) and CTO's rush to announce the need to certify their products to these latest trends, second, I like the piece about "sales force is not only source of truth.. Unfortunately many leaders still make that mistake of over valuing sales sentiment and under estimating key facts as pointed out in the article.
Its a good read. Seeing outside-inside is a very good approach in terms of devloping new products. I wonder if there is any case or good example of doing this way. "Market" or "customer" in a broader sense cannot decide what exactly they need. It is termed as "Latent need". It was inspiring to know that sales/ marketing team needs to "Listen" carefully. The one who did created a product of future need. I strongly believe that creating new products means creating new demands. It is not for fulfilling existing demands. Future demand depending on existing technology creates immediate demand or a long term demand. Hence, an outside-inside view of "Latent needs" creates demand (immediate or long term). It then becomes very concise to create an inside-outside view of our products and can execute to meet these demands.
Excellent post. people normally do many mistakes and ignore important points while launching their brand or products.
I think it solely depends on one's experience and imaginative skills of the marketer
Here are 4 mistakes you’re likely to make in the process of marketing, launching, and selling your new product—and how to avoid them:
1) You take it to market too slowly.
Yes, too slowly. The faster you can bring a product to market the better. My highest grossing, most respected and well-known products have gone from idea to sales in the shortest periods of time. And that’s no fluke.
2) You don’t take into account who’s ready to buy.
Now, not everyone buys a Minimum Viable Product. Who does? Early Adopters. They’re often your business’s biggest fans and most loyal customers. They love trying out new stuff and are just tickled when they get to try out something before everyone else.
3) You focus on feel-good ideas instead of urgent needs.
Speaking of needs, let’s talk about that. I know you, you hate to be “salesy.” And you just love this idea that business “starts with why” because it feels good, feels safe, feels altruistic.
4) You don’t start marketing and selling soon enough.
Finally, the number one mistake I see with marketing, launching, and selling a new product is that business owners don’t start the marketing and sales process soon enough. Clients ask me all the time, “How early is too early to start marketing my new product?” The answer is never.
It is never too early.
Finally, I don’t let any of my clients start building a product if they haven’t figured out their sales message. If you don’t have confidence your product is going to sell, you’re not ready to realize your idea yet. Start there.
If you can avoid these 4 mistakes, you’ll be well on your way to creating and selling your next blockbuster product.
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