The following are tips from a new WARF series focused on bringing the fundamentals of getting a new venture started.
The following entrepreneurs marketing playbook strategies are courtesy of
- Marsha Lindsay of Lindsay, Stone & Briggs
- Todd LaBeau, vice president, director of digital marketing, Lindsay, Stone & Briggs
- Mike Judge, director, Center for Brand and Product Management, Wisconsin School of Business
- Tim Gill, search manager, Shopbop.com/Amazon.com
- Chris Parker, vice president and chief commercial officer, Cellular Dynamics Internationale
1. You have to be willing to bet the farm on an idea. And if you don’t have a farm, bet the house and the car on the idea.
2. When you start something, it’s incumbent upon you to continue.
3. 512,000 new businesses launched in 2012, 250,000 new products are launched every year, 75% of VC backed firms don’t return investors capital, 95% of start-ups fail.
4. Face reality: what will it take to dramatically increase your odds? Face what you know and don’t know about marketing and then devote as much to learning and mastering marketing as you do your innovation. Be prepared to invest in what it takes to build awareness, engagement, adoption.
5. Before you set expectations or make promises you can’t meet, do marketing math and avoid seeing what doesn’t exist. “You will see in the data what you want to see even if it’s not there,” confirmation bias.
6. Number one reason innovations fail: product doesn’t have meaningful role in people’s lives. Realize you’re launching not an innovation, but a meaningful role to play in people’s lives. It is what drives sales and revenue and line extension. Know what is compelling not in your eyes, but in eyes of the user.
7. Building marketing strategy in from start. Today marketing is synonymous with innovation and business strategy.
8. Your why should help people be more of who they are or aspire to be.
9. To survive your startup, you need as many paying customers of all kinds as quickly as possible. To last, you need your target audience to be your partner.
10. Know where you’ll get your volume, know your competitors and what their product is.
11. As much as you invest in something, make sure you expect that something will not happen the way you want it. Allow for a contingency plan.
12. Not what everyone wants is a product they can touch hold and play with. Some people want a product that makes them feel a certain way. How is it you figure out the feeling people want?
The best way to figure them out is through qualitative research. Sit down with people and watch them use the product, ask them about the product and how it makes them feel. Learn to ask better questions to get someone to say “I loved how this happened, or I love how it’s like X.” Figure out how it makes them feel without asking them how it makes them feel.
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