Linking Early-Stage Marketing and Late-Stage Marketing Last week we defined Early Stage Marketing as figuring out what the customers’ needs are… and Late-Stage Marketing as satisfying those needs by promoting our new product to them. Many B2B companies (my area of expertise) do a simply awful job of Early-Stage Marketing and then express surprise when their new product fails.
Posted Fri Jan 9, 2009
Early-Stage Marketing vs. Late-Stage Marketing In last week’s blog, I described how marketing could be explained in three parts: Design (What does the customer want?), Development (What product/service would meet this need?) and Delivery (How can we get this product/service in the customers’ hands?). When time is short, I’ll often abbreviate this to describe marketing in terms of Early-Stage Marketing (Design) and Late-Stage Marketing (Delivery).
Posted Tue Dec 30, 2008
So What Does Marketing Really Do? For many years, I held various marketing positions in large B2B manufacturing firms and would be asked this question: “So what do you guys really do, anyway?” I found that mumbling or pulling out some helpful Dilbert cartoons really weren’t addressing this question well. So eventually I began describing marketing’s role in three parts: Design, Development and Delivery.
Posted Fri Dec 19, 2008
Three Reasons for Competitive Side-by-Side Testing in New Product Design In the last blog, we talked about a fairly rigorous way to understand competitive capabilities when designing a new product. The punch line was… you need to truly understand your customers’ needs before you can measure your competitors’ capabilities. When you do this well, three very good things happen.
Posted Thu Dec 11, 2008
So What Can Your Competitors Really Do? When a team develops a new product, they often fall into the trap up making assumptions of two broad types: customer needs and competitive capabilities. And these are not independent. Here’s why:
Posted Sat Dec 6, 2008
What Will Your Company Learn During the Downturn? I just got off the phone with a magazine editor and she asked several insightful questions during the interview. One of them was, “What should companies be spending their money on during a recession?” My answer was learning.
Posted Fri Nov 21, 2008
#3 Economic Survival Tip: Engage Your Customers More Closely This week, we finish our three-part series on surviving and thriving in a miserable economy. This tip can best be practiced by companies providing products or services to other companies (not end-consumers). Outstanding research done by Huthwaite International shows the best way to sell a product is to simply ask customers what they want. (For more on this, read S.P.I.N. by Neil Rackham.)
Posted Fri Nov 14, 2008
#2 Economic Survival Tip: Learn New Best Practices Last week, we began a three-part series on surviving—and even thriving—in a miserable economy. This week, consider if there are new practices your company could adopt to rapidly boost your effectiveness in critical customer-facing activities… such as sales management, pricing or marketing communications.
Posted Sat Nov 8, 2008
#1 Economic Survival Tip: Cut the Right Waste
Warren Buffet said it well: “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” But even well-managed companies may feel a little “exposed” in this economic downturn. What are your choices? For too many, short-term interests will be pitted against longer-term interests… and we all know which will win, right?
Posted Fri Oct 31, 2008
So THAT’S What the Customer Wants!
Yesterday, I had more fun than a trainer/consultant has the right to have. Each of my client’s teams was presenting its Business Case—the justification for proceeding into the development stage for a new product. In product development parlance, these teams had just passed through the “fuzzy front end” and were about to start spending the big bucks in their labs and engineering offices to develop prototypes of their new products.
Posted Fri Oct 24, 2008
How to Waste Millions of Dollars
OK… the title of this blog is a bit misleading. Most companies don’t need to learn how to waste millions of dollars. They already know how. In fact they are already doing it. The average Fortune 500 company squanders at least half of the tens-to-hundreds of millions of dollars that they pour into new product research and development. (Studies show that 50-75% of R&D expenditures are invested in products that flop when launched.)
Posted Fri Oct 17, 2008
Customer-Reactive Sales Call vs. Market-Proactive Interview
Last week, this blog focused on the virtues of face-to-face customer interviews… particularly when that customer is a business (not an end-consumer), and the subject is “we’d like to know more about your needs so we can design a better product for you.”
Posted Sat Oct 11, 2008
How to Interview a B2B Customer
In my last blog, I mentioned all the ways that a B2B customer (another business) is different than a B2C customer (an end consumer): they tend to be more insightful, more rational in their decision-making, more dependent on suppliers…and there are generally fewer of them. In essence, your B2B customers are very smart… and will make you a lot smarter if you know how to extract that knowledge.
Posted Sat Oct 4, 2008
Great Product Development: Is it Different for B2B vs. B2C?
Are you responsible for developing new products or services for your company? If so, there’s a good chance you’ve read some books or articles on the subject. Maybe attended a conference on new product development. Perhaps even hired a consultant to figure out this whole new product development process thing.
Posted Fri Sep 19, 2008
Business-to-Business New Product Innovation Does your business develop new products and services for other companies…not consumers? Pick up B2B-specific tips here to help you generate exciting results. Drawn from Dan Adams book, New Product Blueprinting, and the workshops he conducts globally for large firms. (www.newproductblueprinting.com)
Posted Wed Sep 17, 2008
