Betsy Gillette

Marketing Tactics Can Do Double-Duty

Market Research

August / September 2010 By: Betsy Gillette Volume 8 Number 4

Print this Article

E-mail this Article

Efficiency is a good thing for business and can be applied to both market research and market planning. Using similar tactics for research and planning can actually enhance efforts to get products out the door for startups. Moreover, when dealing with complicated technology products, it may actually help you achieve better traction.

Let’s review some of the tried and true tactics for research and planning. My personal favorite is trade shows. When you are just starting to develop your product, you’ll be heavy on the research side.
Attending trade shows is one of the best ways to do research. You get to see new product introductions and catch the buzz on them. You get to talk with other companies in your industry, even your competitors. You get to talk with potential customers and industry analysts. While your information from this research won’t be “statistically valid,” it will be qualitatively so, as long as you are objective about what you learn. Once you are ready to launch your product, trade shows are one of the best marketing tactics because you are reaching your exact target audience.

Ditto with industry associations and trade journals. In the research stage, you can learn from them and their members, writers and analysts. These, along with trade shows, can also help you establish industry credibility because you will meet and talk with many industry insiders. Then, with the groundwork laid in industry associations, you can tell your associates about your soon-to-be-launched product and you can reasonably expect those companies that aren’t direct competitors to mention your product—assuming it’s one that meets industry needs—to their customers. Perhaps writers and analysts will mention your product in articles and perhaps you have a few thousand dollars for advertising in those journals, if appropriate.

So what you have here are truly focused efforts to reach industrial customers. The aforementioned tactics have been around for awhile. But there are other, newer tactics now and those are social networking sites. Many of you already use social networking in your personal life, and now may be the time to expand to business uses of same, if you aren’t already in the arena.

There are plenty of industry “communities” online. You can find them by Googling, talking with others in your industry, reading journals, etc. There’s also LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. There are industry groups on these sites as well. They are wonderful sources for market research. Specifically, what you want to look for are industry trends, industry problems and solutions, existing product information and company and people profiles. This information can help you figure out needed features for your product, what’s good and bad about your competitors and can also help you learn about your potential customers.

If you want to contribute to those communities at this stage in your product development, do so carefully and mindfully; you don’t want to say anything negative or controversial. You should contribute positively, such as with information you’ve found in your market research that may help others. You are trying to build industry credibility at this point.

Going forward, you want to leverage what you’ve gained from using these online tactics in the research phase for several marketing efforts: continuing to build credibility, tracking information said about your product or company and your competitors, and for customer service. In building credibility, you will want to continue positive contributions to the online communities without the overt advertising of your product; this again means posting relevant content or links to same, but also mentioning any of your speaking or writing engagements, posting your presentations, posting your booth numbers at trade shows and inviting customers and potential customers to come visit with you.
Make sure you include your networking URLs or IDs on business cards and marketing collateral.

For tracking information, you will want to note anything said about your company or product, whether good or bad. This can take some effort, but it’s worth it. As you become established with solid sales, you might look into subscribing to some of the newer databases that help companies track information on social networking sites. Also as you begin your sales efforts, you can integrate social networking sites into your customer service planning by offering tips on using or maintaining your products and by allowing the user community to discuss your product. If you see anything negative, you have an opportunity to respond to it immediately.

Betsy Gillette is market research director at Technology Ventures Corporation.