Promoting Your Product
Market Research
October / November 06
Volume 4 Number 5
As an entrepreneur, you are faced with promoting, or creating awareness of, your new cutting-edge technology product. If you are like most entrepreneurs, the thought of actually marketing and selling your product is daunting and all you can see are dollar signs attached to the efforts. Take heart —promoting industrial products is much more intuitive and less costly than you might think.
There are two things you must do before trying to create awareness of your product: craft your product value proposition and understand the specifics of your target market. If you have done a value proposition or positioning exercise (See Value Propositions, TechComm, April-May 2005), you should have an idea of what differentiates your product from its competitors, and if you have talked with potential customers, you should have an idea of the benefits they'd get from your product. Combine these elements of the value proposition into a messaging statement that verbalizes what your company and its products are all about. This should be consistent in all written documents, including web sites, brochures and even packaging. If you aren't comfortable doing this yourself, you might see if a small public relations firm can help you on a per project basis to make it cost effective.
Understanding your target market is crucial, and you undoubtedly gathered or are gathering information on it in your initial phases of market research. In industrial markets, the number of customers is much smaller than if you were selling to the mass market; this number might be in the thousands or hundreds, if not fewer. By extension this means that your promotional efforts need to be very focused and thought out in order to reach that small number of customers. How exactly do you reach them? In your research, you probably came across some methods that your target customers use to learn about new products and industry news. In most cases, however, there are several primary means of reaching industrial customers: trade shows, white papers, trade journals and industry associations.
Industry trade shows are where many industrial products get launched, because the customers being targeted usually attend trade shows. You can find trade show information in trade journals and on industry association web sites. While you may not have the funds to make a splashy launch, there are plenty of ways to make your product known at trade shows. You can simply attend the show and walk around, talking with people (and hopefully potential customers) and handing out brochures or CDs of your products. You should try to talk with industry analysts, who might normally be out of reach to entrepreneurs but are usually approachable at these events. If you do your messaging pitch properly, the analyst could very well talk or write about your product, thus giving it instant credibility.
Other trade show options are exhibiting at a booth, which may be expensive depending on the booth size and the show's cost; putting your logo on official trade show promotional items; and sponsoring a hospitality suite to tout your product and technology for potential customers (be sure to send out invitations prior to the show). If you are comfortable with public speaking, you could even try to get speaking slot at the trade show. Keep in mind that you would be discussing overall industry industries with minimal references to your product to make this credible. You may need a public relations firm to help obtain a speaking engagement at a trade show. Other trade show promotional opportunities exist; check out the web sites and talk with show planners to identify options that may work for you.
White papers are documents that discuss industry issues or problems and showcase a company's technology that addresses those issues. The issues should be high-level, and the technology should be discussed in general terms, with any test or lab results shown in a factual way to explain the resulting customer benefits. Your company and product names should be minimally mentioned; although this is counterintuitive, a white paper's purpose is educational and will be credible only if it does not appear to be an advertisement. If there are merits in your technology and white paper, readers will likely seek out your company for more information. White papers should be put on your web site, and sent to analysts, industry associations and trade journals. You might get mentioned in an article as a result, which is a very credible, targeted, and inexpensive promotion of your product.
Many people think of advertising when they think of promoting a product. Since you are likely targeting a small number of potential customers, mass market advertising is, thankfully, a waste of time, money and effort. Your target customers probably read industry trade journals, though, and those journals may be the best advertising vehicles for you. Trade journal advertising reaches the right buyers and customers, is relatively inexpensive, and is much more flexible than mass market advertising.
Lastly, consider joining industry associations. They provide opportunities for meeting not only your potential customers, but also peers and industry insiders who may be able to assist you in some way. There are various kinds of working committees dealing with issues, technology, marketing, and the like. Involvement in these can help you build credibility and awareness for your company and product.
While participating in these events and associations will help you effectively and credibly promote your product, do not forget to listen and learn from all the information you will gain as a result of your efforts. The new information may help you build sales, find partners, and develop new product ideas for the future.
Betsy Gillette is director of market research and planning at Technology Ventures Corporation.
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