Start-Up Marketing (Guest Post – four in a series)

Speak to Individual

My good friend Jeff Berman has agreed to contribute a series on marketing for startups to the Scratchpaper community. This is the fourth in the series (table of contents here). Stay tuned for more.

How to Botch Marketing #3:

Speak to the Industry, Not the Individual

People have problems. People have budgets.

If you’re selling something to a business audience, it’s easy to slip into thinking your market is the business (e.g., hospitals, schools, hotels; the list is endless). But businesses don’t make decisions. To get on the radar, you need to address the needs of a specific individual inside the organization. [Read more…]

Start-Up Marketing (Guest Post – three in a series)

Busy World

My good friend Jeff Berman has agreed to contribute a series on marketing for startups to the Scratchpaper community. This is the third in the series (table of contents here). Stay tuned for more.

How to Botch Marketing #2: 

Assume People Are Eager To Hear From You

This is the most common marketing mistake of early-stage companies. And it’s completely understandable. You just spent months or years coming up with your product. You put an absurd amount of effort and money and focused attention into it.

So, of course, in bringing it to market, what you want to do is tell people about it, right?

The problem is, almost no one cares about your thing. Everyone you want to sell to is already doing something else to solve their problem. They don’t want to hear from you. They’re busy.

It’s Not You, It’s Them

Once your product is developed (and you’ve made sure it performs for non-techies), you need to take a deep breath and make a concerted effort to step outside your own perspective on it. You need to think of what you’re doing as the solution to someone else’s problem.

Who are these people? How does the problem look from their point of view? What are they doing about it now? How do they see their options? What would they like to do if they could?

Where Effective Messages Come From

If you understand your offering as the solution to someone else’s problem, you can develop a message that they might pay attention to. And that’s what marketing is really about: Getting your message heard. If your prospects had the time and inclination to read lists of features and functions, you wouldn’t need marketing. But they don’t, so you do.

In rare cases, a list of features is enough. But most of the time, people need to be persuaded to pay attention. That’s why marketing is interesting. It has to be.

Jeff Berman is the founder and principal of Berman Creative, a creative agency focusing on brand strategy and marketing solutions for early-stage and redirected companies. You can reach Jeff at www.bermancreative.com. We’re grateful for his contribution. 

Comments, questions or reactions to this post? Leave a note below and I will respond to your questions.

If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy: Ten Rules For Navigating in The Age of OutrageThat Vision ThingDelusional Economics,  Loch Ness, Unicorns & The First-Mover AdvantageDoes This Slide Deck Make Me Look Fat?,  The Long Road to Instant SuccessGetting Off The Ground; Early Formation EconomicsWhat I Look For In An EntrepreneurThe OvertureDo The Right ThingInstagram’s Turn for a Face-PalmZynga’s Bad KharmaBank of America Still SucksNetflix: 3 Lessons From the Pricing FiascoBank of America Still SucksWalking into a Buzzsaw (Amazon’s Brazenly Arrogant Retail Promotion)Something From Nothing – Bringing the Store to the Customer.

Subscribe – To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe to the RSS feed here, or to receive them via email enter your address in the box in the upper right or go here and enter your email address in the box in the upper right. You can also follow me on Twitter @cmirabile and on Google+.

Why Giant Smartphones are the New Normal

Ascend MateUntil a very recent epiphany, I had been observing this trend of growing smartphone screen size with puzzlement. Android smartphones grew to 4 inches. 4.5 inches. 4.8 inches. Then Samsung releases the Galaxy Note at 5.3 inches. And now the Note 2 at 5.5 inches. And now Huawei has just released a a phone with a 6.1 inch screen (the Ascend Mate, pictured above).

Yet Apple was not wrong that good one-handed operation maxed out at a screen size of about 3.5 inches diagonal. And you definitely look a bit odd holding a tablet to your head. And these things are giant in your pocket, if they even fit. So what is driving this? [Read more…]

Start-Up Marketing (Guest Post – two in a series)

My good friend Jeff Berman has agreed to contribute a series on marketing for startups to the Scratchpaper community. This is the second in the series  (table of contents here).  Stay tuned for more.

_____________________________________________

How to Botch Marketing #1Over Really Easy

My previous post was all about how Early Adopters are great, but the real market is with the Early Majority, who are about 10 times as numerous.

This is the first of 12 ways to botch your marketing with your most important audience.

Are You Ready For This?

[Read more…]

Start-Up Marketing (Guest Post – one in a series)

Adopter Curve

My good friend Jeff Berman has agreed to contribute a series on marketing for startups to the Scratchpaper community. This is the first in the series. (Table of contents for the series is here). Stay tuned for more.

_____________________________________________

In working with dozens of start-ups and early-stage companies over 25 years, and more than 50 since starting Berman Creative in 2002, I’m still astonished by how well Geoffrey Moore’s technology adoption curve defines the market opportunity for so many B-to-B and B-to-C organizations.

For young companies, the relevant groups are the first three: [Read more…]

Start-Up Marketing Series

Berman Logo

My good friend Jeff Berman has agreed to contribute a series on marketing for startups to the Scratchpaper community. Here’s a table of contents for all the posts in the series:

  1. Start-Up Marketing – Understanding the Technology Adoption Curve
  2. Start-Up Marketing – Mistake #1 Go Before You’re Ready
  3. Start-Up Marketing – Mistake #2 Assume People Are Eager to Hear From You
  4. Start-Up Marketing – Mistake #3 Speak to the Industry, Not the Individual
  5. Start-Up Marketing – Mistake #4 Start by Telling People How It Works
  6. Start-Up Marketing – Mistake #5 Copy the Category Leader

Jeff Berman is the founder and principal of Berman Creative, a creative agency focusing on brand strategy and marketing solutions for early-stage and redirected companies. You can reach Jeff at www.bermancreative.com. We’re grateful for his contribution. 

Comments, questions or reactions to this post? Leave a note below and I will respond to your questions.

If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy: Ten Rules For Navigating in The Age of OutrageThat Vision ThingDelusional Economics,  Loch Ness, Unicorns & The First-Mover AdvantageDoes This Slide Deck Make Me Look Fat?,  The Long Road to Instant SuccessGetting Off The Ground; Early Formation EconomicsWhat I Look For In An EntrepreneurThe OvertureDo The Right ThingInstagram’s Turn for a Face-PalmZynga’s Bad KharmaBank of America Still SucksNetflix: 3 Lessons From the Pricing FiascoBank of America Still SucksWalking into a Buzzsaw (Amazon’s Brazenly Arrogant Retail Promotion)Something From Nothing – Bringing the Store to the Customer.

Subscribe – To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe to the RSS feed here, or to receive them via email enter your address in the box in the upper right or go here and enter your email address in the box in the upper right. You can also follow me on Twitter @cmirabile and on Google+.

Instagram’s Turn for a Face-Palm

Homer - D'Oh!

Yep, we’ve stepped on the rake again.  In what is becoming an almost weekly ritual, we’ve had yet another user revolt and PR fiasco because of revised user terms and conditions.  Instagram’s turn this week. The line in the damage control note from Instagram Co-Founder Kevin Systrom today that grabbed me was: “Legal documents are easy to misinterpret.”

This statement is stupid in so many ways.  For starters, [Read more…]

Constructing a Pitch

Pitch Clinic

I’ve been meaning to post this video of a pitching clinic I gave at MassChallenge 2012. For the diehard viewer, my talk is followed by a panel discussion critiquing a couple live pitches.  The first 30 minutes or so capture what I think are the key concepts in constructing an early stage fund-raising pitch.  Enjoy. [Read more…]

Maia Heymann – Angel Video Interview Series

[This post is part of an on-going series of video interviews with members of the start-up community – see a list of links to the full series here.]

Auditor, commercial banker, venture lender, investment banker, private equity investor, venture capitalist, angel investor. If it relates to evaluating the prospects of a business, Maia Heymann has done it. Maia has an absolutely staggering amount of experience for someone still at the midpoint of an average person’s career. She’s a delightful person to speak with and a fount of wisdom. So when we got together for a cup of coffee this week week, I knew I had to capture lightning in a bottle and add her to the video interview series. This conversation was recorded in October 2012. (Email subscribers, click here for video.)

Comments, questions or reactions to this post? Leave a note below and I will respond to your questions.

If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy: Angel Video Interview SeriesThe Long Road to Instant SuccessThoughts on Crowdfunding,  The Crowdfunding Interview (Frank Peters Show), Pattern Matching Can Cause BlindspotsGetting Off The Ground; Early Formation EconomicsPitch Clinic at MassChallenge (Video)Why Angels Chase ElectronsBoards vs. Advisory BoardsDelusional EconomicsTen Rules For Navigating in The Age of OutrageThat Vision ThingThe Power of An Advisory BoardLoch Ness, Unicorns & The First-Mover AdvantageAre Entrepreneurs Wild Risk-Takers?Top 20 Dos & Don’ts with Angel Groups & Early Stage FinancingWhat I Look For In An EntrepreneurThe OvertureDo The Right ThingOpen Forum with Angel, Seed and VC Investors (Video)Should I Wait For A Technical Co-Founder?, and 20 Bootstrapping Ideas.
Subscribe – To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe to the RSS feed here, or to receive them via email enter your address in the box in the upper right or go here and enter your email address in the box in the upper right. You can also follow me on Twitter @cmirabile and on Google+.

Boards vs. Advisory Boards

New entrepreneurs show a lot of confusion on the subject of advisory boards and corporate boards of directors. It’s justified; there is some conceptual overlap. But they are very different animals. [Read more…]