Preparing to Take Your New Product or Service To Market. How We Can Help You Do it ALL Right
- This is page 3 of a 3-part article. If you landed here first, you might want to start on page one.
When we work with the "I've got a great concept, now what?" entrepreneur, we often talk about 2 phases of monetizing their idea. We typically refer to the first phase as the "get ready" phase: get ready to go to market.
It involves assembling the foundational basics a business needs to be ready to impressively present itself to its target market. Most of these are tangible elements likely to be necessary regardless of the scope of the business idea and whether it is a product or service.
Some of the bigger "get ready" needs usually include:
- Developing your idea into a mature form, fully packaged for customer consumption. In short: our experts can work with you to mature your idea into a final form that could be purchased by your target market.
There are many variables in how this is accomplished, but general supporting steps should include thorough target market research and competitive analysis so that you can go to market with customer-centered, "best-of" features & benefits. As the product concept formalizes, many other issues like how it should be packaged, produced, distributed, etc, can be explored, refined and finalized. - Develop a "wow" website as a principal face of your new company. This website is likely to present the product or service to the world and probably do some of your initial selling.
A BI website aims at cutting-edge wow so that your offering(s) can stand out from the competitive crowd. We intelligently weave a core group of proven marketing elements together to help grow your customer base as quickly as possible. We map out programmer-level needs (such as navigation, customer database, look & feel, even page-by-page content, etc) with marketing needs (rich, original promotional content pitching your product, SEO, self-service layers, lead capture layers, etc) and so on.
A BI website is always smart, scalable (so it doesn't require major (aka expensive) redesigns as the business grows), sharp, intuitive, etc. We accomplish this by using a well-proven, 4-step process to develop the site. We: - completely map out nearly every detail in a written website artchitecture specification- a document that lays out exactly what the website looks like, how it works, marketing layers, technology layers, database, pages, navigation, etc.,
- use the approved (by you) spec to get very competitive (often fixed project) bids to code the site described in the architecture document,
- oversee the coding to be sure that the programmers deliver what was requested, and finally,
- create the marketing & sales-related content to promote your offering in complete & impressive ways.
We've found this to be the most cost-efficient model for ending up with a wow website that dazzles your targeted customers & prospects... much more intelligent than the usual "flying by the seat of your pants" website development approach.
- Develop a wow image of you- the big brain innovator behind the new product- a classically proven way to introduce a new product or service to market. Many great minds behind some of the largest companies in the world established the link between themselves and the company right at the beginning. As such, the various early sales propositions can sell the ambiguous value of your genius instead of focusing solely on product or service specs.
Why do this? Product specs can be objectively valued relative to competitor offerings; your intellect can't. BI develops content and imagery designed to make you look exceptionally great to the marketplace, then leverages that presentation of you to help introduce your product(s). The ambiguity of your value helps jack up perceived value, making it easier to sell more units at good margin. - Develop a cost-efficient launch marketing plan that capitalizes on outstanding work in the above, aiming to maximize number of buyers ASAP. A BI plan spells out industry-proven & innovative new tactics to attract quality leads and grow customer (buyer) quantities. It pins down a specific target market(s) most favorable to your proposition. It is THE plan for actually monetizing your idea... so it must be great. A solid, professional plan is most crucial if you might also want- or need- to seek financing from bankers, investors, franchisees and other ready sources of cash. Having no such (quality) plan yields nearly no interest from such funding sources.
- Develop the launch creative (promotions) to support the (approved) marketing plan. This is a usually a select mix of online and proactive promotional creative used to pursue relevant prospects and move them towards buying your product. There are various kinds of creative vehicles and approaches that can work well and many others that won't work well. Our experts customize your marketing mix as part of developing the superior tactics that best fit your product or service to your ideal market(s).
Again, this creative represents your initial sales-motivated messaging. Its job is to go out to what is tyipcally total strangers and entice as many of them as possible to open their wallets right now. These promotions must mix high-quality messaging with mind-grabbing visuals to maximize interest... then turn that glowing attention into a good quantity of buyers ASAP.
- General business consulting which covers many of the large & small details that go into getting any great product or service ready to go to market. This can range from intelligently choosing the right business structure to legal, accounting, various HR issues, etc.
Need some specialized knowledge or help with some part of your concept? We've probably got the best talent to help you within our deep network. Not sure if you should go this way or that? Our expertise can be your guide.
This piece of "get ready" is often sold as a stand-alone business service with names like "strategic advisor" business coaching and similar. With us, you can tap many professional brains instead of only one... and relevant expertise instead of generalists.
What is a major concern of many innovators? "I have a great idea but I don't know how to put a good business together," which is best addressed by hiring highly-skilled talent able to bring exactly that to you.
Often we can package the entire "get ready" phase as an all-inclusive project... then get to work bringing your good concept to life through these very tangible deliverables. All of these tend to be driven by the research, competitive analysis and collaborative innovations ideally sourced from our collective brilliance model. The driving thrust is timeless...
...to end up with something you are very proud of... a complete foundation with long-term "legs," so that it can keep working for you well beyond when you harvest initial transactions. Our contributions aim at helping you sell it well right out of the gate... and keep selling it for years to come. No haphazard band-aids. No underdone weaknesses to cause pain later. Use BI talent & resources to help you get it all right.
GOING TO MARKET 🎉
When the "get ready" phase is complete, phase 2 begins. Phase 2 is the "go" (to market) phase... the part we all most want to get started ASAP.
At GO, the launch marketing plan is executed and your product or service is actually taken to market. This typically yields the first round of revenue from customers... though you may have already realized other cash infusions prior to the end of "get ready" if your idea required outside investment to fund going to market.
Either way, BI can continue to serve you into the "go" phase as an outsource team solution. For example, we can function as your marketing team, sales and/or service team, etc... OR guide/coach you through transitions of those responsibilities to inside growth function infrastructure, by helping you develop a marketing department, sales & service teams, etc.
The GO phase completes the transition from good idea to money-making product or service. By proving you have something that can make money, a wide range of potential "next steps" come into play including growing the business, selling the business, partnering, franchising and so on.
Various sources of capital are easier to access when the business becomes so tangible (much more so than when it's only a good idea in your head), offering a popular way to fuel rapid growth beyond what is possible leveraging only direct cash flows from sales.
If you want outside investment at this point, you are in a much, MUCH stronger bargaining position because now you don't actually need them at all... so they can't demand far too much ownership... or you simply walk out. You get a much better deal when you flip your proposition from desperate to borderline indifferent.
BEYOND the initial joys of GO can also be more rounds of "(keep) going" meaning, like countless entrepreneurs before you, you SCALE UP the business via ongoing marketing campaigns. Our talented team can create, execute and manage outstanding campaigns for you... an entire creative marketing department available on demand.
We would LOVE to help you turn your great idea into a lucrative business! Contact us for a FREE CONSULTATION
