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Hello, in this video Iím going to show you how to build an online innovation launch community
for building market consensus behind your breakthrough new product launch. Now why might
you want to do that?
Well, if youíre trying to launch any new product breakthrough, new product category
or new service then youíre going to have to win over the early majority of the market
to get traction.
Geoffrey Moore calls it the process of ìCrossing the Chasmî, creating a market beachhead or
assembling the invasion force. But whatever you call it, customers are reticent to adopt
new ways until they see other customers recommending your product or service.
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Build Market Consensus Online For Your Next New Product Launch
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New Product Launch
Hello, in this video Iím going to show you how to build an online innovation launch community
for building market consensus behind your breakthrough new product launch. Now why might
you want to do that?
Well, if youíre trying to launch any new product breakthrough, new product category
or new service then youíre going to have to win over the early majority of the market
to get traction.
Geoffrey Moore calls it the process of ìCrossing the Chasmî, creating a market beachhead or
assembling the invasion force. But whatever you call it, customers are reticent to adopt
new ways until they see other customers recommending your product or service.
Itís a sort of chicken and egg situation that wonít happen spontaneously, you have
to engineer the campaign by building up a community of the faithful who will take your
innovation forward.Market Leaders
Now hereís the good news, the internet makes this whole launch process much easier.
With social media, blogs and great content itís much easier to aggregate a targeted
community within your market. With the right technology, itís possible to keep bringing
back market participants until they become raving fans that eagerly anticipate your innovation
and spread the word to other like minded prospects.
Hello, Iím Raglan Tribe and my company specialises in helping companies develop and launch new
products and services. Before, I had a 20 year corporate background in marketing and
product development leading the research and development activities at De La Rue plc and
before that TRW inc, and so when I started my own business my clients tended to be large
corporations and institutions such as Hyundai, Toyota, Siemens, Toshiba, and government Ö
Like all startups, I used the internet to get my own sales leads. This old fashioned
website, back in 2004 brought in 1000s of sales leads from which I grossed £3.5 million
of sales over 6 years. Pretty soon, I was using the same techniques to recruit focus
groups for my client assignments.
Now leads come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but weíre here to talk about capturing
a very particular kind of lead. Leads that represent the movers and shakers in a target
market segment where youíre planning to launch your new innovation. The kind of people who
are interested in the new and would naturally spread the word once they were convinced about
the merits of your innovation.
Letís now look at how this might work. Welcome to the world of blogging.
First you pick a narrow market niche. Be really specific, and target a particular group of
people with common problems that you can solve, itís much easier to effectively communicate
with a specific market segment than trying to address everyone.
Breakthrough new product introduction
For instance, letís say youíre trying to introduce plastic money and you are looking
for countries that are willing to innovate this solution. Now look at the common problems
that your target niche may have.
Poor hygiene and spread of disease with paper money
Short note life Security concerns with counterfeiters
And so onÖ
Look at the different players in the marketplace that would influence a central bank decision
to switch to plastic currency. Obviously thereís the central banks, but also the commercial
banks and retailers, who have to process the money.
Consider all of the expert advisors: forensic investigators, economists, ATM manufacturers,
bank note validators and of course you need end-user acceptance.
In particular, focus on the immediate problems that they have. Offering solutions to peopleís
immediate problems is a sure way of grabbing attention. These solutions will become your
blog posts and you will set them up in a way that makes it easy for search engines like
Google to index them on the first page.
For instance, here is a post that talks about metal grinding tools. Type into Google
ìMetal Grinding Toolsî and you see your post comes up. Youíve set up a market attraction
system that sucks in people looking for metal grinding tools.
Now just repeat the process, by creating posts for say: titanium grinding, tungsten carbide
burrs and so onÖ Use Online Technical Journal for Your New
Product Launch
If you already publish a technical journal in your market place, then creating content
for posts should be straightforward. The difference is that you target your posts according to
the types of prospects that you wish to attract and the types of market problems that you
wish to solve. Use your Technical Journals to create an online
magazine
Use your Technical Journals to create an online magazine for seeding the creation of your
online community
We donít have to guess what these problems might be. If we go along to the Google keyword
tool then we can directly find out this data. Just Google ìGoogle keyword toolî and then
click on the first entry.
So say we type in ìMetal Grinding Toolsî ñ not only does Google tell us the results
for the phrase metal grinding tools, but they also come up with suggestions for related
keyword phrases. So for instance, grinding tools, gets typed into Google 22,200 times
worldwide.
This data is just priceless, it tells you exactly what you should be writing in your
blog posts.
Now you go and promote your blog post. Most people leave out this step, in a moment Iíll
show you just how easy it is to promote your post to your target niche.
And finally, when your prospect arrives and reads your post, make absolutely certain that
you grab their contact details. Then you have the lead, you have a new member for your online
innovation community.
Key steps for building an online Innovation Launch Community
Now tune up your mechanisms so that you get the maximum number of leads.
Once prospects have subscribed to your technical journal, you can slowly build consensus by
bringing them back to your blog again and again by the use of auto-responders. Prospects
are in a sort of sales pipeline where you can gradually address their objections and
concerns one post at a time.
Iíve already illustrated how you get the search engine traffic. Provide a good answer
to the search question/query and make it clear to Google which question youíre answering.
But you can also get paid traffic and this is really fast and if you go after the niche
phrases you will usually find that you pay much less for the clicks.
Then thereís joint-venture traffic. Building a relationship with other website owners who
offer complimentary services. Inviting them to link to your site will give you their targeted
traffic but also allow them to provide more value to their visitors. Again, Google rewards
sites that have back links from related websites. Itís called web site authority.
Viral Multiplier EffectAnd then finally, thereís the multiplier effect that you get through
viral mechanisms. Every time a visitor comes to your page, make it really easy for them
to share your post with their social networks. Encourage them, to press these share buttons
by asking them to do so in your post. If the content is good, then visitors usually oblige.
They want to share your great content with their colleagues.
Letís look at how this might work. You see the visitor really liked your page and they
then click on the Facebook button. A summary of your post and picture then goes on to their
wall. From here, it goes to the newsfeed of all their friends. If any of their friends
click on the picture for the entry, they come through to your website and the cycle hopefully
repeats itself.
This is just a massive audience builder for your web site, but your content has to be
good for it to work and you have to present the best social media options for your market.
Finally, youíve got to grab the lead; set up a form that collects e-mail subscribers
for your technical journal. Here is an example of a direct opt in. Youíve answered their
immediate question in the post, but you now offer them the opportunity to follow up with
a more comprehensive answer that they get in return for providing their e-mail address.
So for instance, when machining titanium you could discuss the problems of heating at high
rotation speeds. If they enter the email details, then they get a PDF report that lists the
best metal grinding tools for getting a good clean cut without excessive heating.
Now itís also possible, to have these opt in forms come up after a certain time duration.
When triggered, a lightbox effect blackens out the article and then offers them the free
report in return for their e-mails. I find that this mechanism can increase my opt in
rate by 300%. You can also trigger these opt-in forms when visitors scroll down below a certain
point!
Of course you can also put an opt in for general reports in the margin. I also like creating
opt-in forms that are pre-filled by the user if they happen to be logged in to Facebook.
This is massive, it means you get Facebook verified details.
And then finally, this sneaky opt in mechanism allows you to collect leads when visitors
comment on your site. Sneaky opt-in mechanism for comment subscribers
Letís quickly look at the common problems that bloggers have. First off, it is hard
to narrow down to a single niche. Our inclination, is to try and keep all our options open. Donít,
this will make everything much less effective. Have a different blog for other niches.
Next, itís very easy to get sidetracked by the web design process and technical issues.
Web designers love to do complicated systems and creative designs, but remember, this is
a business blog that must carry the marketing mechanisms outlined above.
Instead, go for a very simple clean design and put your effort into the blog posts. After
all that is the star of the show you donít want the design to detract from the content.
Now often when people start blogging they like to indulge in their personal expression.
Well again youíre setting up a business site and so keep it focused on your customerís
problems.
That way you will build an audience of rabid fans.
When you set up your posts, you must make it easy for search engines to assign your
post to a particular search query. Youíve got all the vagaries of search engine optimisation.
Over-optimise and you get penalised by the search engines for gaming their systems ñ
Under-optimise and you never get onto the first page.
And then a lot of people just donít measure whatís going on. No measurement, then no
optimisation. Getting the best business results really comes about through incremental improvement
that is informed by reliable actual visitor results.
Finally, this is not all about blogging, itís about new product engineering ñ getting the
right people to participate in the co-creation of your next development. So donít lose focus!
If you would like to develop your own innovation launch community by the integration of innovation
processes, social media, a blog and email autoresponders, either fill out the form below
or call this number to discuss your requirements.