Larger the choices – lesser the chance of success -II

differentiation, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, Product Management, segmentation

I have consistently been ranting about choosing only one market whenever you are starting. This need not only be about when you are starting a new business. For a product manager who has been given a new product to take to the market, the logic remains the same.

See whenever you try to look at multiple choices, you have an opportunity cost involved. With multi[le options you have to spend energy between those options. Everyone has limited amounts of energy.

You could keep focused on one market and understand the conversation going on in the head of the people you are targeting. It takes an enormous amount of iterations to understand the conversations in the minds of the customers in one market. Its never feasible to get the marketing right in the “first go”. You have to keep testing and figuring out the right message which would resonate with the market you have chosen. Only once you understand those conversations, can you tailor your messaging and “Go-TO-Market” strategy to dominate a market.

Sometimes the first market you choose may not have the need you first thought it would have because the underlying “infrastructure” is still weak. The SaaS solution you have designed for a specific market doesn’t take off because the internet speed in that market is poor. So you have to rethink your “Go-To-Market” .

The moment you try to look at multiple markets you end up compromising on the depth of your engagement. This opportunity cost is very high. Since you are trying to take multiple positions simultaneously in different segments of the market you end up weak in all of them and you don’t get the opportunity to dominate any one of them.

There’s nothing stopping you from dominating one market and moving to the other but if you try to dominate all segments simultaneously you will not succeed.

For all Product Managers in the making or already there keep this fundamental at the top of your mind always – Only Market to Start – Always

Till next time then

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing Stamina

Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, persistence, Positioning, Product Management

I had heard this word for the first time about 2 years back in one of Dean Graziosi’s books or training seminars. I heard this again today while I was doing the Breakthrough DNA training, from Dean Jackson.

I have pre-dominantly come from the technology background where typical deal cycles are around 3-6 months. Being B2B, these are not impulsive purchases where people are not bothered about the risk with low value items.

In this scenario it takes months and months of messaging, following through, which results in leads getting generated.

Even after the leads come through its not going to result in an order.

Its your persistence to keep following up with the leads on a regular basis because sometimes it could take months for these customers to decide. This persistence is what both these gentlemen call as Marketing Stamina.

To ensure Marketing Stamina you need content to keep adding value to your prospect. But you also need to have cash flow to ensure you survive while this process is going on.

This is where the economics of lead generation and lead nurturing come in. You need to be clear how much money has to be spent to get a lead to come into your funnel and how much time the lead stays in the funnel before they buy (not necessarily from you). During this time you have to keep nurturing these leads.

This is different from the concept of Life Time Value. Life time value is about long term profits from a customer and the referrals. However the economics of lead gen and lead nurturing are more related to cash flow today.

So based on your economics and what you can afford to spend you choose the media for running the message to your prospects for both lead generation as well as for lead nurturing. You can’t run out of money or stamina because that is how you will build a long term business.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Larger the choices – less is the chance for for success

differentiation, Marketing, messaging, Product Management, segmentation

When you have multiple choices on how your product/service can be used , the lesser the chance of you being able to dominate the market. Its like when my wife went to a food store in Toronto, she was overwhelmed with the number of choices for just cornflakes from just one brand. She couldn’t make a decision and she came back without buying anything. Sometimes less choices help the customer.

When you try to target multiple markets – which is different types of customers – at the same time, your messaging becomes blurred. Its like saying I sell condos, farmhouses and also industrial plots. This way you cannot be considered an expert on anything. If you are not considered an expert or a specialist, you are A Commodity. The only way to differentiate a commodity would be price.

So if you do have multiple choices to target a given market – go after them one by one. Segment the market into as fine a piece as possible. Dominate one segment and move to the other but be seen as an expert in each.

Companies like P&G, Unilever etc do this best. They have soaps which are targeted for white clothes and then they have variants within this. Then they have soaps for specialising in stain removal and they create variants within that.

If these multi-billion dollar organsiations who have so many choices of going to the market, still choose one market at a time, then for small companies its absolutely imperative that you only choose a single market first and then move into other categories.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Competition is good – Part II

competition, differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation, value proposition

Yesterday I spoke about why competition is good for you.

Today we will look at what you need to be aware of in your competition.

In the technology space if you’re competing with a big player, you need to first of all be aware that they have a large customer base and they an ecosystem already in place. This could be the software developers, the reseller partners etc.

Due to this you get to know what is the surrounding “infrastructure ” that needs to fall in place, to make your product/service successful.

However going head-on into competition is never a good idea.

Each competitor would also have multiple areas of the market that they neglect because they’re not big enough for them to invest in.

Look at some of those and create segments and value proposition for dominating those before you decide to get into something else. Always get into the niche with an agenda to Dominate.

From a customer perspective also, since customers prefer to avoid taking risks, don’t try to initially target the same type of customers who have made your competitors successful because they will use you to get discounts from the leaders.

Competition is a very good learning experience and gets you prepared to Not do the same mistakes which the competitors have made.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!