Services we provide to promote your products, services or company image ...
 | Business planning |
| Metrics: designing and building measurement systems for marketing and sales |
| Evaluate profit impact on marketing/sales plans |
| Develop measurable strategies and plans |
| Place value on marketing intangibles |
| Positioning for company and products |
| Competitive analysis |
| Industry intelligence |
| Product and market mix and fit analysis |
| Inbound and outbound marketing balance |
| Web page content, design or update |
| Product specification and feature development |
| Product launch |
| Go-to-market strategies |
| Branding |
| Collateral development plan |
| Product presentation |
| Promotion, social network and advertising strategies |
| Business development strategies |
| Sales channel design and development |
| Key account development |
| Coaching: marketing, sales, management, leadership |
and many more ...
With over 35 years experience marketing high technology products and services, we know technology market factors, factors that appeal to technology buyers, and the processes necessary to sell to them.
Silicon Valley continues to grow as a diverse technological business community. Engineering and manufacturing for computers, disk drives, semiconductors, solar, internet and other high technology products are developed here. Software companies involved in internet have taken a strong position within the area. A marketing company in this area must deal with technology evolution, product development, marketing mix and worldwide reach — we can.
We provide in-depth marketing, sales and management services to companies interested in sophisticated market presence. We develop market and customer-group profiles and strategic target marketing plans with emphasis on a spearhead approach to market entry . We identify key appeals for product and service whose features bolster margins and benefit the customer, assist with collateral and web page development and help define sales organizations selling needs by developing sales channel profiles. If a sales channel is needed, we help organize and define meaningful channels through direct, partner, OEM, distribution structures or a combination of structures — you reach the customer.
We address ongoing change by contributing to the infrastructure of businesses and technology companies. Change is inevitable requiring vision, organization and leadership to keep the ship tacking correctly. When change is needed, employees need to know the company vision is clear, they will be included in the future and trusted management leadership is in place. Training and coaching are integral components of employee and leadership development. What if you need to implement change, but people in your organization don't know what to do and are not willing to follow? We've seen it happen and can help.
To develop and grow, a company must be partners with the customer, develop marketing messages based on strong appeals, and focus on developing a good, targeted customer base with key accounts and compatible distribution. Customers expect quick response, involvement with product decision, and a working relationship with you, their supplier. Key people from your industry must be included to bolster technical credibility to your business and products. If you are not credible with the gurus, you cannot lead an industry. By having involved interest groups help focus you on key meaningful features with strong appeals you follow the industry needs and trends, but don't sit on your laurels when a blog may open new views on market needs. We help mold features and specifications with customer appeals for products and services. This will quickly improve the speed at which products must be developed.
We work with you to integrate marketing thinking into your organization so each functional group adds to overall market effectiveness. The benefit to you is one team with market and customer oriented thinking and better efficiency producing revenue. As applications continually push the capability of a product or service, companies need important market factors and appeals internalized and understood by people who control technical disciplines, develop products and services and promote them to the market. A necessary element of change management is to accommodate the ever increasing customer and application expectations and to provide products and services that clearly focus on customer wants and needs today plus lead to future business. Companies work best when everyone is focused on the market, the customer, the benefits offered and the future.
With extensive marketing practical experience, we can help with leadership and management issues to get the most effective and efficient use of people and resources. The right leadership, management and reporting structures make a company move forward with all participants pulling in the same direction, eliminating as much internal strife as possible. Setting a management framework that allows people to be productive and cooperative while being held accountable for their work produces fluid operations — let's get your groups moving together.
Having vision and setting objectives to reach goals utilizing strong market intelligence and meaningful product design is paramount. Getting the right focus is critical; to loose and you don't know where you are going; too tight and you see the light coming straight at you but ignore the train. Good vision has the right focus. With vision, planning, leadership and management, your objectives and goals focus on the key product market fit, now and into the future — let's discuss your future.
Services
Plan your service offering with customer needs and appeals that will capture and hold customers for the long run. Often services have elements that customers don’t see or touch. So, you have to add tangible elements and high touch attributes to the marketing mix. Do it with care and planning to get the right results. Focusing on the service appeals generates thrust for promotion and sales.
Marketing
Positioning: Positioning in a complex market requires analysis, market direction, and a lot of gut feel from many people. In a positioning exercise we take the time to evaluate markets, map the players, estimate the future of the industry and place your company and products in position to give optimum benefit in sales and profits.
Branding: Branding cements the product into position giving your product and service a unique identity and position that stays in the mind of the customer — set the position and brand it in. It allows you to avoid the traps of line extension which can be painful if not controlled, and creates pride within your organization that allows your people to promote and sell with confidence.
Appeals: One single word that totally describes marketing. It's the key to how a customer relates to your company and your product. How does your company and your products and services appeal to the customer? Especially important for technology companies is connecting core technology, specifications and features. using appeals statements that impress a desired image that the technology will serve. into the mind of the customer. This is high technology selling — not doing it relies on chance.
Product Launch: With over 33 years marketing and sales experience and having released 15 products into major markets, our experience in new product development and release assures that your new products will have the best possible chance to fit into target niche markets. No product makes it to market without many complex projects going on within your organization. Then, all at once, everything must come together, align, focus on the market and move forward for good product launch — it's not easy! But, we've done it more than 15 times. Our experience with product development and launch has developed a dogmatic set of principals to drive that focused launch. We can share that experience with your firm as either managing the product launch or as a consultant to your group.
Product Definition: Product market fit is the key to developing a product for the market. If your product is defined with market fit and customer profiles in mind, chances for success are greatly increased. If you rely on technology to be the driving force in today's market —good luck. Knowledge of the customer’s needs, wants and the influence of critical factors for a new product along with positioning and market timing are key issues for new products. We provide research and evaluation for best possible product feature set that will appeal to the target market.
Revamping: Once a product has served the market for a period of time, application pressures, market shifts and competition. What are they? How do they affect the product? How do you address changes? Do you revamp the product or change the market approach? All these questions come into play. Having extensive experience with product marketing issues allows us to provide research and consultancy to adjust the factors that need change, leave factors alone that aren't broken and focus sales efforts into productive areas using relevant appeals.
Product Life Cycle: As a product goes through its life cycle, those changes necessary to keep it going are important. We study the market, compile and prioritize key issues and make recommendations for changes and adjustments. When it is time for a product to end, we can help with ending strategies. Often this entails getting long-time users to accept other products. The best strategy, in our opinion, is to have the replacement ready to launch with planning on how to get existing product sales to overlap with the new product without losing sales while the customer waits for the new product — timing.
Product, market and industry intelligence research gets relevant information for your company on market conditions, product features, services, industry influences and competition. Here are some key elements:
· Determine customer's attitudes toward specific appeals.
· Determine key selling points that influence customer buying decisions.
· Determine key features and benefits of potential products and services before investment and design dollars are spent.
· Determine customer satisfaction with existing, competitive and proposed products and services.
· Assess a important appeals, attitudes and values of a specific target market.
· Assess trends that will influence future products, services and buying intentions.
· Assess competitive products, services, strengths, weaknesses, niches, target markets, size and more ...
We can develop measurable strategies, realistic market metrics, and explain managing intangibles. Hundreds of metrics are cataloged in dozens of books on measuring business and marketing. A few bold writers have taken a stab at measuring intangibles by assigning an estimated value number. The good news is that some of metrics lend meaningful information to business and marketing forecasting, the bad news is that wisdom and know-how for dealing with are often shunted aside because there is no number. Trade shows are bee hives for metrics lovers, lots of things can be measured, but how do you apply a number to the value of a hallway conversation with someone you have been trying to reach for months, but they couldn't spare the time until they got away from the office at a trade show. I had the fortunate experience for five years to work for a prominent business man who owned 11 companies. When I would do a project to analyze a business or marketing situation and present wonderful metrics and forecasts, his last question was always, "What does your gut tell you?" In other words, get solid information, create good metrics, build strong contingencies, then apply experience, wisdom and common sense to evaluate the situation — we can help keep balance.