Make the next product launch prospect-driven

PBN Staff

07/05/2009

Want to hear some good news? If you are launching a business-to-business product, your job is far easier than that of the poor saps who must convince a horde of faceless, fickle and uninvested consumers to buy their new gadget or gizmo.
In their world, a new product launch requires a good amount of guesswork and elbow grease by the vat. In yours, on the other hand, your potential customers can do much of the heavy lifting for you.
Compared to end consumers, your B-to-B buyers are more insightful, interested and rational. And they are fewer in number.
They are the perfect marketing partners for you. In fact, if you don’t take advantage of their clear-headed wisdom, your new product launch is going to suffer.
But do not assume that customers are useful only in early-stage marketing. Your prospects should play a vital role in every stage of your marketing process.
Traditional product-launch methodologies don’t mesh well with the way people work now. In a business world fueled by digital technology and characterized by the free exchange of information, it makes more sense to let your prospects find you on their own timetable and spread the word about your new product organically.
Here are three ways to put your prospects to work:
&#8226 Make it easy for prospects to find and study your new product. Think less about helping your sales reps convince prospects. Think more about helping prospects find your product when they are ready. Research by MarketingSherpa shows that customers now find suppliers – not the other way around – in 80 percent of B-to-B transactions.
Business-to-business buyers like to research, analyze and make rational group decisions. You can either make their job difficult or easy. Easy looks like this: Your B-to-B prospect does a Google search using his favorite keyword, and a top hit has some content he finds interesting … which happens to be linked to your Web site. To make this work, you have to be accessible and interesting: Send out news releases full of content that will appeal to readers – and editors – of online magazines, journals and blogs. Include both a link to your Web site and the keywords your prospects will likely use in their Google searches. When prospects search, they will find articles that lead them to your Web site. If your Web site is packed with interesting presentations, videos, comparisons, etc., they could spend an hour doing the work your sales reps normally do.
&#8226 Encourage word-of-mouth marketing. A kind word about your new product from a trusted colleague or expert will be far more convincing than a spiel from your sales rep. Consider these six approaches from Adams’ e-book, “12 New Rules of B2B Product Launch”:
1. Identify and promote to industry thought leaders. Use communications to VIP editors & bloggers.
2. Promote to people already in groups – e.g., trade shows & conferences – so they can discuss your product.
3. Seek opinions from industry experts: Commission lab tests, seek evaluations, create advisory panels.
4. Gain testimonials from respected early adopters. Get advance samples in the hands of willing customers.
5. Locate the key decision-influencers at prospect companies and build relations with them.
6. Make it easy for these decision-influencers to tell their colleagues about your product, with leave-behind presentations and sales aids, e-mails with links to interesting videos and newsletters rich in content. &#8226 Let prospects help you with the new product launch message and media mix. To get the message right, Adams recommends uncovering customers’ hot buttons during the same “voice-of-the-customer” interviews you (hopefully) used to help design your new product. Then you shamelessly use their specific language in your advertising copy, as keywords to attract their Google searches, etc.
And while you’re at it, ask this simple question, “How does your company learn about new ideas?” This lets you understand your target market’s media preferences – trade shows, seminars, Web sites, e-mail and so forth – so you can optimize your media mix.
If you just put prospects to work with these three steps, will you have a great new product launch? Nope. There is still plenty of work left for you and your hard-working sales force.
But it sure makes sense to let prospects carry much of the load. And here’s the really good news: When you put your B-to-B prospects to work, they actually like it.
Basically, you are making it easy for them to do what they naturally do. They are going to research new ideas. They are going to share their opinions with colleagues. And they are going to give advice to suppliers clever enough to ask for it.
Bottom line: You will have a much better product launch when you recognize your B-to-B prospects are willing and able to help you with it. &#8226

Dan Adams is president of Advanced Industrial Marketing Inc. and the author of “New Product Blueprinting: The Handbook for B2B Organic Growth,” and the 2009 e-book, “12 New Rules of B2B Product Launch” (free for download at www.b2bproductlaunch.com/e-book).

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