You’ve been spending years in creating the perfect product that would end all miseries and solve problems. If only your target audience would be able to know about it then you’ll have a product that would blow everyone’s minds!
So what’s next? How do you market your innovation to your target customers? How do you prepare for your marketing efforts?
Let’s face it. Marketing and promotions need a totally different species of people. Your technical staff and engineers who came up with the novel product will more than likely have less know-how on the business side of the project. let alone how to promote it to potential customers. Your engineers and technical team have been poring all their effort and time to the project that they wouldn’t even have the energy to introduce the product, let alone promote it to potential customers.
When it’s time let the world know about your breakthrough, smart entrepreneurs would tell you to go get a professional person to help you market. But always remember that you have to hire someone that has the same ideals as you. This means that you get your marketing person with the same drive, goals, and vision for your product. It would be easier for you to work with this person if you’re looking at the same goals and ambition.
The next step would be to decide whether to do your marketing campaign in-house or to sub-contract your promotional requirements. In order for you to come to the right decision, you need to consider your needs and requirements to successfully launch your innovation. Do you need a lot of support collaterals such as print brochures, catalogs, or advertising flyers perhaps? Or maybe full color printing would be more appropriate for your advertising posters? Do you need to join a trade show to introduce your new product?
Once you know what your needs are, you can now decide if it’s going to be in-house or better for it to be handled by an outside firm.
When you do decide to let your marketing staff to handle your advertising campaign, you have to factor in such elements as payroll taxes, insurance, other benefits, office space, as well as the equipment he or she will need to accomplish the task.
On the other hand, an outside firm would be more suitable not only for more complex and sophisticated campaign, but more importantly, they would be charging you a fixed rate for the project which can give you better flexibility and efficiency when it comes to costs. This is ideal for projects that you only need periodically.
The key is for you to assess your needs first. When you know what you need, you’d have a better chance of getting the marketing campaign you want for your breakthrough product.