Innovative Direct Marketing Ideas

New companies are perhaps the most exciting and the most dangerous on earth. They are the product of great ideas, observations brilliant, tenacious determination, perseverance and risk. In the implementation stage, everything is possible and everything is critical. Cash must be preserved, while the market share should grow, and therefore there is little margin for error. The competition for dollars among engineers and innovators to the customer-marketing is often intense – both parties gain when neither party dominates, but is fragile balance to maintain even the level executives led by both sides. So, with this offer Our five rules of the road for its commercialization in start-ups. This has nothing to do with the way to market. It has everything to do with the way that behaves as a company needs to define and drive the marketing strategy of the company.

1. Learn to make a decision. I know a COM startup executive who participated in weekly strategy meetings for six months with the CEO, CFO, CTO and director of sales. Each week we will discuss and sketch their ideas in detail in a white board in a room and then leave executive war thinking they were on the same page. For all the thinking and brilliant ideas, never seemed to get too far. "The board took an outside consultant," said my friend. "And the first thing he did was ask you to attend our weekly meeting of the executive staff. He looked at us for 20 minutes, and then asked a simple question left us speechless: "How to make a decision in this list? "The school of Harvard Professor Michael E. Porter said that the strategy is that you choose not to. As a startup each election and can not do is strategic. A large percentage of these decisions have much to do with spending money on marketing. But we know how to do marketing a business decision. Must agree a process, and the CEO should be the final arbiter. That's why he or she has more shares you.

2. Spin is everything you want, not a leader in the market so that no act or pass as such. I can not say how many companies phases due to money trying to market risk as leaders. These companies are usually not the leadership team has worked on the creation of companies before and assumes battle and that budgets should be delivered in the same way they did in the corporate world. This is a disastrous approach linked to the ego, inexperience, the read more business books or both. The likely outcome is the rapid disappearance of all tickets of venture capital despite its followers and fans, the coverage its great news, analyst reports and speeches.

3. Protect your cash. If you're new to the world of creating new Companies must understand that Cash is the king. No more investing your marketing budget. Use them with caution and make sure they are aligned against specific objectives, measurable to the business. If these goals are not clear, pull the large red emergency stop immediately and break your investment marketing. There may be some appeal to the teeth in a high, but if your advertising agency or public relations agency or an agency of social media are the only ones to wonder about the strategy, something is very wrong and is about to happen with them precious cash on tactics that probably are not aligned with what the company needs to do to succeed – and their investors will probably hurt your site's CEO.

4. Practice guerrilla war. To start, you are small and insignificant. Their resources are limited and its business objective is most likely survive. If you dominated the first three points here, you are in an enviable position. How – as a loser – fight, much less win? Understanding the competition is part of battle: The market leaders generally defensive struggle. Direct competitors are trying to gain market share of the market leaders. Smaller companies established flank are looking for large companies and companies in the phases have to find a niche that can have as a base for future expansion so they can move to the next level and flank leaders.

5. Learn OODA. This is not a new martial art. This is what the army teaches soldiers to in any new situation. OODA is an acronym for observe, orient, decide and act. If you participate in the battle against larger, better fortified competitors you need to learn to read the situation and react faster than the next type to survive. This is what OODA is designed to do. You collect information (observed), form a view on the unmet needs of customers and / or intentions of competitors (East), make decisions and act accordingly. The cycle is repeated continuously. The aggressive application and understands that the process gives a company an advantage over a competitor who is merely reacting conditions that occur or have little knowledge of the situation.

So there you have it. Five marketing practices that help beginning to join the ultimate goal – survival.

Bill Bellows is a Partner at 3Point Communications, a global communications consulting firm specializing is creating content-centered public relations campaigns for technology brands. Contact at bbellows@3pointcommunciations.com or visit http://www.3pointcommunications.com

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