Product Marketing: What’s Your Strategy?

F. Scott Fitzgerald scholars often criticize articles written about celebrities or politicians rising from the metaphorical dead. It’s not that they have some guttural dislike for the prose—it’s that they often misquote the author in the process. You’ve probably seen the line before in any one of a number of stories on the matter: “As F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, there are no second acts in America…not quite true.” For those of us Fitzgerald fanatics, the referent line is actually used twice in the author’s works—originally in an essay titled “My Lost City.” The line actually reads: “I once thought that there were no second acts in American lives, but there was certainly to be a second act to New York’s boom days.” The substance, of course, suggests that Fitzgerald acknowledged that there are indeed second acts.

In a recent article from Forbes (which, by the way, seems at least mildly guilty of the quotation-skew noted above), an opinion piece argues that the second act in America—at least with regard to business ventures—is indeed dead. The contention is somewhat compelling. If you look at the modern-day start-up climate, rare is the situation where anyone other than an extraordinarily gifted person sees early success (as an example, the author notes that huge venture capital dollars often go to students with 800 SAT scores and a Stanford education, not to run-of-the-mill guys and girls).

Note: The article, this humble author believes, slightly misconstrues the nature of a second act. It uses a number of examples of individuals that were never considered ‘standout’ that went on to great success. This is not quite a second act. If the person never saw fame or success initially, then the surge is more of a first act. A second act is more appropriate for the highly successful who then see a fall from grace and try to grapple back. Literary minutiae aside…

The article makes an interesting point that’s transferrable to marketing and communications. Your business has to come out strong from the beginning. If it falters early—or if its strategy isn’t nailed down from the start—then it could see that stratospheric fall that forces it into a second act. And while the nature of that phrase’s existence is debatable, it seems we can all agree that we’d rather be successful the first time around and never have a fall in the first place. So, what can your business do to help ensure that? Here are a few tips.

Test Your Brand

Start-ups are a lot like advertising firms (unfortunately). They come up with what they think is a great idea, but then they don’t do enough testing of said idea to see whether it will actually work, or whether it needs modifications. This is where research is key. Whether it’s focus groups, modified experiments, or large-scale surveys, knowledge is power—and when it comes to business, knowledge is money. Your brand will be your audience’s first foray into your product. Make sure it’s conveying the right things. While you may perceive it in a certain way, there’s no guarantee that your target demographic sees it the same. Fix the kinks now, and you won’t have problems later.

Gauge the Market

We can’t even tell you how many times a company has approached us wanting to roll out a certain idea, and then we’ve discovered that either another company is working on something similar, or that the financial climate is particularly attuned to rejecting such an idea at the given time. That’s where our expertise in forecasting and data analysis comes into play. It can be far too easy, when you’re heading to market, to put blinders on and miss many of the signs that point towards ultimate demise. It’s better, then, to equip yourself with all of the knowledge at your disposal and then make decisions from there. Typically, our data will reveal that while a certain time may not be optimal for a product release, a future date may be fairly ideal. If you don’t have a research and forecasting team on board (which most early-stage companies don’t, and many established brands were founded too early to realize the importance of these), consider out-sourcing. For instance, at Axiom, we have an entire department dedicated to forecasting and research.

Be Nimble

Don’t let yourself get to a second act by listening to the things that may derail your first act. In other words, the two tips listed above are only as good as your ability to respond and adapt. In those pre-launch stages (whether you’re launching a product, a campaign, or even a business), your ability to acclimate and adjust to the knowledge you’ve gained will be crucial to your longevity. In other words, if you find out your brand isn’t what you thought it was, then do something about it. Figure out where the disconnect is and then find out what people actually want to see—then do it. The same goes for forecasting. If you discover that a certain rollout time is not ideal, then determine a better course of action—whether that means introducing the product or campaign at a different time, or making adjustments to it that better speak to the particular problem at hand, your ability to be nimble will be the key to ultimate success.

Want to learn more? Shoot Mike Reiber an email at mreiber@axiomcom.com.