Questions

I'm developing a new product for home to be used for specific function and with the feature to connect home to smartphones. I'll go to a new market with no competitors but the high probability to have incumbents in less than one year. We have no metrics and no best cases, so we are a bit confused about the first move!

Own the language. Anticipate what people will search for in this niche and ensure that YOU will be the majority of what they find.

Here's a concrete example. Suppose that you are launching an innovative new product for helping people quit smoking: The nicotine patch.

If you're the company behind Nicoderm CQ, then you'll enter the market with guns blazing -- a gigantic advertising budget, strong patents, smart executives, and an innovative product that people genuinely need.

Great, right? Yes, but far from perfect. Fast forward to 2013. Patents expire. Nicoderm CQ, like most pharmaceutical brands, must now compete with knockoff generic nicotine patches, offering the same product at lower prices.

As dominant as Nicoderm CQ is, thanks to their brilliant execution of a traditional marketing strategy, they have left themselves exposed to market competition in a ridiculous way.

Specifically, they don't own NicotinePatches.com or NicotinePatch.com. Instead, I do.

In effect, the latecomers to this market niche can take a shortcut to brand authority by building their brand on the most universal descriptor of the product itself. In the long run, the familiarity of "Nicoderm CQ" will wear off. That will happen pretty much as soon as the advertising dollars stop pumping in. After all, there's nothing intuitive about "Nicoderm CQ" -- particularly the "CQ". Meanwhile, people will continue searching for "nicotine patches" online even with no input of advertising dollars whatsoever.

Anticipate. Own the language.


Answered 10 years ago

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