A VC in Vacationland

In my two previous posts on start up marketing, The Basics and Capabilities & Technologies, I examined the fundamentals of developing a successful marketing initiative for your new (or established) company.

Developing value-creating content for professionals who may be interested in your products and services is just as critical as having the right technologies and processes in place to manage lead and sales streams. Often, content development is an afterthought, or reserved for time on planes or the spare weekend moment.  In reality, it needs to be a major part of your business strategy.  No matter how great your product or service is at solving client problems, if you cannot clearly communicate how the solutions create value for prospective clients, you are going to fail.

So, how should you manage your messaging to ensure that you not only have a compelling set of ideas that can create value for a customer, but also ensures consistency across multiple messaging platforms, such as speeches, white papers, webinars, case studies, etc.?  The old Marketing 101 stalwarts of defining your marketing Hook, Core Vision and Secret Sauce still should be the basis of your content development plans.

• Hook–First, you need to establish how the urgent needs among your customers can translate into key marketing messages for your products and services.  Whether it is a current fad such as global sourcing and supply chain risks or more ongoing concerns about working capital costs, you must get potential customers interested up front in how you solutions can help them be more successful.  Too often, I see marketing programs where products are chasing a solution rather than the other way around, or web sites touting product suite instead of solutions on the home page. The best marketing offense is always leading with ideas on how the company’s tools can solve customer’s current problems.
• Core Vision–The second major aspect of a content development program is understanding and clearly defining the core vision of your company and how it will be incorporated into the marketing program.  Much of the core vision development should be centered on what sets your company apart from other competitors.  Again, too often, I see "me too" or overly complex visions that only a mother could love (when was the last time you tried to explain what you do to your mother?  My mother used to just look at me after I tried to tell her what I did and say  "I hope you know what you are doing, because I don’t have the faintest idea").  Simpler always works better.  If you have to spend more that a few minutes detailing your company’s vision to a customer(or your mother), then it is too complex. If you are unclear about how to create a core vision, visit Jim Collin’s ( the "Good to Great" guy) vision building website for a free tutorial.
• Secret Sauce–The last key piece of content development is defining the "secret sauce" around your offerings.  What differentiates you from others in the marketplace?  What hurdles can you establish for competitors to jump over?  Why will prospective customers decide to buy your solution over others?  Well, let me let you in on a little secret–it’s not as secret as you think.  First, find three themes that resonate in the potential customer marketplace (most likely purloined from your existing customer issues, which you can easily gather at a lunch with them by asking them what problems your solutions are solving). Second, drive these themes very hard in your content development/marketing campaigns.  This is what will attract the customers to your solutions, as will getting existing customer testimonials on video, audio or webcasts where they speak about the themes.  Finally, reuse/reuse.  Take that white paper and turn it into five or ten monthly email tidbits for your permission-based mailing lists–focused of course on the key content themes.

In my final start up marketing Blog next week, I will delve into the interesting topic of content placement, especially focusing on the many, emerging options for on-line marketing, such as webinars, widgets, Blogs, and YouTube.  As always, comments and suggestions for improvements are much appreciated.