Conifer Consulting

Talking to Your Customers – A Survival Strategy

This is a post from guest blogger Jennifer Berkeley of The Insight Advantage who is a well-respected market researcher in Silicon Valley.  Jennifer has meaningful insights on how to talk to your customers - especially in these tough times.  I thought her thoughts would be of interest to you all. You can reach Jennifer at: JBerkley@TheInsightAdvantage.com.  Here is what Jennifer has to tell us:

Launching Products in a Social World

by Reena Kapoor

Many of our clients ask us this: What do all the new social media tools and vehicles mean for launching new products?  At Conifer Consulting a number of our projects involve developing go-to-market strategies and plans for our clients.  Increasingly the strategies and plans we develop take account AND advantage of these new vehicles to engage in a two-way conversation with prospects and users. Why do we do this? Because -

• It's essential - if you don't, someone else surely will and guess what? users are out there talking, discussing, creating already; so whatever you do, don't ignore the conversation
  
• It's ubiquitous - you may think your users are not engaged in this way, think again...
  
• It takes resources - despite what everyone may tell you, it is not FREE. 

Crowdsourcing! A powerful new tool in your marketing arsenal

by Reena Kapoor

I am hosting the next Product Marketing & Management Roundtable for the NorCal BMA on November 19th in Palo Alto on this terrific and interesting topic. I urge you all to attend this breakfast roundtable because it promises to be a real eye-opener.  I've been watching this area and was struck by its power and potential with Netflix's recent foray into this (and take a look at Waze). But Crowdsourcing has much greater potential than just for product development.  So if you want to come learn more about it now is your chance to do so, from two industry veterans! 

Details here:  http://norcalbma.org/programs/productmarketing_html

Inviting you to Product Marketing & Management Roundtables

by Reena Kapoor

I invite you all to the Product Marketing & Product Management Roundtables for the BMA in Northern California.  I am going to be hosting these starting October 15th.  These are typically held as breakfast meetings in Palo Alto on the 3rd Thursday of every month.

It's that Target Market again...

by Reena Kapoor

Lately I've been advising a couple of different companies who are either introducing a new product or contemplating a new market. Invariably the question comes up how should we think about which markets to enter.  Simple answer: wherever you can maximize your opportunity!  Well not so simple really, when you start thinking about it. 

Launching your Product: What to Avoid

by Reena Kapoor

I've worked with many clients to help bring new products (and services) to market and even when the offering has real value to offer and a strong, differentiable place to occupy in its universe, I find some common mistakes get in the way. Often a launch that can be great, is simply good or worse, mediocre.  Such an undesirable - and in many cases, undeserving - fate can be avoided. I offer here a check-list of some of the most common mistakes I've observed. These are based on my experience helping consumer-focused companies but they apply just as well to business-to-business (B2B) enterprises:

Authenticity: the new consumer sensibility

by Reena Kapoor

An excellent talk on TED by Joseph Pine on What Consumers Really Want. He talks about how we've evolved from economy that was based on commodities, to goods, to services and now its about creating and selling experience.  In this context, authenticity is the new consumer sensibility and it's what consumers want to experience.  We're hearing this with social networking/web 2.0 taking off as well.  But the question remains: what is authenticity and how do we (as businesses) render it effectively?

Recent Interview with Center for Ethics & Entrepreneurship

by Reena Kapoor

I was recently interviewed by Prof. Stephen Hicks of the Center for Ethics & Entrepreneurship about marketing and related issues for entrepreneurs.  The publication and interview are targeted at students at the center but I thought some of the content may be of interest to you. 

Here is the link: http://www.ethicsandentrepreneurship.org/20090126/january-2009-issue-of-kaizen/

Hope you enjoy it.  I would appreciate any thoughts and/or feedback.

CPG brands: Discerning your website audience

by Reena Kapoor

Recently I advised a consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand on their brand website strategy.  This is a non-trivial question because often what gets lost is not just the content but also the true audience for such a website.  How many times have you looked for the website of your favorite consumer good brand and arrived there only to find that while it has an abundance of information, you simply cannot find what you need? Often this is because the website is trying to say too many things to too many people.  A website offers a tempting podium to tell the whole world about your fabulous brand and it’s hard not to get distracted. 

Partners Revisited – Seven Watch-Outs

by Reena Kapoor

Jeff Thompson, my partner at Aventi Group, and I recently worked on a project where we helped an important client revisit and optimize their channel strategy. The problem was that our client who sells directly and indirectly to the SMB segment, had partnerships agreements in place with over 9000 partners.  But what they did not have is a clear picture of which partners were performing or even active.  Note that this is a client for whom the SMB segment (yes I know it is not one monolithic segment) is key and selling through partners is very important. Also our client is a leader in understanding this segment and providing incentives for making their partners successful in selling to SMBs.