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. 

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:

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. 

Finding a home for Product Management

by Reena Kapoor

Product Management is a key function in any company involved in innovation; and that includes all the tech companies I have the opportunity to advise.  And often I ask myself this question: where in the organizaion should this function reside? More often than not the choice posed is: Should product management report into Marketing or Engineering?

Consumer Product Management & Other Follies

by Reena Kapoor

I've worked in consumer product management in a few different industries — tech and non-tech — and want to talk about that I've observed about successful product management.  Even that terminology "tech vs. non-tech" in itself is telling.  I started my career nearly 18 years ago in the new product development function at Procter & Gamble (P&G). We defined requirements and developed the detergent formulas that would go into products like Tide, Cheer, etc. And while that was not a "hi tech" job, it was very driven by technology — AND consumer need.