Product Demand Creation

You have a product. The product is a great idea that fills a need for a particular consumer. You feel for those consumers, you know them, you might be them. But how exactly do you get consumers to actually want the product? Said another way, how do you create demand for your product?

I found an article. It’s an oldy, but a goody. Yes, it was written only a couple of years after the recession of 2008, but the key themes of product demand creation still resonate in 2019. The article is written for Fast Company by Adrian Slywotzky who literally wrote the book on creating product demand.  This article is called The Six Secrets Of Demand Creation. Knowing that Slywotzky wrote an entire book on the subject, you can trust you are getting some great high-level cliff notes to further explore as you build demand for your product.

Here are the six (read the article or the book for more info):

1. Make It Magnetic- emotional connection with customers
2. Fix Our Hassles- study the needs of customers in multiple markets
3. Build on the Backstory- what was the problem, and how can you take that concept further?
4. Find the Trigger- what is the tipping point to get consumers off the fence? Study it; duplicate it.
5. Build a Steep Trajectory of Improvement- launch day is just the first step, immediately try to get better.
6. “De-Average” the Customer- one size does not fit all and different segments of your customer base may need slightly different problems solved or at least a different marketing narrative.

I will definitely be using some of these tips and insights as I write about my course work and help A.D. White continue to build demand for Asheville Hustle.

Testing, Testing, 1,2, 3

One of our assignments for class has been to write product assumptions. In that assignment I learned about minimum viable product (MVP). MVP is a proof of concept, the act of “getting something” out there. Some people go as far as defining it as 6-20 customers and most folks agree that by releasing an MVP, you give your company credibility. Yes, it’s important to get a product to market, but I wondered if there were some things companies shouldn’t do when launching a product.

Entrepreneur magazine is a trusty source for a lot of my research given they tailor content to start-ups and small business owners. Today wasn’t the day to let me down. Contributor Cory Levy wrote an article called, Starting Up Wrong: 6 Product Testing Mistakes You Need to Avoid. Spoiler alert, there are 6 things he says to avoid in this process and you’ll have to read the article for the details but here are the headlines:

1. Letting Bias taint, the process
2. Data problems
3. Relying on technology to test
4. Ignoring the competition
5. Waiting to ‘sell’ until it’s built
6. Leaving assumptions untested

While it’s important to get a minimally viable product to market, it’s also important to balance that with testing.

What Are You Looking at!?

As an entrepreneur you try your best to find out what’s on your customer’s minds. You send them surveys and ask them for suggestions. You might even incentivize their spending through a loyalty program like a discount card or frequent shopper bonus. So, what would you do if someone told you that you could study their behavior by installing cameras in your shop displays?

In an article for The Atlantic, Sidney Fussell exposes how Walgreens has launched “smart coolers” in major cities across the United States. These refrigerated cases can scan your buying behavior as you look upon the selection in a drink case. The author describes this as “new tech that turns your purchases, your movements, even your gaze, into data”. The main purpose of these cases is to figure out if the way a drink company, for instance, markets or displays a product influences the demographics they are targeting.

Fussell goes on to explore the legal implications of using technology that requires facial recognition as it is outlawed in several states. He also points out that this type of “smart cooler” is only one of many emerging technologies that aim to study consumers in their native retail environments.

How long before creative entrepreneurs can afford to use such technology?

Outside of Dog/Human Relationships, Does Loyalty Still Exist?

Many business publications would have you believe that customer loyalty no longer exists or at least doesn’t exist in the same ways as in past generations. Articles like this 2016 Forbes article questions how to gain customer loyalty in an age where 79% of retail consumers say they would take their business elsewhere over one bad experience. The article goes on to explain that loyalty programs and incentives help to keep consumers on the hook.

There are lots of articles in the media also claiming Millennials are “killing” products, businesses and institutions as we know it. Don’t believe me? Here’s a 2018 list of things Millennials have supposedly “killed”. Instead of villainizing the largest group of working consumers since our Baby Boomer parents, it’s important to understand Millennial buying behavior and how loyalty in the twenty teens might just look a little different. Lu Chen for Forbes explored this concept in 2017 with a piece they did highlighting how to create loyalty among Millennials. The author highlights concepts like emotional impact, frontier technology, and international markets. Maybe instead of saying Millennials are “killing” things we could talk about how industries and trends are changing, like in past generations.

Loyalty still exists; it just looks a little different.

Voice of the Customer

In the Four Steps to the Epiphany – Successful Strategies for Products that Win book by Steve Blank, he talks a lot about the customers. I fact, he probably writes the word customer more than the word product. He knows that without finding and marketing to appropriate customer groups, even the best products are destined to fail. Blank walks through several aspects of engaging customers to include:

• The customer discovery model
• Discovery
• Validation
• And Creation
• Additionally, he includes a comprehensive customer development checklist

This book is a great reference and guide for any entrepreneur who is trying to launch a business or product. Companies are doomed to fail without finding their tribe of devoted customers. And once you have those customers, it’s important not to let the brand voice dominate the voice of your best brand advocates: your customers. To drive home this point, I recommend checking out Jason Maynard’s article for Entrepreneur Magazine called, When Your Customers Are Talking, Quiet Your Brand Voice and Listen.

MacKenzie Bezos Deserves Some Credit

Last semester I interviewed Jeff Kaplan, Director for Venture Asheville. One thing he told me as advice for entrepreneurs has hung with me since that time. When asked about tactics for funding a start-up he said, “Personally, most of what I’ve done is bootstrapping, pinching pennies, and personal savings. It is really helpful to have a working spouse”.  That working spouse piece has really stuck with me. For someone in a partnership to be “all-in” and really go for their entrepreneurial dream, sacrifices have to be made. His words have especially been poignant as I keep seeing the ridiculous controversy over the divorce of MacKenzie and Jeff Bezos, billionaires and founders of Amazon. Many news outlets keep making comments about “how much MacKenzie will get in the divorce” evoking rage in every spouse who has ever silently, or not so silently supported the entrepreneurial endeavors of their significant other. I could write a laundry list of reasons why these one-sided, sexist headlines are an oversimplification of the back story of any entrepreneurial couple, but I don’t have to because Louise Matsakis, a writer for WIRED has written a brilliant piece called, MacKenzie Bezos and the Myth of the Lone Genius Founder.

For those of us who are entrepreneurs, love an entrepreneur, or find ourselves in an entrepreneurial partnership (business and/or romantic), it’s important to recognize the PARTNERSHIP. The myth of the lone genius founder is indeed farfetched and rare.