Startup

Venture Financing

Venture Marketer

  

The 4-1/2 Marketing Issues

that Venturepreneurs Absolutely Must Get Right

  

By: Terry Collison,
Blue Rock Capital

 

Of all possible topics, why another article on marketing? After all, if you search Lexis-Nexis for entries related to "marketing", you will find a whole bunch of them. General business magazines present such articles on a regular basis and trade publications run articles keyed to readers in their respective industry groups. Even "small business" columns in local newspapers feature marketing as a recurring theme.

 
 

10 Ways To Get The Edge When Marketing Your Business

  

 

 

Marketing Issues for Young Growth-oriented Companies

❶ Initial marketing focus: A venture's first strategic marketing issue involves potential funders rather than customers. Without support, no company can succeed.

 

 

❷ Marketing the company vs. promoting products. A young unknown company has to be accepted within its marketplace before it can effectively market to targeted end-user customers. Young companies must be what they are. Not every prospect will value innovation and agility. But the right ones will. To find enough of the right ones, you may have to kiss a lot of frogs.

 

 

❸ Marketing had better feed selling. Once a young company is positioned, if its marketing program isn't specifically designed to fulfill its current sales objectives, its marketing effort should be re-evaluated. Only current results can create future possibilities.

❹ Exit strategy is a marketing issue. If the company succeeds and gains value, who would eventually want it (or a piece of it)? And for what reasons? A company should begin addressing this question early as part of its overall marketing effort.

 

"1/2". A niche market is not the same as a true marketing opportunity. Until a true marketing opportunity is explicitly demonstrated, the venture opportunity is not concrete. In other words, don't start marketing until you are certain that the effort makes sense... More