Category: Sales & Marketing

Inventor Resource: Selling a new invention is a specialist activity. Nonetheless, there’s no reason why an inventor shouldn’t become involved in marketing. After all, the better an invention sells, the greater the business interest in future ideas.
Use this checklist to see whether your business or licensing company is using every means to sell your invention. Some sales techniques may be more suited to your invention than others, of course; but in marketing you have to look at every angle.
Please note that if you consider but reject some of the items on the checklist, ensure you have good reasons for the rejection.
Budget
There should be a marketing budget in place with accurate figures for each part of the marketing process. If you need help creating a marketing budget, consult an accountant.
Marketing budget in place.
Individual amounts within the budget approved.
Branding
Consider using a brand name for your invention. Brand names are useful marketing tools – look at the success of Virgin, for example. Brand names can create brand loyalty among customers and make the sale of future products easier.
Media Kit
It can be helpful to pass a media kit to any journalist who makes enquiries about your invention and company. The media kit can contain product details, your biography, company history, and even a product sample, if appropriate.
Market Research
Market research can tell you how successful your invention is likely to be, and if you need to make some changes.
Although market research essentially consists of asking questions and collating replies, it may be best to contract a specialist to do this. A good market research company knows who to target and exactly how to phrase questions.
Product Evaluation
Inventors and businesses sometimes neglect product evaluation. Evaluation tells you, however, how much your product will cost to produce, and how much you need to sell it for to cover additional costs and make a profit. In the marketing context, product evaluation can therefore help you decide how much money you can use for sales and promotion.
Public Relations
Public relations companies can launch and promote your invention to gain it maximum media and public exposure. It can be worth talking to PR companies to see what they can do for you.
Advertising Media
The nature of your invention may dictate the advertising media you employ. Consider advertising with the following.
TV, Radio, The Internet, Newspapers and magazines, Direct mail.
Product Placement
Product placement is particularly effective for general consumer goods, especially when linked to a brand name. Generally speaking, it involves placing your product in the public eye by sponsoring conferences, radio shows, TV programmes, and even films.
On TV dramas and films, your product may also appear in some camera shots.
Trade Fairs And Conferences
Running a stand at a trade fair or industry conference is a good way of promoting your invention, and networking with possible wholesalers, retailers, and consumers.
Abroad
Always consider the possibility of selling abroad. You need to address issues such as currency differences, export regulations, and local laws; nonetheless, the UK government can give expert advice. Contact the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).
Focusing On The Benefits
Ensure that your advertising focuses on the benefits of your invention. The benefits are what potential buyers want to read about. They need to know what problems your invention solves, and what it can do to help them.
Advertising focuses on the benefits of the invention
Flexibility
Marketing, like other aspects of business, needs a flexible approach. If sales are poor, those responsible for marketing your invention must respond quickly and positively.
Everyone involved in marketing has a flexible approach
Offers
Consider using promotional offers for your invention. You don’t need to reduce the price – you can add something free of charge, for example. If you think a promotional offer is worth looking at, try testing it first with some market research.
Marketing Plan
A marketing plan focuses attention on how to sell your invention. It should also encompass every relevant point made on this checklist. Your local business advice centre may be able to give you assistance with creating a marketing plan if necessary.
Plan written
Plan regularly reviewed
Marketing Checklist: Will it Sell? [Inventor Resource]

Article Contributed By Robbie Kellman Baxter
I’ll admit it-I’m a Facebook junkie. I also have accounts on LinkedIn, Twitter, and my college and business school communities that I diligently keep current. But I love Facebook. I love playing WordTwist with my dad, my sister and my college friends. I love reading status updates and knowing who’s organizing their sock drawer and who’s inspired by Thomas Friedman’s latest article. I love looking at photos of people’s vacations and scanned images from camps and bar mitzvahs of the 80s.
I also believe that my time on Facebook is about more than just fun. It’s actually a way of building deeper relationships with people in my professional community. People ask me all the time why I spend so much time on Facebook-and I tell them that it’s good for business. Look at who’s using it most-people just out of college and people on the cutting edge of technology-VCs, entrepreneurs, industry analysts. It’s obvious that it is the way we will be communicating in the future. So you might as well figure it out now.
Below are the top reasons my professional colleagues are staying off Facebook-with my rebuttals.
1. It’s a time-sink.
You can spend the whole day playing on Facebook. Some of my personal favorite time wasters include browsing the photo albums of acquaintances, clicking on the pages of friends-of-friends to learn about their interests, playing WordTwist, and watching funny videos. Robbie says: there are so many ways to waste time-you can waste time watching TV, or chatting on the phone-but that doesn’t mean we give up TVs or phones. Treat Facebook the way you might treat any other type of connecting activities-phone, face-to-face etc. First, make sure you only participate in ways that are enjoyable for you. Second, be disciplined about how, and how much, time is spent on Facebook.
2. It infringes on my privacy.
This is a big concern with my colleagues. What if my boss saw that my status said that I was in a job interview, or was nursing a hangover? What if a prospective client saw the photos of a girls weekend-what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas. Do I really want my grandma to know that I’m politically liberal? Certain status updates could lead to some uncomfortable conversations that never had to happen. Robbie says: Facebook has many ways to protect your privacy. You can limit your entire presence on Facebook, down to your name, to your network or just your personal friends. You can choose not to post comments or photos that might conflict with the image you choose to project. It should go without saying that posting “…hates her job” or “…is soooo wasted” should not be posted (or emailed for that matter) anywhere public.
3. It could be dangerous.
The privacy issue can go one step further into more dangerous territory. For example, there are probably dozens of scams that are based on information that is easily obtained on Facebook. We don’t know exactly what those scams are, but it is easy to imagine unsavory activities that take advantage of having our contact information, photos of loved ones and all-too frequent status updates. With all the issues around identity theft-it just seems safer to avoid unnecessary publicity. Robbie says: it is interesting to note that the Facebook vanguard, both younger generations and the older VCs and business execs working in social media, seem comfortable keeping their entire profiles available to the public-maybe we are all a little overzealous about protecting our security on Facebook-given that we leave doors unlocked, hand our credit cards to teenaged shop clerks and our car keys to valets we don’t know.
4. I prefer to stay in touch in other ways
A lot of great networkers have avoided participating in any of the social networks because, they say, they just don’t need another channel to communicate. They prefer to get together in person, or on the phone, or stay current via email. They send long newsy holiday cards and host annual pool parties-so why do they need another way to keep in touch with the same crowd? Robbie says: everyone has their preferred way to communicate-if it is important to you to be connected, you need to respect the preferences of your friends and colleagues. In addition, Facebook is a really efficient way to reconnect with people from your past-it’s quick and easy to search specific names, and you can find other friends by reviewing the friends of your friends. I’ve “found” some great old friends I haven’t seen since junior high school on Facebook.
5. It doesn’t help me professionally-it’s just for fun, and I prefer to have fun in other ways.
I do not like to network, and do not see any value in Facebook. I can’t see any professional results from Facebook. Robbie says: the value of networking goes well beyond work. If you accept that people help each other succeed professionally, and people are more likely to help those they know well, then Facebook is actually an efficient way to maintain and grow relationships with a broad group of friends and acquaintences across the globe. And knowing people’s personal and professional lives gives you a level of intimacy that strengthens the bonds.
6. I don’t want to know so much about other people, it’s creepy.
I can go on Facebook and see my cousins chugging beers at college or in-hospital photos of my client hours after giving birth. A friend of mine was uncomfortable to stumble upon photos of her rabbi partying on a Saturday night. Even if people go to great lengths to keep their Facebook page private, they have little control over what other people post. For example, I know several psychologists who are invisible on Facebook to everyone but their close friends-and yet many of them are tagged in other people’s photos. Robbie says: once you get on Facebook, you will find some people more interesting (or more creepy) than others. And you can decide whose profiles you want to follow more regularly and set preferences accordingly. Just as in real life there are people we can’t get enough of and people we’ve already had enough of-on Facebook, it takes all kinds!
7. I like to keep my personal and professional lives separate.
I spend enough time and energy at work. I don’t want to know about people’s feuds, toddlers and household projects. If I cross the line with my boss or direct reports, the relationship might get too intimate in a weird way. Robbie says: Fair enough. If you don’t want your colleagues to know you as a person, then you probably shouldn’t be on Facebook. I can virtually guarantee that as soon as you set up your Facebook profile, your colleagues will try to friend you. There is really no polite way to ignore them-because ultimately, the only reason you can give is “I don’t really consider you a friend…and FB is only for my friends”. But why would you want to keep your colleagues from getting to know you? I know so many people who carefully avoided working with friends or crossing the “colleague” line with folks at work. Once it happens, people generally find that friends are great to work with. Friends have an extra incentive to cover your back, and help you succeed. The Great Places to Work Institute has found that the single most important factor in being a great place to work is having a “best friend” at the office. And, if you have friends at work, you’ll never have to eat alone.
8. It’s too hard!
I don’t know how to post photos and don’t have any idea how to come up with the clever status updates that everyone else seems to have time to do. Robbie says: My parents and in-laws are on Facebook, as are my teenage cousins. If you’re smart enough to get online, you’re smart enough to set up and use a Facebook profile. Trust me on this one.
9. My kids will think I’m spying on them.
Facebook is for the younger generation. It was started on a college campus and was designed for students. I will look ridiculous on Facebook, and embarrass my teenagers. Robbie says: It may be hard for the teen set to believe that adults are finding tremendous value in using Facebook, but it’s true. As of February 2009, about 45% of all Facebook users were over 25, with the fastest growing demographic women over 55. And, by the way, seeing what your kids are doing on Facebook is an important part of parenting in today’s world.
10. It might send the wrong message about me and my level of seriousness.
Facebook is an activity for people who share too much about themselves and aren’t hard workers. Robbie says: some of the most intense people I know are on Facebook, including most Venture Capitalists and Tech Company executives. These people often are part of the vanguard of new technologies-the first people to use laptops, iPhones and other indispensible modern conveniences. Facebook isn’t popular with all professional communities yet-but it soon will be-at least among the professional communities where relationships give you a competitive advantage.
Facebook has been a great way to build more relationships with clients and colleagues. By using Facebook, I’m also current on careers of old friends and colleagues-in some case leading to great professional conversations and partnerships. If you have relationships with people already, wouldn’t it be nice to have an easy way to know what they’re doing professionally and what’s on their mind?
Take a chance. Establish a profile and connect with 10 friends who are already on Facebook. See if it is for you. If you don’t try, you’ll never know!
About the Author
Robbie Kellman Baxter (rbaxter at peninsulastrategies dot com) is president of Peninsula Strategies, a consulting firm that helps technology companies analyze market opportunities and risks. She has worked with industry leaders like Netflix, Yahoo! and Oracle, as well as dozens of venture-backed startups. A popular speaker on market strategy, social networking and entrepreneurship, Robbie has been quoted in the New York Times, eCommerce Times and SF Examiner. Learn more at http://www.peninsulastrategies.com

Article Contributed by Guy Kingston
The Amazon website is a master class in the dark arts of selling.
However, be warned, like the other Amazon, it is a dangerous place to be: those who go there thinking they are in control, and that they are there to observe and possibly exploit it, end up being trapped by it.
What follows is the confession of an Amazon-addict – but one sufficiently skilled in the dark arts himself to know what is being done to him, and to admire it, even as it is being done.
To begin with, Amazon provides a neat illustration of the difference between Marketing and Selling.
Marketing is everything that Amazon does to get you to visit their website – advertising, banners on other websites, links, direct e-mailing, and so on.
Selling is everything that Amazon does to get you to part with your money once you are there.
Amazon owes much of its success to its ability to lead a customer, who came with only a specific product in mind, on to other purchases. This is, of course, the equivalent of a shop display that tempts someone who came out with a definite shopping list to consider buying items he never imagined.
Having no shop window beyond a home page, Amazon makes the most of it by using affinity marketing.
In the case of a returning customer, this means Amazon try to customise his home page by plastering it with products that have been bought by other customers who have also bought things he has bought in the past.
Where nothing about a customer is known, Amazon try the scatter shot approach and fill the home page with the most popular items in general.
However, on the pages relating to specific products, Amazon zero in on the individual customer again, by references to other items in the form of “those who looked at/bought this item also looked at/bought X, Y, and Z” – with an easy one-click link to each.
Of course, one imagines that in about 99% of cases those links are ignored – but the other 1% is where Amazon makes its money.
This manipulation could be scary, but Amazon counters that by encouraging the customer to feel he is in control. The customer is invited to treat Amazon as a personal space, like a “social networking” site.
He can post a profile, rate and review products on-line, make lists, and join discussion groups. He is even made to feel part of a “community”.
The whole point is to give him the impression of a safe environment – so that he keeps coming back.
However, while it is a necessary first step for the customer to keep coming back to the website, it is not enough: the whole point is not for him to keep looking but to actually buy.
Here is the real genius of the Amazon system: they make it very, very easy to buy.
If buying each item involved filling out a form on-line, Amazon would never have survived. Amazon owes its survival and its success to the unsung Einstein of Selling who invented “One-Click ordering”.
It is so easy that it becomes addictive. It makes no difference to the sale of an item a customer really came to buy in the first place – he would have bought that anyway – but its effect is devastating when combined with affinity marketing: the customer who came to buy X decides he might was well buy Y and Z while he is there – because it takes only two more clicks of a mouse.
If any further encouragement were needed to get the customer to make those extra clicks, Amazon is the master of “artificial scarcity”: stating that only a limited number of items are left in stock can panic a customer into an immediate one-click decision to buy, rather than risk postponing until none are left.
Finally, if all this sounds frighteningly cynical, it must be said in Amazon’s favour that its after-sales service is usually – emphasis on “usually” – very good. However, this too is good salesmanship: Amazon’s strategy is not to sell to a customer once but to sell to him again and again until he becomes an income-producing asset over the years. Amazon is one of the minority of businesses who understand the great truth that keeping a customer is as important as attracting him in the first place, and that the art of selling is not selling once but selling for life.
About the Author:
Guy Kingston produces and presents the Mind Your Own Business podcast, offering free business advice to entrepreneurs and business owners. As well as audio podcasts there are more articles like this, compelling videos and a must-read blog. All at www.myobpod.com or you can network and join in discussions on the MYOB Facebook group.