02 Mar Why testing your message is essential to optimise your sales success.
In the current economic climate, which is extremely different to the past few years, B2B technology companies have recognised that unless you’re moving forward, you’re going backwards. So they have become powerhouses of innovation, developing new products and searching for tangential markets to expand into and make their mark.
However, whether you want to launch a new product to your existing market or expand into a new area, you can spend a significant amount of time and money finding out if there is a gap in the market.
Suppose you discover that your new product isn’t such a great fit for your existing market or the new territory you want to expand into isn’t interested in what you have to offer. In that case, you’re back to square one with nothing to show for the effort you’ve expended and the marketing budget you’ve spent.
Is there a quicker, cheaper, more effective solution to test whether your new product is needed or a new market is open to your product, service or solution?
The benefits of market message testing
Tom Peters is renowned for saying, ‘There might be a gap in the market, but is there a market in the gap?’
When B2B technology companies want to launch a product or expand, they will often engage domain consultants and advisors, and study analyst reports to gauge whether there is a need they can address. Though this is undeniably useful, dipping your toe in the market through direct message testing can quickly identify:
- If you are too late to the party and your competition have cleaned up
- Your solution may not be a good fit for the market you’d like to expand into
- There may be other barriers to entry you aren’t aware of
What is market message testing?
It is taking a message to market directly and through direct conversations assessing how the message is received and if it is gaining traction. It is a very efficient and fast way to test how well a product or service will perform in a given market. Using a short hyper-focused campaign enables you to contact people of all levels in your target market directly and to discover if your product or service could be a way to alleviate problems and pain your market is experiencing.
The goal is to speak to senior decision-makers who will often have the final say on purchasing high-end solutions. However, initial conversations with more junior staff and directors PAs can give you a lot of the background information that you will need to make your case at the C-suite level.
These other members of staff tend to be less guarded than their senior colleagues and are often happy to talk about pain points and frustrations they experience that your product or service could solve. Additionally, they can often point you to the senior person in charge of the decision to purchase and provide you with contact details or an introduction to the director’s PA or assistant.
Market message testing can give you a rapid answer on whether to proceed with an expansion, as happened with a client we worked with who wanted to expand into a new region. Within six weeks, we had discovered that not only was their main competitor in place with established relationships, but that there was minimal appetite for their solution.
Another client had developed a product for the financial services industry that reduced the cost of managing certain types of policies by almost three quarters. Once we established a company was managing these policies, it was straightforward to arrange appointments for our client to meet with senior decision-makers as their innovation offered such significant cost savings. The campaign was a success and generated 25% qualified leads across the target market and put several million into the client’s pipeline.
More direct market message testing like this takes the pain and guesswork out of deciding whether to market a new product or service or expand into a region you’re unfamiliar with. It is cost-effective and can give a rapid answer, often in as little as three months, on whether there is a viable market.
Finally, it is essential to recognise the difference between authentic market message testing, which relies on speaking to contacts at all levels, unlike telemarketing, whose goal is to make a certain number of outbound calls, irrespective of their success.
At Incognate, we focus on market message testing that helps to define, refine and test multiple propositions to deliver a greater level of certainty and potentially save you time, resources and marketing budget. If you’d like more information on our market message testing service contact us today
