Question

Topic: Other

Need Advice On Launching A New Online Marketing And Communications Concept

Posted by Anonymous on 6/23/2004 at 12:47 PM ET 500 Points
What is the Best way to launch a new online marketing/communications product?

We are a small company that has developed what we think is a great product and we are stuck on how to move forward. ecentral is a Direct to Desktop marketing concept that we believe solves many of the problems surrounding online marketing, spam, and email filters.
The idea is to take the your company website and content directly to the customer. The product is easy to implement, non-intrusive; permission based and delivers fresh content whenever the end user wants it. We believe the concept fits best where the target audience already has a relationship and trusts the provider (alumni associations, trade organizations, clubs, catalogers, etc) and the provider has information that is useful and valuable to the audience.

We are in the very early stages of marketing and quite honestly fumbling around with how we can best present the concept and who would be the best market to target. At the time we have been scheduling the presentations; several of our potential clients have wanted their IT people present. We have found that the IT people generally believe their customers/members do not need any sort of assistance in getting to the information on their website. I believe that this is because technical people have a good grasp and understanding of the Internet and know how to get around on it. On the other hand the responses from non-technical people has been extremely favorable.

We have developed a module for the Promotional products industry. We did an email mailing to approximately 40,000 distributors and using an offer of the first 50 to register get the program free. We have had approximately 400 downloads and in a month have not had any technical support issues arise. The mailing was about 4 weeks ago and we are about to do a survey to see what people think about the concept.

I know everyone is very busy and under extreme time constraints. One of the major challenges has been getting the two factions to commit to, or at least take the time to test ride eCentral and see its intrinsic value. Some other concerns seem to be:
· The fact that it is a relatively new concept and there is concern about ongoing performance.
· Because it will be distributed to the everyday person who may have little or no computer operating experience technical support may be higher than normal.
· How do we know people will load it on to their computer
· How can we get them to use it frequently
· The product is modular and extremely flexible and this can be overwhelming and give the impression of being complicated.

The following is a link to the website we have developed to help in our efforts to present eCentral https://www.cliq-on.com/ We have put together online tutorials, online tours, free demo downloads and other collateral materials but have had difficulty getting past the demonstration stage.
Any help or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
Bob Lazor
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 6/23/2004 at 5:01 PM Member
    When I read this, my thought is that you are trying to create another Pointcast (a dot com from the started in 1996 that pushed information and advertisements to end users). They are no longer in existance, shutting down in 2000 (even after having a user base of almost 10 million). Here is a basic story on them
    https://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20000330S0013

    Might be worth learning all you can about bthem so you can understand the strengths and weaknesses of the business model, and see what you can do to avoid the same fate.
  • Posted by SRyan ;] on 6/23/2004 at 5:34 PM Member
    Bob, you wrote:

    "We are a small company that has developed what we think is a great product and we are stuck on how to move forward."

    Did you have any customer input before or during the development process?  No?  My company was guilty of that crime a year ago, and we ended up going back to the drawing board.  But the second time around, we enlisted help from a handful of companies in our target market, and our new product looks like it'll be a big hit.

    It's never a good strategy to imagine a cool product, build it, then look for customers to try/buy it.  You almost have to reverse that process to succeed!

    When I look at your site and read about the product's features, I have a hard time imagining who would really want this.  Let me put it another way:  I know that I wouldn't download the tool.  I'm wary of installing anything on my PC nowadays, actually.  Your dashboard looks like another unnecessary window that will slow me down.

    However, you do have a couple of good product components that might be worth a surgical separation!  Pop-up blocking, for example, might be a POPular utility for the masses.

    By the way, THANK YOU for providing so much detail in your question.  You'll get some high-quality input from the experts here, I'll betcha.

    -- Shelley
  • Posted by Pepper Blue on 6/23/2004 at 6:28 PM Member
    Hi Bob,

    In the pre DotBomb era there was a company called NeoPlanet, based out of Tempe, Arizona, that did something very similar to you.

    They crashed and burned, reinvented themselves, then crashed and burned again.

    Interestingly enough their website is still up:

    www.neoplanet.com

    I think it would be worth your time to check out their history, especially their first incarnation (before Viassary), lots of lessons to be learned from them.

    I hope that helps.

  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 6/24/2004 at 11:33 AM Member
    I will download the program and test it out. After reading all the posts, it's sounds similar to geoshell.

    Even though the question has been closed, I will follow -up and give my opinions anyway.

    Stay tuned!
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