Know-How Exchange : Branding

What services are your target audience already using? How does your service truly stack up to it (including the free choices)? How much does your target audience care about the extra benefits you offer? How much time/money does it save them? Can you prove it?

The other piece is the security question that Phil raises. Can you get a TRUSTe certificate?

Sounds liek you are getting into cloud computing at the right time.

It is still very early days in this space but there are already many many players in the game.

Fortunately, there are not yet too manmy customers in the game because it meeds a complete shift in thinking about how compouting works.

You mentioned a few features but it sounds like the key features are still focuissed on storage and sharing.

I believe that is not enough to attract clients.

YUou need a full featured service.

Firt: study well the competition and what they are offering, you already know the names.

Google
Microsoft
Adobe

Study the second tier players such as

centraldesktop
ace project.
linkedin?

THe problem is that ALL these services are eventually moving in the same direction - adding more and more features and copying from each other.

Just storing data is not enough - What can I do with my data once I have it in your system?
What programmes can I use?

The big battle for the centralised full featured virtual desktop is ON and the users are starting to come. I believe that the next 3 years will be critical.

5 years from now, there will be 5 players left standing, the rest will be dead.

WILL YOU BE ONE OF THE 5 ?

Sorry to be tough but you need to think far beyond just marketing a white lavbel service. You need to look at the business for the next 5 to 10 years and be ready for a major war to win loyal clients.

'Is my facebook going to become my centralised virtual desktop with all my storage and my apps inside it ??? ' maybe :))

Are you targettting the B2B sector or the B2C sector?

Are you supporting multiple langues or just English? (if English only, you are already in trouble ).

Your project sounds really exciting and I wish you all the best with it.

Good luck,

Matthew

I think you need more focus on the benefit your customers will realize when they do business with you, and less emphasis on what YOU want to DO.

Start with your primary target audience. Simply saying you want to reach "creative professionals, businesses, engineers" isn't nearly focused enough. What kind of creative professionals, businesses, engineers? Where do they live? What industries are they in? Who are THEIR customers? What do they really need? How do they make decisions? How many of these folks have you actually interviewed in depth? Do you KNOW your target audience?

If so, then you need to develop a clear positioning platform that expresses your unique reason-for-being in benefit terms ("What's in it for me?"). If not, then you should probably start with your own market research. You can outsource it to a professional market researcher, but the benefits you will get if you do it personally are worth the effort. You can always get a professional to help you plan your interviews and coach you on technique.