Market Testing for Product Launches and Start-Ups

Using Small-Scale Live Market Testing to Minimize Cost and Risk on B2B Marketing Programs

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The Task: Use agile marketing techniques for economical, small-scale market testing to determine the effectiveness of sales copy and marketing deliverables, and to assess the viability of marketing methods and media.

Project Execution: Learn how to:

  • Minimize costs and risks on marketing programs by using fast-turnaround market testing techniques to measure response from prospects in your market;
  • Use agile testing techniques to open new markets and sales opportunities for your company’s product or service
  • Use agile market testing to test new product promotions, pricing offers, and product concepts before full-scale production;
  • Create effective, targeted prospect lists and marketing collateral for your market testing programs.

Benefits to You: Significantly reduce the cost and risk of marketing programs for lead generation, new marketing channels and campaigns, and for launching your company’s product in a new market.


Course Module Description: Market Testing for Product Launches and Start-Ups

B2B marketing is expensive and risky: Companies often commit to costly, large-scale online and print advertising, e-mail, direct mail, and other outbound lead generation programs without even knowing if they've targeted the right prospects who can buy their products, if their copy or content will motivate these prospects enough to learn more about their product or contact a salesperson, or if the marketing activity was even viable or cost-effective.

Because of this, many companies waste a significant share of their marketing budgets without even trying to reduce their costs or the risk of failure. This is especially true for companies launching new products, entering new markets, or running a new marketing program for the first time.

Use market testing to refine your marketing projects before scaling them up: You can significantly reduce the risk of costly failures in your marketing program by testing these activities first on a smaller scale at lower cost, carefully assessing the results, and adapting these projects as needed for the next iteration of your test until you can achieve a more acceptable response rate.

This module covers the real-world, step-by-step process of live, small-scale market testing of copy and prospect targeting, used for any type of marketing project. Small-scale testing helps you keep your marketing costs low while getting the vital feedback you need to refine your product's sales copy, positioning, content, tactics, and prospect targeting to either optimize response and expand a specific marketing project, or shift to other marketing activities generating better response.

Next: What Will I Learn? (Click Tab Above)

In this module, you will learn:

  • The critical reasons why testing is important for marketing programs, especially for new marketing programs for a start-up or new product launch;
  • The two-stage process for conducting informal and formal market testing for strategic product positioning, key benefits used in sales copy, and specific marketing activities;
  • Why failure is an acceptable—and necessarypart of your early test marketing efforts;
  • How to find and develop prospect and key contact lists for your early test marketing efforts;
  • How to prepare "rough and ready" prototype marketing collateral, such as brochures and sales flyers, for your early test marketing programs;
  • How to conduct market research interviews of key prospects to gather the information needed to refine and further develop sales copy and marketing programs and deliverables;
  • How to plan and execute small-scale marketing programs to test sales response;
  • Why, when, and how to make the key strategic, product, and market changes to increase sales response to your product and its marketing program;
  • How to plan, develop, and execute the most important early, small-scale marketing activities to test the sales response of your marketing program;
  • Key sales support activities required to support your company's sales team in their early selling efforts.

You can also buy this module as part of our special Agile Marketing Bundle, which includes our Start-Up/Product Launch Marketing and Marketing and Sales Turnaround modules, to help you test, launch, and turn around marketing programs for a B2B start-up or new product launch.

Check the Course Module Overview at right for detail on topics covered in this module . . .

Next: How Can I Use It? (Click Tab Above)

Experienced, knowledgeable B2B marketing professionals use trade shows to help their companies:

  • Generate new leads for sales: Well-planned marketing promotions executed before, during, and after the show build traffic at the show, generating measurable response and helping marketing professionals support their sales teams as they convert the prospects they've met at the show into new customers;
  • Launch new products: Trade shows are excellent opportunities for launching new products, to generate new leads and publicity for your product launch and prepare for future follow-up;
  • Generate new business opportunities and product orders: When marketing professionals effectively plan, develop, and execute a trade show opportunity, they set the stage for drawing interest and attention from industry contacts at the show, for major account sales, new joint ventures, and other new business opportunities; in some industries, companies generate substantial product orders direct from their industry's major annual trade show event.

This module provides the proven, step-by-step techniques required to plan, develop, and execute effective trade show marketing programs, to make your company's trade show program a measurable investment in higher sales and new revenues for your sales team.

To Review Course Module Topics, Click Tabs at Right . . .

Includes printed workbook, module review .PDF, and online skill-builder, review, and examination.

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To Review Course Module Topics, Click Tabs at Right . . .

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