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read on www.innovationonline.eu (2009 April 22)
Communication plan for innovative start-ups.
By Laurence Le Masle, Director of the Green Lemon Communication agency
Promotion and communication are essential today for young innovative companies. To get known helps to sell the business' solutions, concept or services, and most of all enables the start-up to develop partnerships and attract investments, key factors for research and development.
Many innovative companies tend to carry out communication plans too early, even when they have not managed to attract investments first. It is then highly recommended to hire a communication agency or a communication manager. I offer you 7 basic pieces of advice
First : you should never hurry. Indeed, many start-ups want to “be the first on the market, be the first to communicate”. By wanting to go too fast, one risks to have nothing to communicate, or worst, to communicate messages one would not want to. It is sometimes better to wait until one's offer is really in production, rather than starting without having anything concrete to present.
Second : have a “marketed” offer of service. It is necessary to have a marketing strategy, set up upstream of any promotion campaign. This strategy helps to secure the position of the company on the market, and to avoid uncontrolled changes of situation, which could lead to distrust from the customers and harm the business reputation. It is recommended to have a strongly determined course of action which will help to gain trust from customers, future customers and partners.
Third : emphasize the value added by innovation. Consumers are today extremely solicited, or over-solicited, and it has become vital to differentiate as much as possible the specific features offered by each start-up. Those strong points, or differentiating points, have to be clear and precise.
→ Determine one's approach before competitors
Fourth : adopt a language understandable to everyone. Every industry, every work community has its own language, sometimes hardly comprehensible by everyone. It is then necessary to always try to make one's issue clear, to bring one's offer into general comprehension.
Fifth : do not hesitate to involve every employee or research team. Never forget that inside communication is as much necessary as outside communication. Colleagues must be informed and involved in the evolution and changes of the start-up, otherwise the business risks seeing its employees become demotivated or disclose false information.
Sixth : be open about your policy. With the use of Internet, every message will be remembered a long time. It is therefore for the best to be transparent, in order to avoid any message contradiction, which would harm the good reputation of the company.
Seventh : the last piece of advice is more common sense, but it is still better said: look after your customer relationship. An innovative company does not stay isolated for a very long time on the market. Various relational and marketing communication actions, communication concerning events, etc. will enable the business to secure the loyalty of customers who are highly solicited by competitors.
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