The success of the marketing programme in a startup is inexorably linked to the way the business is developing the product. Too complicated a feature-set or too broad a target market for instance, and the marketing effort can be compromised before it’s even out of the blocks.
Which is why it’s imperative that marketing expertise is involved through the development stage. That however, is not what most startups tend to do! Most, in my experience, will pull together a top-level marketing plan and then park much thought of execution until nearer launch. Which might seem like a good idea at the time, but it’s the single biggest reason why many startup marketing programmes fail to deliver the expected returns.
Startup management generally do this because they want to focus all their initial time and resource on product development. Which is understandably, but it invariably leaves them short of marketing expertise during the MVP phase and so, when a marketing lead finally comes into the business it’s generally after all the key decisions have been made.
That means that the marketing lead has been unable to question some of the assumptions that the business has made around their go-to-market strategy or test potential marketing initiatives. All of which is a recipe for haemorrhaging cash on underwhelming marketing initiatives.
A startup though, doesn’t want people sitting on their hands while the product is in the midst of another pivot either, so how do you manage this dilemma?
The answer is a flexible marketing resource that helps you manage the development stage without a fixed cost. This is where Marketing Service agencies should step in, but normally don’t, because it doesn’t fit into an outdated business model (even though it’s a pivotal point in the development of the long-term marketing strategy).
Agencies also need a stable of startups for this to pay-in, which is hard to secure and not that lucrative.
Most don’t have the experience at this point in development cycle that startups need anyway. These companies are usually good when you have a established brand and a reasonable budget, but they’re not so proficient when you’re transitioning through market stages and are constantly evolving your marketing requirements. They’ll also charge you for market development work, most of which you’ll already be doing through the product development process.
[This is why startup accelerators and government bodies should step in, because they can provide the resource without the overhead]
The MVP Development Framework puts a startup on the right footing from the outset. It manages the marketing requirement through existing resources until they need to ramp up initiatives. It also helps startups deploy marketing resources at the right time, as well as utilising the only time in a fledgling businesses’ development where they have the opportunity to properly test and integrate.
This is how you develop confidence in marketing. It’s also how you expand the role of the function which can be really disruptive, because it can move a new venture away from seeing marketing as a department and starts embedding marketing principles into a business from the ground up!
Click to download:
The Difference Being Disruptive – How to Develop an AI-ready Lean Marketing Structure in a StartupOr find out more by emailing Gavin McClement – gavin@novartec.co.uk
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