11. Why using VisibilityBlast will likely lead to a much bigger success than hiring a marketing consultant?
  12. What makes technology launches succeed?
  

 

Q: Who needs Visibility Blast?

A: The following companies and situations...

  • Existing technology products that are
    under performing.

  • Ground-breaking, unproven or “disruptive” and totally new technologies.

  • Start-ups that need help starting up
    (from the ground up.)

  • Publicly-traded companies with stocks that are underperforming because investors can’t understand what the product does, don’t understand the need for it, or simply feel the company is not “hot” anymore.

  • Companies that have not been in the public eye for some time and could use a visibility boost.

  • Products that need to be repositioned for new markets.

Q: How do Venture Capitalists and Investors benefit from VisibilityBlast?

A: You benefit if:

  • Your start up is about to launch a new technology that will make or break your company. You have one chance to make a great first impression and "wow" the market.

  • You're getting ready to go for another round of investment and you need to turn up the "awareness" volume to enhance the value of the company.

  • You've invested in a company that is full of smart engineers -- who don't know the first thing about positioning and effective PR. (And can’t even describe the product in plain English.)

Q: How do Businesses benefit from VisibilityBlast?

A: You benefit if:

  • You’re about to launch or re-launch a product or service that will make or break your company.

  • You’re starting a startup from scratch – and need immediate visibility and the credibility of rave reviews, reference customers and analyst endorsements in order to lure customers to try an unproven technology.

  • When you ask colleagues in the industry no one seems to know about your company or products.

  • You already have a competent internal PR team or agency, but need to “jump start” them into focused execution.

Q: What kinds of businesses can benefit from VisibilityBlast?

A: Businesses that will greatly benefit for VisibilityBlast are:

  • Startups
    You need a big blast of visibility to launch or re-launch a product, get major funding, be acquired, or conduct an IPO.

  • Small to Medium Companies
    You want to leverage a short-term boost of senior-level strategy.

  • Large Corporations
    Boost a stale marketing group into high gear.

Q: Why do most product launches end up being just a small blip?

A: Because:

  1. The four critical launch phases were not
    rigorously followed

  2. Key reference customers were not attained
    and/or nurtured

  3. The product or company positioning was simply not "newsworthy."

  4. The hard work of crafting the right story was not done.

  5. A winning PR strategy was not created

  6. The actual launch campaign was badly executed

  7. There was no smart follow-up or "nurturing" of the media relationships and reference customers.

Q: What will Visibility Blast do for your product and company?

A: We will:

  1. Research and analyze your product, strategy, and possibility for winning big.

  2. Develop the appropriate “game of chess” designed to keep winning.

  3. Initiate a highly-focused, quickly-executed, personalized campaign aimed at the key business and trade media most likely to respond to your company's story. You’ll see results, in many cases, immediately after we start executing to strategy.

  4. Our focus on competitive product positioning (from a product management perspective), the elements of a dynamic and compelling story (newsworthiness, strategic timing, facts, deadline sensitivity) coupled with our senior staff trained to provide immediate response to the needs of the press, separates Visibility Blast from typical PR agencies.

Q: What kind of results can I expect if I use VisibilityBlast?

A: You can expect:

  • A viability assessment of your product
    Know whether your product has the potential for major success, or not. If so, what do you need to know and do, to win.

  • The winning marketing strategy & action plan
    Have the smartest product positioning and the most potent “newsworthy” story to blast to the media.
    Have a highly organized launch plan.

  • A launch with impact
    Deploy a very far-reaching strategic marketing and media campaign that continuously produces articles for newspapers and magazines, and shows on radio and TV.

  • A long-term plan for winning
    The strategies and tactics required for your product to keep flourishing into the future, even when being attacked by major competitors.

Q: Why is most conventional PR largely ineffective and does not create major hits? What needs to change?

A: The standard PR process was developed in the ‘80s when companies planned launches 9 months in advance, and technologies were more evolutionary. Today, technology changes significantly every few months.
Products must be launched in 90 days and immediately gain market share -- or they fail.

We have hired and managed dozens of the nation’s top PR agencies in our careers. We’re frustrated spending $20-40K per month for agencies that do little but book press tour meetings, offer no strategic planning, do nothing to prepare the executive team for interviews, do not write documents, do not try to use the product, and generate almost nothing in the way of results. (Yet left us doing all the dirty work of messaging and managing the review process in-house).

The typical agency approach is purely tactical. It’s focused on generating billable hours from low-paid, entry-level talent. We believe that a few hours spent on high-level message development and competitive analysis up front is far more effective than hundreds of hours spent spamming the press with a message that is not newsworthy to begin with.

The whole concept of high-tech PR needs a major overhaul for the new millennium. The demand for effective PR is greater than ever, but the methodology needs to change.

Q: What makes Visibility Blast different than a standard PR agency?

A: VisibilityBlast program offers high-level strategic counsel from senior level industry professionals with director and VP-level hands-on, in-house communications and product management experience.

  • Conventional PR does not understand what it's like in the trenches of a software company.

    We've been there.

  • Conventional PR often ignores the power of multi-partner announcements, and how important it is to leverage your partnerships and integrate PR with business development.

    We recognize this as critically important.

  • Conventional PR is focused on billing the greatest hourly rate possible, but fulfilling that with the lowest paid workers whenever possible.

    We offer senior level attention.

  • Conventional PR puts the focus on press tours (massive billable hours) - not on quality messages, readable documents and on creating the powerful and memorable messages required for today's entertainment-driven media.

And in today's rapidly changing business climate, results from all marketing programs are expected quarterly, not annually. This type of clear, focused execution is something the conventional PR agency can’t usually deliver. And Return-on-Investment (ROI) for Marketing programs has become an important measurable factor.

Q: What does VisibilityBlast do that is so much more effective?

A: VisibilityBlast is more effective because...

  • It is more like a launch and re-launch team that has the goal of getting you dramatically elevated visibility with your customers, partners and the press – we are not a PR agency that is focused on tactics (media training, speaker training and the like).

  • It's not just about getting you press coverage -- it's about launching your company into the market in the most visible and effective way. A way that creates an indelible and lasting position in the minds of your customers.
    This visibility can carry your company for months, even years, if a launch is done right.

  • We are focused on defining your core messages and your competitive strategy - the press coverage flows naturally from that point once the message is "right" – but it must be right!

  • We fully understand and exploit the significant shift of the media, from true journalism to an entertainment medium.
    • Today’s entertainment-driven media wants shorter, more powerful and simpler messages.
    • Oversimplification of message is crucial in order to obtain mass media coverage.

  • Our #1 priority is rapid-turnaround results -- not long-term billable hours.

  • Our service is typically a 90-day effort -- 60 days before the launch, and 30 days afterward for follow up. If at the end of this 90-day period, you decide you would like to continue working with our team, we can collectively determine the best level of involvement to needs of your company.

Q: Why using VisibilityBlast will likely lead to a much bigger success than hiring a marketing consultant?

A: Because...

  1. We are not the typical "consulting group". We are successful Product Marketing and PR professionals who have a consistent track record of launching #1 hit high-tech products. So what makes us so successful?
    Many marketing professionals have a great education, but no great track record. A special few are simply "gifted".
    Along with our marketing "talents", we have decades of proven street smarts and in the trenches experience to know how to successfully position, message, and launch (or relaunch) products to open doors and take products to the top.

  2. We provide tangible results, delivered in a specific time frame, for an agreed upon cost. No endless retainers with vague results.

  3. We are re-launch experts who understand that a failed first launch doesn't necessarily doom a great product or technology. Due to our highly competitive nature, and tenacious need to figure out the competitive "game of chess", we aggressively seek out the product's shortcomings, to determine what changes in the product, messaging, category or competitive re-positioning, so that we can reinvigorate a product and change it from a potential write off, to a major hit.

  4. We do what most product and management teams are afraid to do: we conduct an honest and objective RealityCheck that outlines the potential of the product as it is (product positioning, user demand, market conditions, competitive conditions, business case, internal capabilities). We give the product a Report Card and an outline of the steps to success. We ask the hard questions and get to the real issues that will either hinder - or help make the product a success with customers and press. We offer concrete recommendations and execution strategies and tactics based on our experience in knowing what works and doesn't.

  5. Our press and analyst contacts trust our instincts and listen to what we have to say. We have been on the inside for 15 years pitching our product stories to these folks and know that they want honest realistic information, including honest reference customers and a newsworthy, entertaining angle that readers will appreciate. We know how to get to the right people and open doors.

  6. We have proven our launch expertise with successful products from companies including Symantec, Fifth Generation Systems, Connor (Seagate), TouchStone, HP, Everypath, and launching leading software products including First Aid, Norton Desktop for Windows, FastBack, Suitcase, PC-cillin among a long list of others.

  7. We are a creative, hardworking team of product launch professionals who believe that the industry needs more than just "consultants" or "agencies" who talk a good story. No useless reports, wasted time, or endless hourly billing.
    We just turn promising products into major hits.

Q: What makes technology launches succeed?

A: Product launches almost always succeed when...

  1. The strategic positioning, competitive “game of chess”, and potent ‘newsworthy’ story have been intelligently worked out.

  2. The early reviews must be positive.
    The first “early adopter” customers must be enthusiastic.

  3. The coverage in the first critical week of the press launch
    must be absolutely explosive and memorable…
    or the product will likely fail.

Q: What is RealityCheck?

A: RealityCheck is the first critical phase of the Visibility Launch Program:

  1. Are the right customers out there that really want
    your product?

  2. How will your product fare vs. competitors once it’s released into the marketplace?

  3. What adjustments are needed to the product and its marketing in order to be a major success?

  4. Is your organization capable of successfully launching this product and strategically sustaining it into the future?
    What organizational adjustments might be required?

  5. Is there a solid business case for this product?

Q: How is RealityCheck different than traditional market research such as focus groups?

A: RealityCheck is not just a research process. It leverages the wisdom and street smarts of professionals with decades of experience launching and managing best-selling products. The RealityCheck is not just aimed at the customer’s reaction – but the likely reaction of press, analysts and influencers.

Q: What is ReVision?

A: Revision is the second critical phase of the Visibility Launch Program.

  1. Design the winning strategy (game of chess), and create all the key marketing communication tools, such as Web site, brochures, press materials, and sales kits.

  2. Develop and nurture relationships with key “early adopters” – pundits and reference customers that can be quoted and referenced in marketing tools and used for future press interviews.

  3. Develop a marketing launch plan -- a major strategic and tactical project management plan including actual actions, schedule and project owners required to complete the launch.

Q: What is LaunchBlast?

A: LaunchBlast is the third critical phase of the Visibility Launch Program.

This is where all the planning done in the ReVision phase is presented to the world in a very-well timed deployment.
This calculated outward exposure includes the following activities:

  1. Meeting with the press.
  2. Doing TV and Radio interviews
  3. Releasing White Papers
  4. Deploying all new Web site content and links
  5. and more...

Q: What is Sustained Win?

A: Sustained Win is the fourth critical phase of the Visibility Launch Program.

This is the strategy, actions and contingency plans for ensuring that the product continues flourishing into the future.

Q: What do we do to create a long-term win?

A: We follow the following disciplines...

  1. Using our Sustained Win process, we watch for future releases from competitors, near competitors, and perceived competitors.

  2. We also watch for shifts in the marketplace that could occur from cultural, local and world events, and from paradigm shifting product releases.

  3. Then we create a product roadmap that ensures it remains the technological and solution leader in its class. This is constantly updated.

  4. Finally, we update the press, pundits, reference accounts and early influencers about any adaptive changes we're making and why