The commercialisation of new technology represents a challenge for small and medium sized technology firms with technological superiority on its own not a guarantee of success.
As a high tech SME you cannot survive solely on the basis of outstanding R&D, or pre-commercialisation activities. These need to be complemented with marketing strategies and activities that successfully bring your innovation into the marketplace, also known as commercialisation.
And your odds of success are maximised by combining technological superiority with marketing capability.
As a highly innovative tech SME, I understand that you have many challenges, including market uncertainty, technological uncertainty and competitive volatility. Added to this testing mix is the intrinsic characteristics of your business and the fact that marketing capability may not currently exist as a function, with R&D being the core focus to date.
This potential lack of marketing capability is also deeply felt when building intelligence on the market, including identifying exactly what your offering will solve for your potential customers and building intelligence on what your competitors are up to.
And while customers are more in-tune with technological advances nowadays, there is still the key challenge of standing out to increase the likelihood of engagement, with the ability to avoid ‘technological fatigue’ caused by frequent market disruption a key challenge.
Having worked with a variety of tech SMEs over the course of almost 30 years in marketing I understand a thing or two about the sector.
I also understand that technical superiority is no guarantee of success.
Commercialisation of your tech offering is a daunting process for anyone, especially if marketing strategy and communications is not your strength or core responsibility. That’s why we’ve put together a Marketing Audit & Strategy Workbook to help.
It adheres to Chartered Institute of Marketing best practice and is also based on my many years’ experience as a Chartered Marketer.
So what’s inside this eGuide:
- The commercialisation checklist and what’s involved.
- How to define your target audience.
- How to undertake competitor research.
- How to develop your vision, values, proposition and identify your USP.
- How to commence marketing communications planning.
And much more! There are infographics and worksheets to help you on your journey.
