Connect to market
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Connecting with your market(s) should be the ultimate goal of your journey to achieve commercial success from your new idea or innovation. Without markets, their various segments and their assortment of customers your idea or innovation has no real value.
“A business exists to create a customer. Without customers, there is no business”
Peter F. Drucker, 1909 – 2005.
The first steps of your earlier evaluation of the commercial merit of the innovation should have included its market potential, as well as identifying the potential customers that will either buy it or otherwise benefit from its creation. Knowing who your customers, or final end-users, are AND exactly how you are going to reach them is essential to enable you to sell to them.
Understanding customers who buy new ideas and innovations
The market research you conducted earlier was broad and strategic describing the broader environment in which your new idea and innovation might achieve success. You now need to get more specific and targeted about who and where your customers are. If you don’t know the who and where of your innovation’s customers, how can you possibly sell it to them?
When it comes to new ideas and innovations you need to examine three issues to assess the motivations of a customer that buy them:
- What factors affect customer’s purchase decisions?
- Who is likely to buy? Are there categories of customers inclined to purchase earlier than others?
- What affects the timing of customers purchase decisions?
Links to subsections of this topic
What motivates customers to buy new ideas and innovations?
What are the categories of customers that buy new ideas and innovations?
Learning
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