Narrowcast Early Product Announcements

My bias is to “narrowcast” in the beginning. Choose websites, forums, newsgroups that are tightly focused on your target market.

Narrowcast Early Product Announcements

My bias is to “narrowcast” in the beginning. Choose websites, forums, newsgroups that are tightly focused on your target market. You attract less competition, your message cost is normally cheaper per prospect, and you often learn faster by taking part in the conversations in a focused community.

It’s not so much about being stealthy as sending a message to a tightly focused audience.

And, let’s face it, you know the least about how to talk about customer problems/needs in the beginning. Broadcasting your weakest message widely does you little good.

Maintain a Low Profile
When Facing Established Incumbents

Maintaining a low profile when facing larger better funded competitors can be a sound strategy. Sometimes this means using specialty or narrowcast channels to reach prospects that larger firms pay less attention. Sometimes it’s learning how to “dog whistle” to talk about problems or needs in ways that resonate with a niche market avoiding the common “vendor speak” descriptions. An example for the latter: don’t talk about “polypharmacy” or “prescription compliance” ask if a prospect is worried that an older relative has a “big bag of pills” to take every day and they may be taking too many, or too few, or mixing them up.

Postscript: Why do startups need to focus on a specific set of customers to get some traction?

Sean Murphy: Two primary reasons: it’s more resource efficient and easier to get word of mouth and references. I typically work with teams who are bootstrapping in B2B markets with limited resources. A narrower focus means a smaller market that is less expensive to attack. One definition I like for a market is a set of buyers who reference each other’s buying decisions. Most B2B markets have specialty media that serve them, such as websites, newsletters, and podcasts, as well as dedicated conferences and tradeshows. In smaller or niche markets, it typically takes less effort to attract dedicated media and is less expensive to attend related conferences and trade shows.

In a niche market, you usually target just a few distinct job titles in a single industry or profession. Because these people share common concerns, have similar needs, and tend to be measured on the same criteria, their feature preferences and evaluation criteria for your product tend to converge. This should allow you to reduce the complexity of your initial product.

From The Science of Targeting: How Startups Select the Perfect Niche

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Narrowcast Early Product Announcements