Do you know why innovation & marketing is important for your business? Keep reading..
Did you know a staggering 96% of business fail over 10 years period of time?
Remaining 4% does not mean they succeed, but they survived.
So the questions pops in our mind as why one business succeeds & other fails.
Initially when you are starting a business, first 2-3 years are very crucial.
First 2-3 years will decide how far will you go. It does not matter if you are slow.
What matters is how you architect your company & not just build it like everyone else.
You definitely need a business plan but in the beginning you can focus on actually setting up the foundation.
It has to be build from the heart. If the foundation is strong rest will be taken care.
It is like a joint family, how you manage, divide responsibilities & scale where the sum is always greater than the parts.
Why Innovation & Marketing is important?
Once the business scales after you have created the foundation, two factors will decide the growth from here.
The two factors are:
a) Innovation.
b) Marketing.
Lets discuss both in details:
a) Innovation: It means finding better way to meet your clients needs than anybody else.
To make your business successful and take your business over years & years that builds a brand with great innovation.
It is continuous process and as a business you have to find a way to add value.
Adding value comes from constant innovation. No matter how small it is.
Innovation & Marketing is critical for growth in today’s world.
Business falls in love with their products & services that they fail to innovate.
Take an example of Blackberry & Nokia. These two companies were the best of best but they failed to innovate.
Blackberry did not innovate fast enough.
That is why innovation & marketing is important
Apple & all of the android phone makers introduced new OS and other physical forms for their phones.
That was a huge disruption in the mobile phone market & Blackberry didn’t follow.
For Nokia, not forming the part of the ecosystem and only focusing on hardware & rise of Chinese mobile market was thrown out.
Nokia was the best phone selling in the market in 1998 but by 2007 it had only 50% market share.
Dont fall in love with your product & services…but keep innovating.
The stories of Nokia & Blackberry is lesson for all us in business world.
Business fall in love with their product & services & fail to innovate. This can cause problem.
Because economy, technology, culture & competition are constantly evolving. Change is only constant.
And if you aren’t innovating to keep up with these above changes, you are falling behind.
Find out what client needs…
So keep innovating to meet the clients needs and dont fall in love with your product & services. Find out:
a) What client wants?
b) What clients need?
c) What they dont need also?
Because the idea is to make your customers fan, and once you do that, you will start to build a brand that they will promote.
So keep innovating even if it is in a small way to stay relevant.
b) Marketing : Whether you are large or small, marketing is the next critical step.
Marketing is all about value. If you dont provide enough reason to customers to remember you, you will be out of the game.
The best marketing focuses on:
- What value you are providing?
- What is it you are here to deliver?
- How can you improve customers lives?
- What does Market need?
- Who is your ideal customer?
- What can you do to make your offer irresistible?
- What business am I really in?
Lets see few examples…
Take an example of Apple, they wanted to be in the business of connecting people to their passion, and they did.
Apple helps unleash their creativity & productivity even when they are working from home
Look the below video
Coco cola is popular world wide liked by people of age groups while the diet coke targets niche segment.
Diet coke is targeted to those who are more health conscious.
Coca Cola uses competitive positioning strategy to be way ahead of its competitors in the Non-alcoholic beverages market.
Check out this great commercial from Coco Cola Happiness Machine.
So from the above two videos we can see why innovation & marketing is important for business to stay relevant.
How Nike Connects with its customers...
There are so many other companies like Google, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, they are all successful because of continuous innovation.
One thing common between all these companies is that they invest a lot in innovation & marketing.
Even small & medium business can find creative ways to market their products & services & can innovate too.
Why Startup or business succeed…
There are so many reasons why startup or business succeed.
For someone it is a timing, for others it is idea, and for few it can be business model or teams.
Whatever is the reason for business or startup being successful, lot of effort, hard work & discipline goes into place.
But the reason of failure for any business is because of failing to innovate and not investing in creative marketing.
Initially as we said above first 2-3 years are very crucial & if any business fails is because of below reasons as shown below
It is not about only product but also services you offer.
Find out how you can improve the life of a customers, how you can make it better.
Learn to empathize with your customers, practice active listening, find common ground, focus on results & relationship, take customers feedback, let them know that you understand them, always provide value more than they expect.
And always keep innovating & invest in great marketing so that they remember you for what you stand.
You can also watch out the full video on Why Innovation & Marketing is important for business
Due to Covid_19 when most businesses are struggling to survive, do something different and be unique.
Are you innovating & investing in marketing to keep up with the pace in fast changing environment?
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