6 Things to Know About Pitching Your Business, Product, or Service–Tips from an Angel Investor

by Cynthia Fedor | May 3rd, 2012

During this year’s Future Insights Live conference, a few hand-selected attendees had the opportunity to pitch their mobile or web app to a panel of  judges that included, among others, Jason Calacanis, angel investor and founder of the video learning site Mahalo.com, and Jason Nazar, founder of the document resource site, DocStoc.com. After hearing the pitches, the panel asked each presenter questions in order to better understand the apps and the company’s business models.

Through their questions and commentary, they provided the following tips on how to successfully pitch a business and/or product. Although the guidance was for pitching to investors, these same tips apply when speaking to, or marketing to, your customer base.

  1. During development and pitching, don’t try to be all things to all people. You’ll end up diluting the value or benefit of your product and fail to meaningfully connecting to anyone.
  2. Describe your product or service in a way that presents a solution to a problem or existing need; don’t simply read off a list of features. By focusing on the core audience and speaking to their main need (see tip #1 above), you’ll be able to frame your product or service in a way that makes it compelling to that audience. That, in turn, does better at motivating action (to buy, to share, etc.)
  3. Use real-life or persona-based examples to tell your product’s or service’s story. Give it context so that it is relatable; people will be able to better visualize your product or service as something that fills their need; solves their problem; as something that can be easily integrated into their life.
  4. Use your authentic voice when you are explaining your product or service; show that you have passion/enthusiasm for what you’ve developed. Face it, no matter how exciting a thing is, if it’s presented in a neutral–what I really mean is boring–way, not a lot of people are going to jump out of their seats to support it. If you can’t even get animated about what you’ve developed, how can you expect others to be excited about it?
  5. Listen to the questions you are asked (with deep concentration); then provide a specific, concise answer. You will lose people’s attention fast if you can’t deliver the information they expect or if you take them down a random path they did not anticipate.
  6. Plan to iterate and develop based on user needs; don’t make changes based on emotion or assumptions. You may LOVE feature XYZ of your product or service and think that it’s exactly what people need (even though they may not realize it yet). But, if you don’t pay attention to what the market is telling you, you may lose momentum and be passed up by someone else that knows how to listen better than you.

Take a look at your business and marketing processes to date. How can you improve on communicating the purpose and value of your business, product, or service to targeted audiences? Based on your own experience, do you have additional tips to offer?

Direct Mail Strategy: JCPenney’s New Postcard Campaign

by Cynthia Fedor | April 17th, 2012

Last month when I read about JCPenney’s new integrated marketing strategy I was excited to see how the retailer would execute on the direct mail component of their plan. Through the approach described in the article, JCP seemed to understand the value of highly targeted and personalized direct mail as part of an integrated mix and the role it could play in getting people into physical store locations.
JCPenney Marketing

“We’re focused on targeting our customers through an integrated marketing campaign, and direct mail is a key component to this outreach strategy,” says Kate Coultas, spokesperson for jcpenney. Source: Deliver Magazine

This month, I received my first direct mail postcard from JCPenney. The oversized square format along with their bold new logo caught my eye; however, they failed to keep my attention and motivate action. In this post, I’ll outline a few things they can do to make future direct mail touches more effective.

Deconstructing JCPenney’s April Marketing Postcard

Upon review of JCP’s direct mail postcard, I noticed several missed opportunities to:

  • provide relevant content
  • track the performance of offers and channels
  • collect key data that could aid in refining future messages

Weakness: Poor Targeting and/or Lack of Personalized Content

The front of JCPenney’s postcard features a large, colorful photo that fills the entire frame. Images that are colorful, simple, and direct—like the one on their postcard—often work well for conveying a message quickly. However, this image did not resonate with me. It was a photo of a yawning baby. The back of the piece included the message: “Don’t let another precious moment go by without making it memorable. Capture their smiles, the surprises and event the sleepy times that fill your heart.”

I do not yet have children or grandchildren. There are no small children living in my house.

Recommendation #1: Segment your mailing list. Use demographic selections to narrow down your list to target recipients that more closely match your service offering or message. By doing so, JCPenney could have saved money, reduced waste, and realized better return on investment.

Recommendation #2: Personalize mail pieces and include relevant content that matches the interests and/or needs of the target audience. JCPenney could have easily increased the efficacy of their direct mail campaign by using variable data printing to swap out images and copy. Rather than include a photo of a baby, they could have advertised their “business portraits” service to me or let me know if I could get a portrait taken with my pet (my husband and I have two dogs and a cat).

Pets

Weakness: No tracking mechanisms to measure campaign response

If you were JCPenney, wouldn’t you like to know if you were generating more business due to a direct mail piece vs. newspaper ad vs. online ad vs. social media campaign, etc? Digital technologies available today—like PURLs (personalized URLs and landing pages), QR codes, and SMS text elements—make it possible to track responses to traditional media. The call to action on JCPenney’s postcard directs recipients to a general website and generic telephone number. Read More »

Creative Block: Finding Sources of Inspiration Online

by Cynthia Fedor | March 30th, 2012

Finding yourself in the midst of a creative block is the pits! What’s worse is that the more you fight it and try to work through an idea roadblock, the more frustrated you feel. When it comes to generating the latest and greatest BIG IDEA that will get your business noticed, sometimes it helps to let down your guard and simply play the role of spectator for a bit. Often, checking out what others are doing and allowing yourself to be inspired by their work can help kick start the creative mechanism in your own mind.

Here are a few great sources to turn to when you find yourself in a creative rut.

BEHANCE

“Showcase and discover the latest work from top online portfolios by creative professionals across industries.”

Explore projects from a wide range of industries and focus in on specific types of talent (copywriting, graphic design, information architecture, fashion, packaging, etc).

Behance

PINTEREST

This virtual pin board hosts a collection of images people find on the web. It’s not just for do-it-yourself craft makers and moms; the site allows professionals to share what inspires them in their industry. You can search the site for collections of infographics, direct mail ideas, neat-o advertising concepts, and more.

Pintrest

KICKSTARTER

“World’s largest funding platform for creative projects.”

Kickstarter is a cool site that allows just about anyone to present an idea for a project, business, product, etc. and collect micro investments to turn that idea into a reality. Aside from the fact that this is a cool way to fund your project, Kickstarter is a super resource to see innovation in the marketplace. By looking through the projects on the site, you can gain insight on emerging trends and see the perspective of other entrepreneurs. Read More »

Leadership Lessons from Star Trek

by Eric Welch | March 14th, 2012

You don’t have to be a trekkie to recognize the value in these time-honored leadership lessons from two of Star Trek’s most celebrated captains – Kirk and Picard. Among my favorites are these gems of 23rd and 24th century wisdom:

  • Never stop learning
  • Don’t play it safe – seize opportunities in front of you
  • Always value ethical actions over expedient ones
  • Play poker, not chess
  • Challenge your team to help them grow
  • Have advisors with different worldviews

As Spock would most likely observe, “to disagree with any of these would be most illogical.” You would do well to apply these principles across all phases of your marketing – dare I say it – enterprise!

Enjoy!