Finding the match between your company’s resources and the needs and desires of your target customer group is a major mission that must be undertaken by every developer of a marketing plan who is serious about creating a successful venture. It is not always easy to identify this match. Casually asking customers at random may [...]
Monthly Archive for September, 2009
Now that we are in the twenty-first century, the completion of a market review for your marketing plan may have been made easier by the Internet. We discussed in an earlier chapter how to use the Internet to gather secondary information. This can sometimes be more effective than other methods of gathering this information because [...]
It is not unusual to find that there is not enough information on your market available just from secondary sources. Normally these directories, magazines, trade publications, government reports, and other such sources provide a good starting point. Sometimes, however, they are just not enough. You wind up with a ton of information, but there is [...]
One of the best starting points in developing a marketing plan is a formal market review. The purpose of the market review is to clearly present all of the available data that are relevant to the marketing of the products or services to be included in the marketing plan. In some cases this involves looking [...]
A key marketing lesson to be learned from the Treo is that you must recognize who your real customer is. Prior to launching the Treo, Handspring focused mainly on the end user as its real customer. This worked out fine with the Visor because this was a traditional product sold through traditional retailers. With the [...]
Although Handspring had been working on the general concept of an effective integrated communication device since the inception of the company, the actual development of the Treo was accomplished in a fairly short period of time. The actual Treo concept, with the flip lid, window, and keyboard, was conceived in June of 2000, and the [...]
Although the bulk of the Treo advertising is controlled by the wireless phone carriers, Handspring has a lot of control over the public relations aspects of communication for the Treo. Handspring believes that this is the most leveraged form of marketing that it has. Publicity was an important part of the initial Treo product launch, [...]
Direct marketing is a key part of Handspring’s marketing strategy. This is one of Handspring’s most profitable distribution channels because the company does not have to give margins to retailers and receives a subsidy from the carriers for signing up new users. Much of Handspring’s direct marketing takes place over the Internet. Handspring spends a [...]
Handspring’s primary advertising strategy is to help the wireless phone carriers communicate the benefits of the Treo to their customers. The bulk of the advertising is actually done by the carriers. The Treo is a unique product, and the carriers often include it in their advertising to motivate consumers to sign up for their wireless [...]
One of the ways in which Handspring tried to communicate the Treo sales message to consumers in the retail model was through packaging. The packaging for all Treo products showed pictures of the product and examples of the screens (in color for the full-color models). The packaging also explained each of the features of the [...]
Handspring’s pricing strategy for the Treo is to sell the devices to the wireless phone carriers at a wholesale price that will cover all of the company’s costs and generate a sufficient profit. The carriers set the retail prices, which consist of a base price coupled with subsidies for users who sign up for the [...]
Because of the different Treo customer base, after some learning the hard way, Handspring found it necessary to make a major change in its production strategy. The original Visor product line was sold to customers from Handspring’s web site. This was measurable and consistent, making it very predictable. Then Handspring started selling to retailers who [...]
Handspring started out selling the Treo through its existing Visor distribution channels. This proved difficult for two major reasons. First, there was some customer confusion because customers did not really know where to find the Treo. People don’t always think about buying a mobile phone at Circuit City or Office Max. The other problem was [...]
Handspring knew that the design of the Treo was very important in differentiating it from all the other mobile communication devices on the market. Before coming up with the final design, the company developed a lot of different models. They differed in terms of form factors, orientations, input methods, ways of handling the ten-key keypad [...]
The first Treo was a black-and-white version that was designated the Treo 180. It had a sleek design and was much smaller and lighter than the Visor Phone, Handspring’s initial experiment with combining a mobile phone and an organizer. There was nothing quite like it on the market at the time. The Treo 180 effectively [...]
The name Treo came from the idea that the product replaced three things: the phone, the organizer, and the wireless e-mail or Internet device. Research showed that most people liked the name because it was short and easy to remember. Handspring liked the name because it communicated the three different uses of the device. The [...]
Handspring’s objective was to create a device that would be the only thing a user would have to carry. This one device would be an excellent mobile phone, a great organizer, and a very effective Internet device. There were other combined products on the market, but none of them did everything well. There were mobile [...]
The market research, together with scores of unsolicited comments from people asking about a combined device, clearly indicated that there was an opportunity for a multifunction communication device. Many of the users of existing mobile phones, mobile Internet devices, and organizers expressed an unfulfilled need for such a device. Many of those who were shown [...]
Handspring used a combination of market research vehicles to narrow its vision of what an effective mobile communicator should be like. Some of this research involved traditional focus groups, and other research involved talking to a lot of customers face to face, on the phone, and through e-mail over the Internet. Some consumer input came [...]
There are two important lessons to be learned from Zicam. The first is that effectiveness leads to repeat purchases. Zicam customers believe that the product really works, and therefore they keep buying it over and over again. Many of these customers are so convinced that Zicam works that they not only use it themselves but [...]