Answering The Tough Questions

Introduction to MarketerBlog:  What keeps you up at night?

I spent a good part of the spring and summer in Silicon Valley and Washington DC, meeting with partners at a number of prominent venture funds about various portfolio companies.  At their suggestion, I spoke with a number of CEO’s about the marketing needs of these new organizations.  It became clear to me that while the VC’s and CEO’s were eager to hire someone with the depth and breadth of my background, I was too much “horsepower” for the budgets of most early stage companies.  Those conversations stimulated various ideas about how to bridge that gap.  MarketBlog is one of those ideas. 

MarketerBlog is for and about marketing of early stage companies.  It’s intended to start a conversation between CEO’s, CMO’s, Marketing VP’s any anyone else who’s interested.  The focus will be on early stage companies with limited or no marketing infrastructure who need to launch their companies and/or products; and later stage companies looking to diversify revenue or increase profitability via new market entry and/or optimization of existing markets and revenue streams.  Additionally, there’ll be a concentration on companies at the intersection of service and technology, e.g.:  companies that leverage technology to deliver services and companies who layer services on top of technology offerings. 

After 20 years in the business, my personal portfolio is a combination of marketing strategy, brand/identity, integrated communications, customer relationship management, and collecting people.  I’ve built a varied and diverse network of marketers, researchers, creatives, analysts, channel management gurus, and technologists, among others.  They’ll add color commentary and fill in the expertise I lack. 

Over the coming weeks we’ll take on some of the tough questions like:

-What’s the best way to assess the competitive landscape for a new company?

-Who’s the optimal target market for my service/product? 

-How do we identify the top-performing channels and media for this market?

-What’s the best process for naming an early stage company?

-How do I launch a new company?

-How do I structure a communications plan?

-Where am I going to get the best “bang for my buck” in terms of marketing services?

-Which new marketing technologies really matter … and which ones are just the “flavor of the -month”?

-How do I make all this work on a tight budget?

-When do we bring resources in-house? 

-How do I prioritize marketing activities to support milestones in our business plan?

-What are the implications of these decisions on fundraising?

I’m looking forward to your comments and debate.  This is an exciting new way for me to connect with a diverse group of marketers and entrepreneurs.  Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. 

Comments

[Pat Fitzgerald]

Hey Leslie,

I really like the concept. I have a question for you. How do you help companies figure out pricing for the products and services?

It seems to me that this is one of the most important decisions for an early stage company.

Thanks,
-Pat