Big Brands- Think Like Start-Ups for Successful Online Product/Service

Posted on | May 24, 2008 |

by Arthur Ceria, President Creative Feed

Big business better think small if they expect success in the digital world. Corporate bureaucracy drains the life out of marketing campaigns. By the time everyone at the table has had their say, an innovative idea is generally transformed into yet another iteration of the same old safe thing. Then everyone wonders why their “new” blog/widget/forum/flash demo flopped and resolves never to do anything that inventive again.

Rather than dissect each new idea to death, adopt a start-up mentality when launching a new product or service. Since you’re basically starting from scratch, capitalize on this fresh slate. Startups aren’t afraid to be innovative, their mentality is all about risk taking, customer engagement and honestly. One can go after the competition full speed ahead without abandoning logic or taking undue risks. Rather than burn money on trial balloons like big companies, a must startup rely on deep knowledge of and consistent interaction with their market to decide what risks make sense.

Effective marketing today is all about conversation, and startups understand the power of conversation better than big enterprises. In a startup, senior management personnel talk directly to everyone in the company (and everyone can be forthright with executives), and everyone in a startup interacts directly with the company’s customers. That conversation results in a depth of market knowledge that big firms pay dearly to obtain. To get that startup buzz going strip away some organizational layers, connect directly with customers, talk to them not at them, respond to their needs, take some chances, have a little fun, and get passionate about your business again.