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When starting a business, generally, the value created by the business can be broken down into two areas

• Product or Service — You provide either a new product or service, or you are providing a higher quality product or service.
• Price — You can undercut all other competitors and still have a reasonable level of quality in relation to price.

All business can be boiled down to the value added to customers, but that is only half of the battle.  Customer has to realize two things

• They need the product or service
• The product or service exists

That is where marketing comes in.  Word of mouth, advertising, etc.  You can have the most amazing product in the world, if no one knows about it, how many have you sold?  Not only must you call attention to your business, but you must also demonstrate how your service will enhance the customers’ life or make their lives easier.

Quality of Marketing

Which product would you be more likely to buy, the product advertised during Grey’s Anatomy with a flashing commercial staring Nichole Kidman, or the late night 1-800 commercial where you can buy now for $19.95 and get a free set of knives?  The products could be 100% the same, the only difference being a brand name and the marketing behind the product.

There can be such a thing as too much hype.  Take Blogrush for example.  I like Blogrush; I use Blogrush.  Blogrush had two problems when it was released last month.

• The process for the actual system was still in beta.  Too many spam sites were allowed into the network.
• Massive hype.  Everyone and their sister were talking and pushing Blogrush.

Had Blogrush been released in it’s final form (which is still isn’t) with all the hype, it would have been a smashing success.  On the other hand, if it had been released exactly as it was but without the massive marketing push behind it, I think everyone would have been alittle more tolerant of its issues and allowed it to grow naturally.

Is It a Catch 22?

When it comes to releasing a new product or service to the public, which model do you follow?  Wait until the product is as perfect as it can get without massive testing and feedback, or release when it’s functional and make adjustments on the fly?

I think we all know what happens when an unready product is released, it gets ignored and damages any chances of success down the road.  First impressions matter.  If you provide an inferior product, people will always refuse to associate with that product due to it’s past history, no matter that it’s been totally revamped and a massive marketing campaign gets put behind it.

I, however, can sympathize with the other problem.  With my new project aged 1 week into actual virtual existence, even though it is live and anyone could visit and check it out, I have done zero marketing beyond Technorati tags and pings.  Traffic has been next to nothing, to which I am glad.  We’re not ready yet.  I think the idea has merit, but due to my lack of extra time to fully develop it, I make small additions and changes everynight.  Also, I crave feedback.  I would love to have someone else look at it to get an outside opinion.  I guess that’s where alpha and beta testers come in.

Blogrush, business, product testing, marketing,

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