Market Development and Marketing

The following are resources that provide more information for entrepreneurs interested in market development. There are several publications dedicated to the subject, but these are a few that we found especially helpful.

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers, by Geoffrey A. Moore, makes the case that high-tech products require marketing strategies that differ from those in other industries. His “chasm theory” describes how high-tech products initially sell well - mainly to a technically literate customer base - but then hit a lull as marketing professionals try to cross the chasm to mainstream buyers.

Inside the Tornado: Marketing Strategies from Silicon Valley’s Cutting Edge, by Geoffrey A. Moore, expounds on his high-tech marketing theories. Considered required reading material by today’s leading business schools and industry luminaries, the book focuses on the market dynamics of hypergrowth. The author also gives a behind-the-headlines look at how companies such as Microsoft and Netscape capture dominant market shares and leap into prominence. The Innovators Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, Claytom M. Christensen, 1997. This book is especially relevant to how renewables might be "disruptive technologies" in the deregulated utility environment.

Commercializing Technology: A Hypertext Manual is an updated version of a popular manual created for the U.S. Department of Energy's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. Originally written in 1988, the SBIR manual has been provided to countless SBIR awardees. Revised in 1994, the manual is a step-by-step guide through the commercialization process, which includes an extensive discussion on how to use commercial databases and Internet news groups to facilitate market research and marketing.

The manual is produced in the form of computer software by Foresight, Inc., a technical marketing firm that provides commercialization assistance to small and large companies, universities, federal agencies, and nonprofit labs. The manual has been formatted as a hypertext document to facilitate use. Templates can be easily downloaded by users. The cost of the manual is $95. Contact: Foresight Science and Technology, Inc., 1200 W. Sims Way, Suite 201, Port Townsend, WA 98368; phone 206-385-9560; 3446234@mci.com.

The Marketing Plan: Step-by-Step is published nationally and is available through the Center for Innovation and Business Development (CIBD) at the University of North Dakota, which provides business and technical support services to hundreds of individuals and businesses a year who have product ideas. The Marketing Plan book, published in 1992, is targeted to new and expanding ventures with new products, technologies, or services but with little or no market history. It was developed specifically for manufacturers who are launching a product and don't need a business plan for financing - but who do need a well-developed marketing strategy. The book is a step-by-step guide with seven chapters to help entrepreneurs with researching, analyzing, writing, and implementing an effective marketing strategy. The book costs $30. Contact: Center for Innovation & Business Development, P.O. Box 8372, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202; phone 701-777-3132; fax 701-777-2339.

The popular Guerrilla Marketing series by Jay Conrad Levinson offers entrepreneurs help in marketing and advertising their products. The series includes the following texts:

• Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from our Small Business (1993) is an updated edition of the first best-seller in this series. The new edition discusses how to identify and reach the fastest-growing markets, develop a creative marketing program, select marketing methods, save money, and obtain free market research.

• Guerrilla Marketing Excellence: The Fifty Golden Rules for Small Business Success (1993) contains rules to guide the entrepreneur's thinking, effectiveness, marketing materials, and actions.

• The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook (1994) is co-authored by Seth Godin, a marketing expert and recognized author of business manuals. The handbook provides ways to unlock the secrets of direct mail, cut advertising costs, generate word-of-mouth, expand market share, increase telephone sales, and reposition the competition.

• Guerrilla Advertising: Cost-Effective Tactics for Small Business Success (1994) shows small businesses how ads must be integrated into the total marketing strategy to maximize their effectiveness. Also explored are topics such as how to stay within a budget, how to polish a look and pitch, and how to adapt tactics to appropriate media.

• Guerrilla Marketing On-line: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Earning Profits on the Internet (1995) is co-authored by Charles Rubin, a computer hardware and software expert. This book helps readers get oriented to Internet culture, develop knowledge about the audience that uses the Internet, apply Levinson's marketing techniques to the Internet, discover low-cost ways to market on-line, and stay ahead of the competition.

• Contact: Guerrilla Marketing Online
  Houghton Mifflin Co.
  215 Park Ave. South
  New York, NY 10003
  phone 1-800-255-3362
  fax 212-420-5850.