The first challenge facing start-ups is to make the transition from initial idea to producing and placing a product or service in the hands of paying customers. Once they have successfully placed the product in the market, they are then faced with demonstrating how they will achieve scale. 

Scaling the business requires it to move from capturing early adopters to taking on the mass or mainstream market. This is often referred to as crossing the chasm (a term coined by Geoffrey A. Moore*). The ability to cross the chasm and take a share of the mainstream market is key to reaching profitability and a point where many start-ups fail. A different marketing approach is required at each stage of the technology adoption curve. One of the reasons why start-ups struggle to cross the chasm is that they lack the ability to adapt and change the way in which they approach each new group of customers who have their own unique set of needs.

Innovators and early adopters (the early market) are relatively easy for start-ups to engage with because they are technophiles and can easily see the benefits that new technology brings. They often understand and speak the same jargon as the product developers, so marketing can be effective by focusing on the technical features of the product with these customers.

By contrast, the mainstream market is more risk-averse. These customers prefer to wait to see how well the technology is working out before committing to purchase. They tend to buy because they are looking for an incremental improvement in their current situation. For them, technology is a means to an end and they are more interested in the product benefits.

Start-ups need to adopt a different approach when communicating with mainstream customers. They need to change the message, marketing collateral and the channels that they use to communicate with these customers or they will fail to scale.

A. Marketing to the early market:

Innovators:

Innovators will want to see the product in action and try it themselves. Demos and free trials are a must for these customers. They will expect to find information about your product in peer review and technical journals and will be influenced by like-minded tech gurus who endorse the technology.

Marketing messages that convey the newness of the product, and emphasise early access to it, will resonate.

Early adopters:

Unlike innovators, the early adopters are not technologists but want to benefit from a new product or technology in a way that will give them a distinct competitive advantage.

They respond to marketing messages that showcase how the product addresses an unmet need which can give them an advantage over competitors.

It often helps to quantify this advantage for them as they expect an order of magnitude return on their investment. While they are possibly the least price sensitive group, they often want to pilot projects to quantify the benefits themselves before fully committing. Making a product available on long-term loan will appeal to this group. Return on investment calculators or other ways to quantify the benefits are also helpful.

Marketing tools that are effective in reaching the early market are technical conferences and symposia, peer review and technical journals, endorsements from key industry leaders, specialist online forums and blogs, case studies that emphasis the step change that the new technology brings and webinars that showcase the product features and benefits.

B. Marketing to the mainstream market:

Early Majority:

The early majority are more cautious when adopting new products. While they respond to the product’s value proposition (how the product will solve the customer’s biggest unmet need), they want the new product to integrate seamlessly with existing systems and processes. Illustrating how the product fits into the customer’s workflow is important to win them over.

The company’s credibility, brand and market leadership are important to this customer group because they will want to see proof that others like themselves have bought the product.

Messages that positions the product as a “must have”, emphasises how widespread the product adoption is becoming and how easy it is to integrate, are key.

Marketing activities that provide evidence of the product quality and benefits and highlight the proportion of users who trust the brand are important. Case studies that talk about easy integration, benchmarking studies, product reviews and endorsements are well regarded by the early majority. They will expect to find your products on the pages of the industry magazines rather than in technical publications. Public Relations (PR) and social media become important at this point, helping to spread the word more broadly.

Late Majority:

The late majority are not comfortable with technology. They usually wait until a product has become the established standard before they will commit to buying it. The new product must be very easy to adopt, and the user experience must be straight forward before this group of customers will purchase. They have almost no interest in the technology behind the product and prefer the “black box” approach with only a few, simple ways in which to interact with the product e.g. using a minimal number of controls or pre-programmed menus. They also demand a lot of support. At this stage of the product lifecycle, Marketers will need to resign themselves to compete on either price or usability or both when targeting the late majority.

They are persuaded by marketing messages that highlight the ease of use, a significant price reduction, or that imply that they will be left behind if they don’t buy the product.

This segment is strongly influenced by peers, so marketers can capitalise on the “everyone has one” mentality. Using the popular press, search adverting and web remarketing with endorsements and testimonials from satisfied customers emphasising the ease of use and highlighting access to live support, all help to encourage this group to purchase.

Marketers need to be adaptable if they are to successfully navigate from early to mainstream markets. The marketing message, content and channel need to change to suit the market segment at each stage along the technology adoption curve so that the specific needs of each audience are addressed if start-ups are to succeed.

*Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm, 1991