Case Study: With Reduced Reporting, Product Announcements Must Really Pop

Submitted by BDTI on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 16:00

The economy is finally recovering—sort of—and a number of tech companies are planning long-delayed product launches. But over the last year, the technical trade press that covers these announcements has been decimated. There are a lot fewer tech reporters now, and those that remain are often struggling to cover unfamiliar tech areas. They’re overworked and understaffed, and they don’t have time to decipher unclear marketing messages. If you want your product announcement to get attention and be accurately written up, you need marketing materials that are compelling, provide a good hook, and are crystal clear both from a technical and market standpoint.

The best way to ensure that a presentation meets these goals is to test it with a knowledgeable, critical, and responsive audience. BDTI’s analysts have hands-on experience with embedded processing technology, and have spent years tracking the industry and listening to hundreds of product pitches. This experience makes them a shrewd audience with a unique combination of technical expertise and industry savvy.

You can leverage BDTI’s unique background and expertise to improve your product launches via our “Sounding Board” service, in which BDTI analysts become your test audience and give you the insightful feedback you need.

Not too long ago a stealth-mode start-up company developing a high-performance processor was preparing to launch its first product. As the announcement would also be the company’s debut, the company wanted maximum impact from its first announcement.  It needed to establish strong market positioning and distinguish itself from a crowd of competitors. The company’s own executives were seasoned professionals with many years of experience, but had been working on their pitch for so long that they weren’t in a position to evaluate it from an outsider’s perspective.  The company had also had plenty of interaction with prospective customers, but discussions with customers typically focused on details of particular interest to those customers and did not provide the company with the feedback it needed to hone its product positioning and message.

To make its messages compelling, credible, and clear, the company turned to BDTI’s Sounding Board service.

A BDTI team met with executives and managers from the company for a Sounding Board session.  The company presented an overview of its technology and products, and its objectives for its product introduction.  The BDTI Sounding Board team then digested the company’s existing messaging and positioning and provided a set of recommendations for improving them.  Following the Sounding Board, many of BDTI’s recommendations were implemented by the company, resulting in a powerful, differentiated, and credible set of messages for its debut announcement. The company received excellent coverage in the trade press and was very satisfied with the outcome.

To learn more about BDTI’s evaluation capabilities, contact Jeremy Giddings at BDTI (giddings@bdti.com) or visit www.BDTI.com.

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