...And What About Your Marketing Plan?

I spent last week in San Francisco at the CleanTech Group conference. For those of you not familiar with this company, CleanTech is a trade organization for the innovative companies in the cleantech and new energy space, and the venture capital companies that focus their investment dollars on this industry. It was a great experience, and I was encouraged that many attendees were actually optimistic about where our country is going, as opposed to all the negativity that we read day in and day out in the news.

But what still frustrates me when attending these events is the lack of focus on how these innovators plan to market their products or services. All these companies get an opportunity to present their inventions to investors – and many of the inventions are quite impressive. But when they end their presentations, I’m left wondering, “And what about your marketing plan?”

Even at an early stage, you “game changers” need to be outward with your brands. You need to communicate your points-of-view, be controversial if your product is disruptive to current technologies, establish a language that gets at the core of what you stand for and how you benefit the end user. You need to be intimate with your target audience(s), know what motivates them, and communicate in a way that is persuasive and profound.

We have a client that is at an early stage of development – striving to find funding, working to commercialize its solutions, providing research and development to progress the overall industry in which the company operates. Our client has a strong point-of-view that is counter to many of the experts in the field. We’re helping him amplify his voice through a new website, blogging, LinkedIn groups, op-ed pieces and introducing him to influencers with purse strings. This client understands the benefits of creating a brand now in an effort to be a thought-leader in the industry.

The majority of people I met at the conference commended our company for entering the space. And they all agree that smart marketing is essential to making bigger strides. I just hope it wasn’t optimistic rhetoric, and that they actually move on developing that marketing plan. Maybe next time I attend, I’ll say after these presentations, “…and what a great marketing program to actually generate sales!”

Jon Milenthal is vice president of The Milenthal Group – a strategic marketing firm focused on helping "game changers" transition from ideation to commercialization, or from public unawareness to mass movement by helping develop their missions, create brands, establish persuasive selling propositions and find a powerful voice in today's new ideology and new economy.