Launch Tomorrow

Landing Pages for your Lean Startup

  • About
  • Members
  • Blog
  • Products

Archives for July 2020

Win the fight for attention by communicating with relevance

July 16, 2020 by Luke Szyrmer Leave a Comment

The biggest challenge when introducing a new product is establishing a connection with your audience. Often, this is because you can’t do anything else until this is in place. This detail really hit home for me, when I went to an accelerator event in Mexico.

In this 2006 photograph, a man was receiving an intramuscular injection in his left shoulder muscle from a trained, registered nurse (RN), while his family was observing from over the nurse's shoulder.
Photographer: CDC | Source: Unsplash

One of the speakers was an immunobiologist client of mine, who’d developed a unique salmonella vaccine that could be combined with other vaccines. And it looks as though his vaccine is the only salmonella one which can do that.

I’d worked with him briefly as an innovation expert, and had a discussion about commercialization options as well as some pitch training. At the time he was struggling to see entrepreneurship as a viable route to greater impact. He felt comfortable as an inventor, and wanted to do more of that, not become a businessman.

It turned out I had unleashed a force of nature. Also drilling him in giving pithy explanations helped him hone down his message to something much more concrete for anyone who wasn’t already a fellow immunobiologist, or even a scientist. This one insight allowed him to communicate the relevance of his work to the wider public.

But more importantly, he started to believe that entrepreneurship was a viable route to greater impact. As it would force him to confront institutions that held him and other scientists back domestically.

Your riskiest assumptions are probably related to your prospects and customers. Establish empathy quickly with your target prospect, figure out what's valuable, and get your innovation into the market.

As a result of both, he’s pretty much gone from a booksy academic researcher to a serious contender in getting funding to help spread the use of his product vaccine. This is the power of relevance and empathy in an age of dwindling attention.

One of the best ways to get (and stay) relevant is to focus all of your marketing and product efforts around a client profile. In theory there are millions of ways to reach an audience; in practice, you only need to reach a specific group of people. So figure out who they are, and then just focus on them. The best way to do this is the Hero Canvas tool. Grab a copy and get a quick intro for free with my Hero Canvas course.

<< Help Yo' Friends

Filed Under: assumptions, case study, find people, innovation, startup, stories Tagged With: attention, relevance

By Role

  • Startup Founder
  • Software Manager
  • Remote Leader
  • Innovation Executive
  • You Like?

    Search

    Key Topics

  • Faster time to market
  • Early-stage Growth and Marketing
  • Product-Message-Market Fit
  • Experiments and Minimum viable products
  • Metrics
  • About Luke

    Luke Szyrmer is an innovation and remote work expert. He’s the bestselling author of #1 bestseller Launch Tomorrow. He mentors early stage tech founders and innovators in established companies. Read More…

    Topics

    • agile
    • assumptions
    • case study
    • communication
    • conversion rate
    • delay
    • experiments
    • extreme product launch
    • find people
    • funding
    • Growth
    • inner game
    • innovation
    • landing page
    • landing page MVP
    • manage risks
    • marketing
    • metrics
    • minimum viable product
    • modelling
    • modularity
    • personal
    • Pitch
    • podcasts
    • priorities
    • proof
    • release planning
    • Risk
    • software
    • startup
    • stories
    • time management
    • tools for founders
    • uncategorized
    • unknown unknowns
    • velocity
    • vizualization

    Tags

    agile funding attention automated testing CAC case study covid cringe cringeworthy customer development economic impact existential risk explainer video extreme product launch faster time to market founder market fit founders growth headlines hero canvas identifying needs landing page mvp launch lean startup links market risk message minimum viable product modularity numbers options planning principles prioritization product market fit real options relevance split testing stealth story systemic test driven development testing time management traffic underlier

    Copyright © 2023 · Log in · Privacy policy · Cookie policy · Terms & conditions