Any high-quality public relations firm can successfully
implement the core tactical aspects of a communications
program, such as media relations or trade show support.
But an effective public relations program should contribute
to achieving a company's business goals, not simply earn
great media coverage. To effectively align business and
communications goals, the program must include the four
critical success factors of thorough market research,
effective strategy, aggressive and creative execution
and metrics-based measurement.
Stearns Johnson fine tunes these success factors based
on a series of market-based dynamics, such as competitor
activity, technology advances, customer expectations
and other market conditions. We focus on developing programs
that uncover market trends early and helping our clients
create and maximize market opportunities. This approach
we've named Market Lifecycle Management (MLM).
MLM recognizes that a company's products and/or services
operate on a lifecycle. Each phase of the lifecycle requires
a different mix of research, strategy, execution and
measurement to create and take best advantage of market
dynamics.
Aligning Public Relations to the Lifecycle
Pre-launch products often require a significant emphasis
on upfront research to answer questions such as: what
is the unfulfilled customer need, how is that need being
met now, how are competitive products addressing this
need and related questions. This information allows the
public relations team to then craft differentiating positioning
and messages and roll out a plan to successfully educate
and excite potential customers.
For newly-launched products, companies must demonstrate
customer acceptance, the product's ability to address
the specific customer wants uncovered in the pre-launch
phase and superiority over competitive offerings. Tactics
such as customer testimonials, media and analyst quotes,
market surveys, hands-on demos and related activities
provide potential customers with the confidence to try
a new product.
In the acceptance phase, customers have gained a comfort
level with the product and confidence in its functionality.
Public relations strategy should focus on reinforcing
these positive impressions as well as encourage customer
recommendations of the product. Tactical tools will give
customers the necessary information to accurately compare
a set of products and select one company's products over
another's.
When a product reaches a mature phase, meaning significant
revenue and/or unit growth has slowed, communications
teams must support the product's ongoing viability by
market expansion. Research and strategy should focus
on uncovering new applications for the product, exciting
additional types of customers, and on a tactical level,
creating new ways to communicate product messages to
both existing and new customers.
As a product reaches a declining phase; i.e., revenues
and/or unit sales are declining, but the product continues
to contribute significant cash flow or otherwise supports
the company's product mix, public relations strategy
and tactics should focus on continuing to communicate
key messages, but in more cost- and resource-efficient
ways.
Altering the Lifecycle
Products rarely travel neatly and cleanly along the
lifecycle outlined above. Multiple events influence a
product's position on the lifecycle – either forward
towards maturity and decline, or backward to new or acceptance
phases.
Uncovering a significant new application for a product,
such as applying an existing drug to a different illness
than which it was originally intended, can move that
drug from a mature or declining phase back to the new
or accepted phases.
Conversely, a competitor introducing a new technology
that improves functionality or reduces cost of a task,
can rapidly move your product toward the mature or declining
phases. The widespread availability and decreasing prices
of flat panel computer monitors, for example, is quickly
eroding the market potential of traditional CRT (cathode
ray tube) monitors.
Products can exist at different stages in their lifecycles
in different markets. Back to the flat panel display
example. These displays, based on LCD technology, are
standard equipment on nearly all new personal computers.
Yet in the home entertainment market, LCD televisions
are clearly a new product, facing significant competition
from traditional CRT televisions, as well as other technologies,
such as plasma.
The length of the lifecycles differs for each product
and, where products exist in different markets, the length
of the lifecycle is often different in each market. Additionally,
it's not inevitable that a product slides from a new
to mature or mature to declining phase. In many industries,
there are examples of products that have lasted decades
relatively unaltered. Aspirin, Ivory Soap, traditional
checking accounts and computer diskettes are three examples.
In these and other lifecycle scenarios, it is the role
of the public relations team to recognize the distinct
lifecycle attributes of a client's product(s) and tailor
the four critical PR success factors of research, strategy,
execution and measurement accordingly.
No One-Size-Fits-All Solutions Exist
The dynamics of product lifecycles are complex and multi-faceted.
This article only begins to touch on this complexity.
But central to maximizing the benefits of a public relations
program is tying the strategy and tactics of the program
to the position(s) of a product on its one or more lifecycles.
Programs that focus on earning coverage vs. earning results
may attract a high level of visibility, but will fail
in the objective of delivering results that help the
company achieve its business objectives.
For more information on Market Lifecycle Management,
please contact Stearns Johnson Communications, Inc.
at 415.397.7600, or email our president, Tim Johnson,
at tjohnson@stearnsjohnson.com |
