New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

The recent Netbook (see definition below) launch is a case in point of poor alignment between what consumer's want, what they thought they bought and what they actually got.  It stems from core marketing issues of the lack of i) proper market research, ii) proper product positioning and iii) proper marketing messaging.

Recent research revealed the following issues with the new Netbooks based upon extensive consumer survey of 600 Netbook purchasers:

"60 percent of consumers who purchased a netbook instead of a notebook thought their netbooks would have the same functionality as notebooks"

"Only 58 percent of consumers who bought a netbook instead of a notebook said they were very satisfied with their purchase"

"65 percent said they bought their netbooks expecting better performance"

"Sixty percent of them said [portability] was a main reason they bought their netbooks.  However, once they got home, 60 percent of buyers said they never even took their netbooks out of the house."

Source: The NPD Group

Prior to launching a new product, entrepreneurs need to:

• Be absolutely clear about the needs their target customer is trying to solve and to push back hard on what consumers say in their market research, because consumers are notorious for saying one thing, but doing another.  Researchers should probe deeply about product needs and wants through multiple lines of questioning and then watch consumers using the product to gain insight. 
• Secondly, entrepreneurs need to clearly position their product or service relative to competitive products or services, e.g. what does the Netbook do that the Notebook doesn't, what does it not do, etc. 
• Thirdly, entrepreneurs need to be crystal clear in their marketing efforts as they describe their product or service to minimize customer confusion, dissatisfaction and costly returns or demands for refunds.

Netbook definition from Wikipedia: "A netbook is a laptop computer designed for wireless communication and access to the Internet.  Primarily designed for web browsing and e-mailing, netbooks are used on the Internet for remote access to web-based applications[2] and are targeted increasingly at cloud computing users who require a less powerful client computer."