When launching a new product, overcoming skepticism, both internally and externally, is mission critical. The key to success is ensuring that your product empowers people to achieve their goals. However, as important as this is, many make the mistake of believing the only goals that customers have are financial. While long-term benefits are typically measured in financial terms such as increased sales or improved efficiency, we often mess up when we assume that all target users care about this one metric. Dig deeper and you’ll discover that many individuals who will be required to adopt new work habits so your product or service can deliver its promised financial benefit, will rarely realize any financial benefit themselves. With no perceived benefit delivered by the new product, the motivation to change work habits and/or adopt the new technology dips to zero sabotaging a new product’s reputation, stalling any future adoption, and baffling the product launch team.
As we drive home the financial benefits of whatever whizzbang new product we’re currently launching, we must take into account the emotional needs of the implementers. Do the homework and find out who is actually using your product and what matters to them. Will the new product make the customers’ work life easier, bring a group internal status, make them look smarter or set them up for a promotion? Key individuals who connect strongest with these “emotional benefits” are called “Beachhead Customers” and, managed correctly, they will become not only your earliest adopters but also your best advocates, enthusiastically selling your product to their peers. Watch how this played out for a medical device company.
A Medical Device Launch
After spending millions on R&D, a medical device company was struggling to launch a new implant. Even though it was an impressive device, it had been rejected by physicians and payers in both Asia and North America as they couldn’t identify any significant benefits over the existing products. Rather than panicking, the manager in Europe saw an opportunity.
Like in most countries, physicians in Europe never see a financial benefit from adopting a new product. Knowing this, the European manager decided to shift the focus away from the financial benefits and explore how this new device could empower physicians to more quickly achieve their own goals. What he discovered was that, within the community of approximately 225 implant physicians, peer status was a major motivator for about 15% of these doctors. Armed with this insight, the manager developed a strategy to target only this 15%. A campaign was developed saying that due to limited manufacturing capacity only selected doctors would have access to the new implant for the first six months. Additionally, as a chosen physician you would qualify for grants to develop scientific papers to present to peers at upcoming conferences. Implicit was the opportunity to enhance their professional status among their peers.
As promised, the launch was restricted to this target 15% for the first six months and these doctors did publish papers showcasing the patient outcomes. After six months the product was made available to the wider physician market. The uptake was over 80% (remember this same product failed in North America and Asia) and 18 months later the old product was fully retired from the European market. The company saw a notable increase in market share and profits skyrocketed as the implant sold at a 30% premium even though it was actually cheaper for the company to produce. What can we learn from this successful product launch?
- Focusing on the “emotional” benefit: In this case enhancing professional status motivated a key group of physicians to drive the success of the new product.
- Financial outcomes are important but highlighting them should be saved only for the customers who will actually realize them. This is often not the user.
- Identifying “Beachhead” customers is mission critical. When the product delivers the promised outcomes, this group takes little convincing to adopt. They’ll be your advocates, driving adoption in your customer base as they did in our story.
When launching a new product (internal or external) does your team focus on the technical and financial facts or have you been able to identify the “emotional” factors that you’re really selling? Remember…when it comes to driving change, emotions matter more than facts!
