Marketing   When done right, marketing is the perfect blend of science and art.  However, very few companies understand the process of developing and implementing a “winning” strategic marketing plan.  Too many companies view marketing as an afterthought, thinking their engineering prowess or the product/service itself will be enough to establish a stronghold in the broader market.  Countless times in history, the best engineered products have been forced to yield to the inferior engineered product because of superior marketing.  Companies that believe in the old adage, “we shall build it, and they shall come,” will undoubtedly fail.  Marketing doesn’t start when the product is being prototyped. Marketing is an intricate part of every phase of the product development cycle, from research and development to focus groups and post-purchasing surveys.  Unfortunately, many companies would rather skip over the most critical components of marketing, such as research and quantitative and qualitative analysis in order to rush to get the product on a store shelf.  This, of course is done at the detriment of the product itself.  Those companies that fall into this trap often mortally taint themselves in the market, which is often unrecoverable.     Marketing also must be closely tied to its peers, business development, marketing communications and sales force management.  Often, companies silo these departments which eventually lead to a complete communication failure in the broader market.  Marketing is the “common thread” that ties each of these departments together.  How a company develops new business, communicates to its perspective customer and drives sales all are directly related to marketing.  When companies are sending out mixed messages to your customers i.e. business development is saying something different than marketing communications, which is saying something different than the sales force, trouble is lurking on the horizon.     Lastly, marketing must be measured.  Marketing is a performance-based metric.  When measured, marketing is a valuable tool that can drive results and determine invaluable trends, before the competition, thereby buying your company valuable time to react.  Our experience is in developing and implementing strategic marketing plans that ensure your product and/or service enters the market with a strong competitive, durable advantage.