If your product or service is properly innovative, it’s often ahead of its time, and this presents a unique challenge when it comes to marketing. Traditional strategies, like leveraging existing demand through AdWords or specialist listings, often fall short when a product category doesn’t exist yet, or your audience isn’t searching for a solution to their problem. Moreover, articulating your concept succinctly and overcoming customer resistance to change—embodied in the mindset of “this is just the way we’ve always done it”—can be formidable obstacles.

At Sussex Innovation, many of our members are launching new and disruptive ideas, so our marketing consultancy team have become very familiar with this unique challenge. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but we have several strategies that we typically explore when confronted with a business that’s “ahead of its market”.

Educate the Market

Becoming the first to educate the market about your new product category is a unique opportunity to create effective and engaging content marketing.

Begin by clearly defining the problem your innovation addresses. Articulate the benefits of solving this problem in a way that resonates with your target audience. As marketing expert Seth Godin aptly puts it, “Don’t find customers for your product. Find products for your customers.” This means understanding your customers’ needs deeply and positioning your product as the solution they’ve been seeking.

Interviewing your prospective customers and looking for any trends or themes can be a great source of insights to inform both your product development, and the marketing content you use to promote it.

Harness the Power of Storytelling

Sharing the journey of how your idea came to fruition can humanise your brand and make your innovation more relatable. Discussing your “lightbulb moment” not only illustrates the value of your product but also builds a narrative that customers can connect with.

As Hannah Arendt noted, “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.” By weaving a compelling story, you invite your audience to see the world through your eyes and understand the significance of your innovation.

Use Metaphor and Analogy

Sometimes we risk confusing our audience by going into an unnecessary level of detail before they are ready to hear what we have to say. Metaphor and analogy are powerful tools because they can very quickly build a sense of familiarity with an idea by comparing it to concepts we already understand.

A metaphor defines your business using a broad archetype that describes the way it solves the customer’s problem. Perhaps your product is a ‘beacon’ that helps customers avoid a ‘shipwreck’, or your service performs like a ‘pit crew’, jumping in to fix and fine tune things quickly and efficiently.

Analogy uses disruptive ideas that have gone before as a way to frame your own, like the famous pitch for the movie Alien that described it as “Jaws in space”. Start-ups often use analogy to secure people’s attention and understanding quickly; maybe you’re the “Netflix of L&D”, or the “4K TV of audio”.

Identify and Engage Early Adopters

Focus on individuals or businesses that acutely feel the problem your product addresses. These early adopters are often more open to new solutions and can become advocates for your innovation. Engaging with them can also provide valuable feedback and help to refine your offering.

Rather than marketing with a broad brush, spend your time, budget and attention on reaching a smaller number of the people who most want what you have to sell. Maybe there is a trade convention that directly serves your target industry, or an influencer informing the market – look for opportunities to share your message with those smaller, more dedicated audiences.

Learn from Successful Innovators

Consider the approach of Dollar Shave Club, which disrupted the traditional razor market. They launched with a humorous and straightforward YouTube video that clearly explained the problem—expensive razors—and their solution: an affordable subscription model. This video not only educated consumers but also told the story of their inception, resonating with early adopters seeking convenience and value.

When it comes to promoting B2B products, free trials and simple referral loops are often a winning strategy. If you have confidence in how good your product is, the trick is making it easy for people to experience and share it. Loom, the screen share and video recording platform, launched twice on new tech curation website Product Hunt in the space of a few months – first as a product designed for gathering user feedback and then, as the founders learned more from their early adopters, as a more multi-purpose tool for remote teams to share and record demos and ‘how-to’s.

Anyone who was interested in Loom could create a free account and record a limited number of short videos, and every video they shared came packaged with a short explainer and a link for the recipient to create their own free account. In this way, every single user made and delivered a free product demo, use case and referral offer to several more prospective users, and the innovation spread rapidly from customer to customer.

Leverage Cost-Effective Strategies

When you have the limited budget of an early-stage business, it’s crucial to start with cost-effective marketing strategies. Content marketing, social media engagement, partnerships and referral mechanisms can amplify your message without significant expenditure.

These approaches come with the added bonus of giving you more opportunities to connect and collaborate with other innovators, and learn directly from your target market. Starting small, personalised and human is a great way to be engaging and develop your ideas.

Although introducing a groundbreaking product to the market is challenging, a strategic focus on education, storytelling, and targeted engagement can pave the way for success. If you’re seeking guidance on crafting a lean marketing strategy for your innovation, don’t hesitate to reach out to the marketing team at Sussex Innovation.