Lack of Market Awareness as Common Startup Challenge

One of the most common startup challenges is the lack of market awareness that a solution exists. During the first four years of Pardot, we’d knock down doors and reach out to marketers only to find that they’d never heard of marketing automation and didn’t know the technology existed. Once we convinced them of the possibilities, and showed the application in action, the proverbial light bulb went off and they quickly got it. Only, it was extremely time consuming to get to that point.

As the market grew and matured, awareness become a non-issue and the sales velocity accelerated. At that point, the business was nearly five years old and the market dynamics were established. It was too late for a new entrant.

Here are a few thoughts on dealing with lack of market awareness:

• Figure out a good pace in the business as timing a market is one of the most difficult things (being too early to a market is still a failure)
• Know that a large amount of outbound activity is required
• Inbound marketing doesn’t work due to the lack of searches (minimal awareness results in minimal searches)
• Employee a team of business development reps (if the price point allows it)
• Host in-person events in different cities and use sales reps to drive attendance (again, if the price point allows it)

Lack of market awareness is a serious challenge for startups and many times isn’t surmountable. Startups would do well to brace for battle and engage in more manual tactics to get the message out.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the lack of market awareness as a common startup challenge?