When David got back from our recently held think tank presented as part of the 3rd Annual NIH Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation we chatted about participant reactions to what our team presented. These post-event debriefs are useful from a communications standpoint since they help to determine whether or not people get what we are about and to gage the level of enthusiasm towards our ideas.
Talking with David and reading Diane’s blog gave me a sense of relief that we are on the right track in building this platform and taking the appropriate steps to get there. What really caught my attention though in speaking with David was that referring to CAPTURE as a product and using a business-like approach to develop and launch it received several nods of approval. This new bit of information obtained from our informal debrief was exciting because I am in the process of developing explanatory videos about our project, revamping our boilerplate and working on communication strategies to launch CAPTURE’s features, all of which position CAPTURE as a product that needs a compelling pitch to attract our target audience’s attention.
From a product development perspective we have two main target audiences: practitioners and program managers and organizations interested in improving chronic disease prevention policies and programs through web-based solutions. From a product promotion perspective we are zeroing-in on the chronic disease prevention community of practice.
To ensure they develop products of value and then market them effectively, most successful businesses will conduct market and marketing research. Market research often helps to identify an appropriate niche within a sea of products and services and to understand customer needs, whereas marketing research helps an organization learn how to connect with that customer base.
Although we at The CAPTURE Project did not hire some big fancy market research firm to help us analyze the landscape we did do our own homework and obtained the information we needed. Our consultation phase activities (see here, here and here) were specifically meant to help us understand the chronic disease prevention landscape, learn what products or services our competitors had to offer and what their plans were, help us identify our identity and clarify what our customer base should be. Through key informant interviews (see here and here) and recently completed focus groups (a report on that to come your way soon) we have gathered quite a bit of marketing intelligence shedding light on our target audience’s needs, concerns, motivations and goals.
As David stated in his last blog, “we have confused a lot of people about who we are and what we are trying to accomplish because our branding has been unfocused”. I agree. But we have learned from our previous blunders and looking back at our rich market and marketing data in a new light we can develop concrete answers for how CAPTURE as a product can meet customer needs. We now acknowledge that our brand is related to evaluation, but we still have some work to do to clearly articulate our brand and develop supporting tools to market it.
We are in the process of reframing how our boilerplate describes our brand to drive home the message that CAPTURE is about making evaluation easy, accessible and practical. We are also close to finalizing the first of two videos that tell our story and explain our product in a visually compelling way. And we are hoping to convene a practitioner sounding board in the next month or so to obtain concrete feedback on our communication materials and ideas around promotion to make sure we don’t miss the mark when we are ready to roll-out CAPTURE’s features.
Stay tuned and tell us what you think about our ideas and work. Your comments – we realize – are a rich source of marketing data.
