URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/inventing/marketingyourinvention/article36320.html

Just because you think of a stellar idea doesn't mean potential customers will embrace it. Inventors face many hurdles bringing their products to market, especially when it's already flooded with similar ideas. If you want to succeed, you've got to convince buyers that your bright idea is better than the products your customers already know and use.

Linda May, 44, faced this situation when she and her partner, Bob Kloczkowski, 50, introduced the "Save My Face!" Pillow. Because so many other pillows had hit the shelves during the past decade, the market first viewed May's creation as just another therapeutic pillow. "[It's] actually a beauty product," she says, "but people weren't seeing that at all." Instead of providing neck comfort, the "Save My Face!" Pillow promises to minimize facial creases. Now that she's communicated that message to buyers, May's garnered business from a profitable market segment: middle-aged men and women nationwide who yearn to hold on to their youth as long as possible.

The Studio City, California, former massage therapist initially met with resistance. Sales were only $40,000 in the first six months of 2000. By the end of that year, however, sales rose to more than $200,000. Part of that success resulted from getting the "Save My Face!" Pillow into numerous catalogs, including SelfCare, Solutions and Home Recovery. May has also been able to position her product as an innovative new item by selling through specialty outlets.

Just because you think of a stellar idea doesn't mean potential customers will embrace it. Inventors face many hurdles bringing their products to market, especially when it's already flooded with similar ideas. If you want to succeed, you've got to convince buyers that your bright idea is better than the products your customers already know and use.

Linda May, 44, faced this situation when she and her partner, Bob Kloczkowski, 50, introduced the "Save My Face!" Pillow. Because so many other pillows had hit the shelves during the past decade, the market first viewed May's creation as just another therapeutic pillow. "[It's] actually a beauty product," she says, "but people weren't seeing that at all." Instead of providing neck comfort, the "Save My Face!" Pillow promises to minimize facial creases. Now that she's communicated that message to buyers, May's garnered business from a profitable market segment: middle-aged men and women nationwide who yearn to hold on to their youth as long as possible.

The Studio City, California, former massage therapist initially met with resistance. Sales were only $40,000 in the first six months of 2000. By the end of that year, however, sales rose to more than $200,000. Part of that success resulted from getting the "Save My Face!" Pillow into numerous catalogs, including SelfCare, Solutions and Home Recovery. May has also been able to position her product as an innovative new item by selling through specialty outlets.

Some market misperceptions stem from the way certain products get distributed. Products sold in drug stores or mass merchandisers are considered simply functional and low-cost, so the stores don't make any effort to improve products' perceived value. But products sold by surgeons or leading medical catalogs are perceived to be more effective and of higher quality. Patients assume their doctors only sell products they believe in and that meet only the highest standards.

The same feelings result when products are sold through high-end retailers. Customers believe the products have been screened by the retailer and must be top-notch. This idea plays into May's strategy of selling to day spas and salons, where women go to feel pampered and look great. These outlets strengthen her message that the pillow keeps women looking beautiful.

Many inventors attempt to sell their products to the widest market possible, a strategy that works for inexpensive products but doesn't really work for better quality products that can support a higher price tag. Don't let selling to a mass merchandiser or low-priced distribution network now prevent you from selling to higher-priced outlets down the road.

Hoping to enhance the perception of her product as high quality, May decided to manufacture the pillows out of a silk-like fabric and use a top-notch sewing process. Her efforts ensured that her product would sell not only in higher-end outlets, but for a higher price, too: $40 to $90 (compared with the $20 to $30 charged for traditional neck pillows). That helped May establish her product's premium image.

To find the right distribution network for your product, check trade magazines that target manufacturers in your market. These magazines are listed in the Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media (Gale Research), which is available at larger libraries. The people featured in these magazines often don't mind answering readers' questions. A quick phone call might help you find out what networks exist in the market.

All inventors confront obstacles at one time or another. The challenge is finding effective solutions. If your product isn't selling the way you'd like it to or if people perceive it as not being unique when it is, consider changing your targeted distribution network as a strategy for turning the situation around. Doing so might provide the positioning your product needs to succeed.

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Don Debelak is a new-business marketing consultant and the author of Bringing Your Product to Market(John Wiley & Sons). Send him your invention questions at dondebelak@uswest.net.