Marketing emerging companies

Emerging companies face a host of unique challenges and obstacles as they try and lay a foundation for business growth and establish themselves in a rival market place. The biggest challenge to new and emerging companies is establishing a trusted reputation and a solid customer base. Without a legacy of a successful past or a trusted brand, new and emerging companies need to use innovative and powerful means of marketing to survive the competitive market place. If you're a start-up company, your communications and marketing needs differ significantly from established companies. Emerging companies are faced with the challenge of building recognition for their initial products or services and the company's new identity. Fledgling companies need to recognise opportunities to leverage their current image into new markets.

What makes a brand, is giving the customer something that he trusts and can rely on and this is developed over time. Companies survive through a strong brand identity and a successful brand will become synonymous with the product. To be successful, a company must therefore deliver what it promises on a constant basis and tell this success story to the consumer.

Building brand identity and gaining recognition and success is an ongoing process. Working miracles in a short space of time is the challenge that communications consultancies face. In the crowded market place, new companies need to look for creative ways to gain media and public attention.

Surgeon and Safari is a prime example of how a South African company is rapidly becoming an international brand name by identifying a niche in the market with a novel concept. Opened in 1999 by Lorraine Melvill, the concept is of a mutually beneficial association between the offerings of a surgeon and safari while in South Africa. Melvill saw the need for a unique product in a niche market, packaged and sold it with an extremely positive approach to the market and is now an established business. Melvill's concept of cosmetic surgery in the bush attracted media attention throughout South Africa and was a catalyst in the company's expedient high profile.

The steps in building a successful company entail identifying its target demographic and figuring out what that audience wants and how to deliver this effectively and consistently. In the bustling marketplace, fledgling companies need to identify a gap in the market and strike while the iron is hot. They need to successfully develop their brands through the integration of consumer interactive research, innovative and strategic communication strategies and marketing plans. Communication strategies can take many angles from profiling entrepreneurs, breaking new ground with technologies and ideas, identifying unique new business angles or identifying a topical trend in a niche market.

Anton Leal, the managing director of Asset Dynamics, gained success for identifying a relevant and topical idea in the IT sector. After being in the IT industry for some years, Leal recognised the need and challenges that organisations face in trying to track and trace desktops and notebooks. The Asset Dynamic team also identified a large gap in the market, for a company, which could provide PC inventory management solutions and PC theft prevention offerings. Asset Dynamics saw the idea for breaking new ground in technology and used this to gain publicity and recognition. Despite the company being a mere few months old, IT journalists have been keen to scoop up this new solution to PC security and theft.

New companies need to look beyond product launches and explore all avenues of publicity to build enduring relationships. Relatively new companies do not have the luxury of using significant milestones and company events to gain exposure and publicity and must therefore create and rely on innovative and intuitive publicity opportunities. Whether it is crossing the Atlantic in a hot air balloon á la Richard Branson or throwing a social bash in Hugh Heffner style, innovative strategic marketing plans and communications must be employed to gain recognition and keep your company ahead of the competition. In order to survive and flourish, every business needs to adopt a defined and planned growth strategy that focuses on developing new business opportunities that will result in a positive brand image and consumer support.