There are two cracks in the traditional bell curve. Firstly, a chasm between “early adopters” and the “early majority”. The market approach that works for early adopters might not work for more mainstream users of the product or vice versa. Secondly, there is a chasm between the early and the late majority, as each market has its own dynamics. Crossing the chasm requires a tech entrepreneur to make a total commitment to the niche, and then do one’s best to meet everyone else’s needs with whatever resources one has.

The Traditional Bell Curve Of Product Adoption

The point of greatest peril in the development of a high-tech market lies in making the transition from an early market dominated by a few visionary customers to a mainstream market dominated by a large block of customers who are predominantly pragmatists in orientation.  The gap between these two markets, heretofore ignored, is in fact so significant as to warrant being called a chasm, and crossing this chasm must be the primary focus of any long-term high-tech marketing plan. A successful crossing is how high-tech fortunes are made; failure in the attempt is how they are lost.

Product Positioning And Marketing: Crossing The Chasm

To enter the mainstream market is an act of aggression. The companies who have already established relationships with your target customer will resent your intrusion and do everything they can to shut you out. The customers themselves will be suspicious of you as a new and untried player in their marketplace. No one wants your presence. You are an invader.

Getting Into The Mainstream

The Whole Product Concept identifies four different perceptions of product: <ol><li>Generic product – This is what’s shipped in the box and what’s covered by the purchasing contract between the seller and the buyer.</li><li>Expected product – What the customer thought they were buying.</li><li>Augmented product – This is the product fleshed out to provide the maximum chance of achieving the buying objective.</li><li>Potential product – This represents the product’s room for growth as more and more ancillary products come on the market and as customer-specific enhancements to the system are made.</li></ol>

Whole Product Concept

Make a total commitment to the niche, and then do your best to meet everyone else’s needs with whatever resources you have left over.In short: Winning the beachhead, knocking over the head pin, creates a dynamic of follow-on adoption, opening up new market opportunities, in part from leveraging a solution from one niche to another, in part from word-of- mouth interaction between customers in the adjacent niches.

Crossing The Chasm

<ol><li>The product is first used by innovators, people with keen interest in technology.</li><li>Secondly, by the Early Adopters, who appreciate the benefits of the new concept.</li><li>As the product gets traction and becomes mainstream, the early majority starts to use it.</li><li>Then comes the late majority and finally the laggards, people who are away from technology but cannot help but buy it now due to practical reasons.</li></ol>

The Tech Adoption Life Cycle

<ol><li>Naming the product is crucial for any brand selling to happen.</li><li>Position the product for who would buy it and for what reason.</li><li>Differentiate and provide details and comparative context to the buying customer</li><li>Ensure financials, futures and reassurance to the customer for repeat buying.</li></ol>

The Four Stages Of The Tech Adoption Life Cycle

Mainstream markets in high tech look a lot like mainstream markets in any other industry, particularly those that sell business to business. They are dominated by the early majority, who in high tech are best understood as pragmatists, who, in turn, tend to be accepted as leaders by the late majority, best thought of as conservatives, and rejected as leaders by the laggards, or skeptics.

Mainstream Markets: Pragmatists and Conservatives

One of the keys in breaking into a new market is to establish a strong word-of-mouth reputation among buyers. Now, for word of mouth to develop in any particular marketplace, there must be a critical mass of informed individuals who meet from time to time and, in exchanging views, reinforce the product’s or the company’s positioning. That’s how word of mouth spreads. The key to gaining a dominant market share is to attack different segments, adopting the ‘big fish, small pond’ approach.

Segmenting To Win

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The Tech Entrepreneurs Product Positioning and marketing Guide

The bible for bringing cutting-edge products to larger markets—now revised and updated with new insights into the realities of high-tech marketing In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey A. Moore shows that in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle—which begins with innovators and moves to early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards—there is a vast chasm between the early adopters and the early majority. While early adopters are willing to sacrifice for the advantage of being first, the early majority waits until they know that the technology actually offers improvements in productivity. The challenge for innovators and marketers is to narrow this chasm and ultimately accelerate adoption across every segment. This third edition brings Moore's classic work up to date with dozens of new examples of successes and failures, new strategies for marketing in the digital world, and Moore's most current insights and findings. He also includes two new appendices, the first connecting the ideas in Crossing the Chasm to work subsequently published in his Inside the Tornado, and the second presenting his recent groundbreaking work for technology adoption models for high-tech consumer markets.

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Here is the bestselling guide that created a new game plan for marketing in high-tech industries. Crossing the Chasm has become the bible for bringing cutting-edge products to progressively larger markets. This edition provides new insights into the realities of high-tech marketing, with special emphasis on the Internet. It's essential reading for anyone with a stake in the world's most exciting marketplace.