i3 - January/February 2017 - 96

Business

By Jake Sigal

A DV I C E FO R E N T R E P R E N E U RS

A/B Testing at CES: Live Without a Net
you say should remain 100 percent
authentic and representative of your
product, your company and you as a
person.
Are you pitching a drone that has
a camera for action sports, or are you
showing off solutions for the action
sports industry that leverage unmanned
vehicles? Are you selling drones for
business use through retail distribution,
or are you looking to license your app
and software API to third-party drone
manufacturers to retrofit existing
drone and video rigs? Maybe you want
to pitch your drone as a white-label
"My First Drone" platform for kids to
learn to fly safely with their parents.
You're marketing this to universities
and toy companies.
Eureka Park allows
Try different angles at the show.
startups to perfect
their core messaging.
There's a good chance there are 10 other
companies trying to solve the same
problems you're solving.
I tried to sell connected office furniture
very business leader learns the art of the pitch. Trade
and
didn't find success with our product
shows provide a rare and unique opportunity to get your
until I stopped pitching connected
message out there while refining it. Every year, before
furniture to furniture companies and
we go to CES, we provide some marketing training for
started selling a retrofittable businessour team working the floor. This is teaching the engineers and
to-business software/sensor solution
product managers the key messages related to our products and
for furniture manufacturers. My A/B
test was between selling "connected
preparing them to answer the most
create a message and
furniture" first (A), and
straightforward yet hardest question
then distribute it to
the larger healthcare and
they'll hear at the show: "What does
their stakeholders in the
wellness push (B) second.
I've found it's
your company do?"
booth, who then share it
magic for me was
really productive The
It's easy to spot the engineers who
with customers and the
actually flipping them
when I flip
have worked a major trade show with
press. Over the last few
around in my pitch order,
a marketing
their products, and the ones who haven't.
years, I've been leveraging
but keeping the original
For those who have done it, the elevator
A/B marketing tests at
order for launch timing.
message
pitch is personalized and spot on. It's
CES. Sometimes, I'll try
Expect to pivot
completely
been rehearsed 1,000 times and it flows
something very subtle,
and pivot gracefully
upside down to
naturally. Show-seasoned engineers and
like switching the order
A/B testing pitches
see
the response when
product managers refine these messages
of benefits from 1-2-3 to
for your products and
and generate
and zero in on what works well for them.
1-3-2 in a pitch. I've found
services. You'll know if
excitement.
it's really productive when
you've gone too far off the
I flip a marketing message
deep end when people
Developing Your Core Message
start giving you weird
There is a core message creation process completely upside down to
see the response and generate excitement. looks. It's all part of the excitement of
for brand managers and product
It goes without saying that everything
creating the future. n
marketing staff that enables them to
96

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

ROBYN BECK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

i3 - January/February 2017

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