Tools for Innovation: Communicating Your Innovations
"Marketing and innovation are essential for earning new customers," said Bill Haines, v.p., product innovation, Dairy Management Inc., at Dairy Innovation Forum 2004 in February. Keynote speaker Doug Hall, an innovation guru and author of Jump Start Your Business Brain, expanded on this by saying "Innovation does not come from customers. We have to lead customers, not the other way around."
Hall explained that businesses become successful innovators by relentlessly focusing on delivering "overt benefits" to customers and making sure that those benefits provide a "meaningful difference." Hall says that many times the key overt benefit for your company or product is the reason you got into the business in the first place.