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Taking advantage of being first
MENTORS
Declan Droney
Declan Droney is the owner manager of Kinvara Smoked Salmon Ltd, the first Irish company to offer Irish organic smoked salmon to the market. Its customer base includes Superquinn and Supervalu in Ireland and Waitrose and Wholefoods in the UK, which represents 60pc of its business. It also supplies to the US, Hong Kong and Japan and operates a worldwide e-commerce mail-order and corporate-gift service.
Kinvara Smoked Salmon Ltd has won numerous awards for its product and marketing, including the Irish Food Writers Guild Food Awards 2005; the Western Region Marketing Institute ‘Excellence in Marketing Practice' award in 2004; and the (National) Marketing Institute ‘SME Marketing' award in 2005. In 2006 Kinvara Smoked Salmon Ltd was runner-up in the Small Firms Association National Awards for Innovation and Excellence and was a finalist in 2007 and 2008.
Droney has a (level 7) diploma in strategic management and a master's in business (MBA).
Taking advantage of being first
08.04.2010
Kinvara was the first Irish company to offer Irish organic smoked salmon to the market. Owner manager Declan Droney provides advice to anyone who is starting a company with a view to being first with a product or service.
Having a unique product gives you first-mover advantage and puts you in a very good position to build your market and your brand quickly. It also puts you under pressure to capture the market before your competitors catch up.
Be very clear of what the unique selling point of your product is and what need it will satisfy for your customer. Build a public relations (PR) campaign around this in trade and consumer press which are always happy to carry editorial on new and innovative products.
A well-written PR piece will yield great results and this third-party recommendation will speak volumes for your product and will set your brand apart right from the start. Use these positive press quotes as part of your marketing. Everyone wants to be part of a good news story so use this momentum and work hard to get the product on shelf.
Work on the marketing mix
In this introductory and growth phases of your product’s life cycle it is important to get the other aspects of the marketing mix right, ie price, place and promotion. Don’t overprice your product just because you have the market to yourself as competitors will soon arrive to undercut you. Invest in promotion of your product such as price reduction, introductory offer or tastings/demonstrations. This is a really exciting phase for any new business, enjoy it, work hard, take small steps and learn from the small mistakes you will inevitably make along the way.
Contributed by
Declan Droney
Kinvara Smoked Salmon
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