The saying goes “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door”. It may be the worst advice ever to be passed as common knowledge.
The fact is, mousetraps currently work just fine. More importantly, everyone knows how to set one, and despite the danger in doing so, it is familiar. Everyone knows that when the trap has been successful, you will be left with a dead mouse at best, and a dying one at worst. But you know what to expect.
You may come up with a much better alternative. Certainly, there is plenty of room for improvement in the current industry leader, but the world knows what to expect from it, and understands how to use it. They will be reluctant to learn a new mouse catching system, no matter how much better the results promise to be.
So if you have a better mousetrap, you may not want to tout its great new features. You may want, instead, to make extra certain that you apply strong marketing fundamentals.
Start a new category: Mousetraps that work silently or without unseemly cleanup perhaps.
Push the category: Mousetraps startle you at night, or their use spreads disease. They cause insomnia, or family dangers. Be sure to stress the problem that exists right now. That way, if the problem is of significance to any portion of the audience, that portion will be sympathetic to your message.
Finally, introduce your mousetrap as the champion of the category: Here is a mousetrap that you won’t hear, or that contains and disposes of the mouse without spreading its germs.
All you need to do now is to focus your message on the mouse infested audience that is most likely to be concerned about that category.