Category Archives: Marketing

Observations about the science of marketing technology

Targeting Buyers

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Marketing is a bit like target practice. You aim for the middle to score the most points. Start-ups are notoriously bad at targeting their buyers. Instead of using a hunting rifle, they choose a shotgun, scattering their marketing spend over vast areas of ill-defined buyers. Thus their spend per new customer is higher than it should be, and their stable of customers contain awkward fits who will be less happy with the product that well targeted buyers. Start-ups entrepreneurs shoot their investment wad and go home without winning. Go-to-market plans need to identify everyone that influences a purchase decision in a viable market segment. If you have not segmented – properly or at all – and you have only vague ideas about the functional and emotional motivations of buyers, their bosses and subordinates, then you are shooting blindfolded and will miss your target. Here are the essential steps in formulating … Continue reading →

Media Mutters

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Media ain’t what it used to be … thank God. The internet has made everyone a publisher, and as such has completely rearranged from where information and power emit. Dead is the quaint era when all info rained like fetid manna from centralized sources. Today you, the marketing ground workers, have seemingly endless avenues for promoting your products, your brand and your profits. Which is why some of you have been driven to drink (though for a few it was just a short stroll). The reason self-medication is becoming popular in marketing circles has nothing to do with Mad Men or three martini lunches. It derives from needing to orchestrate outreach through all these media channels. Wherever such seeming chaos ensures, it is best to take a deep breath, a shot of something, and distill your options into a manageable set. In media, there are three basic categories through which … Continue reading →

Basic Bodhi

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“I wasn’t aware you existed.” Sounds like something my congressman would say to me. Brand awareness is the minimal quantum of connection with customers, and the foundation for every other marketing maneuver. If they don’t know you exist, then there is no hope they will adopt your product. You must achieve brand awareness before customers can even approach brand knowledge, acceptance, preference, loyalty, advocacy and religion (and if you need some religious indoctrination on all things branding, flip to chapter six of the Start-up CEO’s Marketing Manual). However, “awareness” has proven to be a tenebrous term. In branding, “awareness” constitutes being aware that a product exists, what value it provides and a notion of why the customer should give a durn. For example, I’m aware that Lady Gaga exists, but even after multiple brand exposures, I still cannot identify her value or why I shouldn’t change the channel. Granted, middle aged marketing gurus are … Continue reading →

Not-so-great Expectations

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A rather Glassy lady said “I’d rather be pleasantly surprised than fatally disappointed.” She should have been in marketing. Marketers and brand managers are in the expectation business. Part of their job entails defining and setting the expectations of their customers or their market. Since expectations are the state of anticipating something, we marketing mavens create the customer’s state anticipation. When reality doesn’t match what is anticipated, odd and dangerous things occur. If you don’t understand this, just think back to your first blind date. When defining the expectations you want customers to have, you can aim too low, too high, just right or aim for something entirely different. Only the last two work and the latter is the trickiest, though often most profitable. Generally speaking, setting customer expectations a little low is a good strategy. Pleasantly surprised people become repeat customers. If their expectations are consistently exceeded, even by … Continue reading →

Departmental Detrimental

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Businesses should not resemble circular firing squads. While presenting to the Silicon Valley Forum’s Marketing SIG last night, one audience member noted her company’s marketing, product development and sales staffs were unaligned. Well, “unaligned” might be poor wording. They appear to be as completely disjointed as drawn and quartered traitors. This is not uncommon in tech companies where the three groups have come onboard at different phases of corporate growth, believe they own the customer and move ahead despite what other teams are doing. Circular firing squads are more efficient and less violent. In early phases, techies are product managers and interface with customers directly. They believe they listen to prospects though this is often self-delusion. Techies (and particularly techie founders) only listen to customer input that agrees with the original product vision. This form of founderitus is so prevalent in Silicon Valley that my audience was not surprised when … Continue reading →

ARMing Markets

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You have to admire AMD. They know when and how to be agile, mainly when decks are stacked against them. AMD recently announced they are teaming with a different chip designer – ARM, the current darling of mobile and energy efficient processors – to make ARM’s products 64-bit. Those with good memories will recall that AMD practically invented the modern 64-bit processor industry when they released their Opteron chip and caught Intel sitting on their laurels (which must have been uncomfortable). This eventually forced Intel to license AMD’s 64-bit instruction set (which must have been uncomfortable). I was leading SuSE Linux’s North American strategy at the time and saw Intel staff faces wince when SuSE and Microsoft took the stage at the Opteron release event (which was obviously uncomfortable). AMD didn’t keep their momentum and have had a number of setbacks. With desktops dwindling in numbers as consumers buy slabs … Continue reading →

Mystique Mistakes

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An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. This is sadly true, and for marketing mavens it is a cursed blessing. The fact is that people buy image. This occurs in faddish B2C markets and function-driven B2B sectors. Image is often the single most motivating factor in a purchase decision. From Louis Vuitton to Barack Obama to IBM, sales are made on the strength of image. Craft a certain image and people will lob lucre at you or elect you to high office. Fail that image and disaster is almost certain. Reliance on mystique is both the essence and the failure of branding. Mystique is defined as “an aura of mystical power … a framework of beliefs constructed around a person or object, endowing the person or object with enhanced value or profound meaning.” In no sense of the word does mystique equate with reality. Many Hollywood stars … Continue reading →