Category Archives: Promotions

Promoting technology – what works and what does not

Emotion Promotion

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Even heartless people have emotions. Well, perhaps not politicians, but people to who you sell products do. Even battle-hardened CTOs have emotions that can be leveraged to market your wares. Identifying and correctly touching those emotions is a tricky process and one that can backfire fatally if you choose wrong. It is the difference between smiling at the pretty girl at the end of the bar and stalking her … two different emotional responses producing either romance or incarceration. Silicon Strategies Marketing’s most popular white paper is “Selling Empathy – the power of positioning and branding.” In it we discuss how emotions work in marketing technology products to IT people, and how emotional drivers should become part of your brand. Every human brain, aside from those in drug addicts and congressmen, has left and right hemispheres that process all we know about the world around us. Emotions swirling in the … Continue reading →

Integrated Biased

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We’re all biased, even those who allegedly are not. We come by it innocently enough because our biases were taught to us. Some we picked up listening to our parents. Weaker minds are warped by politicians and pundits. Instincts are actionable biases learned through Darwinian selection. Brand marketing’s primary job is to teach bias to buyers and cause customers to favor one brand over others. But then again, I’m a little biased on the subject. Stripped of fluffy pseudo-psych speech, biasing is a Maslow tool, designed primarily to avoid risk and in more rare cases obtain self actualization or esteem.  Marketing’s job is to determine which direction (safety or self) will motivate buyers and then teach customers their newfound bias. Apple is masterful at instilling self-esteem bias in gadget buyers. IBM remains very good at selling safety bias to CIOs. Donald Trump is biased about his ego, and that manages … Continue reading →

Authentically

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It was an authentic question. I shared coffee last week with a former boss who now is a VP at Google. He was surprised to learn that I founded a marketing strategy consultancy and had been successful at it ever since leaving his employ. He was curious how I promoted the business and was shocked to learn that approximately half of Silicon Strategies Marketing’s new clients come from the web. It all hinges on authenticity. Since the earliest days of snake oil, buyers have been wary of product claims. Anyone who has ever bought a used car is even more sensitive. Inexperienced marketers make unsubstatiated claims, and by doing so trash their corporate brands. The entire product world — both B2C and B2B — at times seem to lack any authenticity. People, pre-programmed as they now are, distance themselves from offerings that appear inauthentic. Which oddly enough explains iPods and … Continue reading →

Bogus Booths

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One synonym for booth is stall, which is what a trade show booth should do. At Mac World last week, very few booths made attendees stall. The purpose of a tradeshow booth (or any promotion) is to make attendees believe that you have something of value to offer. Well targeted trade shows provide great opportunities to put value propositions in front of potential customers, many of whom have thought-leadership roles given that in this recession they are the only ones with budget to attend shows. Yet an average trade show booth rarely communicates more than the booth manager not understanding how to nail audience attention. When planning to exhibit, you have to ask yourself “what attracts the attention of this group of people.” At Mac World, my wife noticed a cluster of highly attractive women in tight fitting and very abbreviated dresses at one booth, and instantly realized their ability … Continue reading →

B2Bing Social

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The word “consternation” could be illustrated by faces of B2B technology marketers trying to leverage social media. Social media is plate tectonics under marketing terra firma. It is a fundamentally new way of reaching people that at least augments, and in many cases replaces, traditional marketing. Getting unpaid people to carry your message to potential buyers seems to be a gift from the Gods, or at least Mark Zuckerberg. Well, for B2C marketing mavens. B2B has uneven results in social promotions. Part of the reason is that motivations for sharing a YouTube video with Grandma are very different from sharing anything with your co-workers, boss or peers. And whereas Nanna might forward your email to cousin Don, your boss might never forward it to anyone. Motivations for sharing are the center of any social outreach, be it passing the collection plate at church or making off with the offerings. Business … Continue reading →

Terminal Videos

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Video is a great marketing tool that people use poorly. The current vogue in online video, aside from cheap distribution of funny commercials on YouTube, is the animated 60-second-or-less landing page. These short videos relay the primary value proposition of a product, and perhaps some insight into how the product works. In the chain of discovery that buyers endure, this is the very first step — understanding why they should care about you. Short landing page videos give buyers a reason to investigate further. They then are forced to either divulge personal information in ham-handed calls-to-action (and risk getting a sales phone call), or wade through increasingly dense web copy in order to learn important product details. Why do companies stop using video after the landing page? This came to mind while reviewing case studies of Silicon Strategies Marketing clients. We once scripted a series of “deep dive” overview videos … Continue reading →

Channeling Brands

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A local Sprint store sale punk demonstrated Siri on the new Apple iPhone 4S by saying “Siri, I’m drunk” to which Siri relied “There are 15 taxis in the vicinity …” This demo would kill Steve Jobs. Other customers on the sales floor were a mixture of amused and offended, though before the demo all had come cash-in-hand to see the new iGizmo. Each now wore a creepy expression on their mugs — similar to the ones they likely wore upon discovering the Santa Myth (which is not to be confused with the Santana Myth which claims that Carlos can sing). The iPhone’s image had been tarnished by a frat boy stunt in a place trying to sell iPhones. Apple’s G-rated brand was slammed with an R-rated demo, and nobody left that Sprint store with a 4S. Growing or preserving a brand through channels is slightly more difficult than balancing the … Continue reading →