promotion

If only people understood how great your product is...

You know that you've got a great product, but do you know who you are trying to sell it to? Do you know what they will value in the product and how to speak to them about that?

We can help you to work through this, help to define your target market, help identify how to locate them, and then speak to them in language which they understand.

We can speak to the press on your behalf, stand up for you at conferences or demo your product at tradeshows.

Steamed FUD

By Chris | March 30, 2010

A product marketing guide to Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

Like so many things invented elsewhere[i], the high-tech industry has grabbed the marketing ploy of spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) through disinformation and made it all their own.

The idea is simple. Put just enough doubt into the minds of your customers that there is something dodgy about a competitor, or their product, so as to instil enough FUD to stall or reverse a buying decision.

A classic was a SEGA marketing campaign with the slogan “Genesis does what Nintendon’t”.

Let’s face it; FUD is the last defence of the desperate. You just know that the corporate marketing barrel is empty when a high-tech firm turns to FUD. It implies that you can’t differentiate your product, you are haemorrhaging customers and your stock has hit the floor.

If that’s the case then your CEO will be purple in the face and with steam coming out of his ears (despite the fact that it’s probably his fault that you’re in the situation in the first place). Who is he going to call? We’re going to reach for anything we can use, aren’t we? So let’s look at the different ways you can use FUD.

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Posted in promotion | Tagged marketing, pricing, specification | 1 Comment

What the Dog Saw

By Chris | February 23, 2010

A review of Malcolm Gladwell’s book

I can find almost any topic interesting if presented well. In fact, I love being given a glimpse into the normally hidden world of a new specialty. Not only do you learn about stuff you would never normally encounter, but you invariably get a view of the alien culture of those who inhabit this strange new realm. As I learn about a new topic my mind is constantly searching for analogies between it and topics I understand or experiences I have, and then, “POW!” I get a revealing insight into something completely different. I wish this inquisitive habit mean that I was a Polymath or a Renaissance Man, but sadly I’m more of a butterfly generalists, flitting from one subject to another.

As I write this, I have my media player in random mode and am delighted by it switching from Stéphane Grappelli to Indigo Girls.

I do have a deep respect for those who combine my interest with real knowledge and Malcolm Gladwell never fails to impress. In “Open Secrets” in his collection of essays, he touches on Enron, Al Qaeda, Nazi Propaganda, Prostate Cancer, and the Cold War, all in search of a clear differentiation between “Puzzles” and “Mysteries”.

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Posted in promotion | Tagged Book review, marketing, MBA, writing | Leave a comment

Limited only by your imagination

By Chris | July 6, 2009

Why an apparently simple marketing phrase can completely fail to market your product.

Spider-man Are your customers completely devoid of imagination? Do they consistently fail to understand how hugely useful your product is? Do they consistently fail to use it in the way that you intended?

Remind them with this cute and all powerful marketing phrase; “Limited only by your imagination”.

Actually, don’t.

Apart from the fact that it suggests, in a backhanded way, that your customer, has a pretty limited imagination (“The product is limited only by your complete lack of imagination”), it really tells them nothing more. In fact the implication is that you don’t know what your customers could possibly do with your product.

In The Economist last week there was an article about Stan Lee. Stan was editor in chief of Marvel Comics for 30 years where, with Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, they created Spider Man, the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Thor and Iron Man. Now that is imagination at work!

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Posted in promotion | Tagged marketing | 2 Comments