Marketing

Testing….more testing…even more testing

Marketing, messaging, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation, Testing

A lot of times people ask me what is the headline that I write so I will get a response. My answer generally is I don’t know. And they look at me and…..but you have been doing marketing for 25 plus years.

I have a checklist which kind of acts like a framework but inspie of that I still make different versions of my emails and ask my team to test. Once something succeeds, then we use that as a control, to tweak the content or the subject line…only one variable at a time.

The reason for this is the market has a mind of its own. I cannot claim to have better wisdom than the consolidated wisdom of the market.

I was not born with this modesty. I actually have a massive ego.

But the market has taught me , after so many failures, that I cannot think I know everything, that I cannot predict success of a product or a message. That I should only follow one rule and that is to test and keep testing to improve.

Incidentally this is also true of stock markets. Most of the successful veterans will tell you, that they have frameworks on how they invest, but they cannot predict how a stock will move .

Especially if you are in the technology product management field, you have two variables to handle.

  • The underlying technology and the product you have built on it…..Cloud as the technology and your service management product as an example
  • The market’s perception

As I have mentioned many times earlier, in marketing perception is reality. So if someone thinks that Cloud is not a secure technology then they won’t use your product even though you have a great product.

Make testing as the bedrock of all that you do so that you fail fast , learn, adapt and become successful.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Marketing does not work on formulas

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation

I have the biggest challenge with people who use spreadsheets to work on a target and then break it down with formulas. If marketing or product management was so formulaic, no product would ever fail.

If you check my team also, you will find them telling you that my fundamental question is “Why will it happen”

Spreadsheets are very good, especially for making lists and milestones. However assuming that the market you operate in will behave like a formula in the sheet is fallacy and targets will never be met.

The reason for that is markets and customers have a mind of their own. As I have mentioned earlier also marketing is applied psychology.

While the demographics and psychographics will list out typical characteristics, each of these people in the B2B segments, operate in an environment, where they interact with different functions. Each function has different priorities.

Unlike the consumer market where the risk is low for most of the items, when it comes to B2B technology products there’s a lot of perceived risk and people don’t like to change the status quo.

Since technology changes so fast one of the first inertia points for the customer is – am I investing in the right technology, how will it impact my other operations. Then come other questions like, what if it doesn’t work, what if this company sinks etc.

For the product management folks its critical that they take into account all these inertia or resistance points. Think through as deeply from the customer’s point of view, write an autobiography of the customer.

You can’t do this if you take a broad spectrum of the market. That is why it’s important to identify a niche in the market and then a market in the niche. Then actually go out and meet customers and understand all the reasons, why they won’t buy, then continuously improve your offerings.

Never rely on spreadsheets to govern the actions for your product but use them to govern the milestones.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Selecting a Niche – Part III – the economics

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, Sales

Today I will speak about the economics of selecting a niche.

We have already identified multiple advantages of selecting a niche and creating a perception of being different.

Once you have identified the niche the fundamental economic advantage you get is that you don’t have to try to send your message to everyone in the universe. Now your message is only going to a select few who meet the criteria of your ideal customer in the niche. So we have brought in a new term with respect to marketing to your customers – ideal customer.

So a niche could be people who like red eggs. Instead of looking at the whole of the United States to start doing your marketing, you may want to target red egg eaters in Old Town Alexandria, who are in the age group of 55-65 years. You may target this because your poultry farm is in VA so logistically its easier for you to address the market and then because your red eggs have higher protein, people over the age of 55 might be a good market to check.

So now your challenge is to find a way to identify how many of the above age group people live in Old Town Alexandria and how do you reach them.

Obviously you need to look at the other aspect which I had mentioned in my earlier posts. Which is – is there a market in the niche. So if you realize that there are only 200 people who fit your profile then may be it may not be a market for you if your poultry farm is producing 6000 eggs a day while it maybe a worthwhile market if your farm is only producing 20 eggs a day.

So keep this in mind always – you need to identify a niche in the market but you need to also see if there is a market in the niche.

If this market suits you then you now only need to be targeting this specific set of people at a defined frequency in the media of their choice. So instead of doing broad level advertising on radio or tv you could now target a media which is more tuned to this population in Old Town Alexandria.

This way even a very small budget can go a very long way to reach your ideal customer.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Perception – II

differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management

Yesterday I spoke about the advantage of creating a Perception / Position in the mind of the customer and how a clear positioning can help you get premium.

Since my focus is on Product Management in technology products and services, within Marketing, I always like to focus on the differentiation and positioning one can create for the product.

There are an immense number of examples I will share with you on this in the future posts, showcasing how technology products/services own a category.

This post however looks at the downside of creating a strong positioning.

Once you take the position in the mind of a customer, it becomes very difficult to change that perception.

If we look at history Digital Equipment was the company which was positioned as the “mini” computer company. When the mainframe computers were associated with the IBM’s of the world Digital created a perception of being different with a “mini” computer. DEC PDPs were the computers which any company longed to own. They owned the Mini Computer category.

DEC however no longer exists today. The reason for that is – DEC was the MINI Computer company. When computers became personal, people didn’t associate DEC with that market and they got completely annihilated.

When you own a product category and the technology related to that category is nearing “end – of – life” then it becomes very difficult to migrate into a different category. This happens because of 2 reasons in my opinion:

  1. Internal – the management of the company still tries to push their existing products/services because the are incentivized on pushing that.
  2. External – because the position you hold is strong in the minds of the customer – they can’t see you in a different position and don’t believe you have those capabilities

Most managements don’t read the writing on the wall, some read it but are not able to take a tough call.

For a marketer, its a double edged sword especially in the technical world where the technology is changing so rapidly. Should they work and put the effort into creating and owning categories or should they be a generalist and try and attract everyone.

I will still place my bet any day on creating a positioning / perception/ differentiation so that your product/service can stand out and customers see you defining that space. Then making a sale become easier, making profits become easier.

There are other aspects to creating the differentiation which we will take in future posts.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!