Think-Feel-Do: Product Marketing That Matters - Rich Sands at ProductCamp Boston, April 2011

Think
Feel
Do
Product Marketing That Matters

Product Marketing is a thankless task.

Lead Generation?
Downloads?
Pilots?
What are your goals?
Awareness?
Opt Ins?
Participation?
Recommendation?

ROI hurdles?
Management incentives?
Sales targets?
Why?
Competition?
Industry metrics?
Because we always have?
Magical thinking?

Does it fit within the budget?
Does my boss like this stuff?
Will sales use it?
How do you decide what to do?
Will it hurt the competition?
Will it get analysts to be nice?
Is it easy to explain?
Is it easy to measure?

Online marketing
Give-aways
Communities
Roadshows
Events and conferences
Social media
PR/AR
Contests
Choices
APIs and downloads
Ad Words
Whitepapers and data sheets
Try and buys
Email newsletters
Blogs
Forums
Webinars
Sponsorships
Media buys
Partner programs

Too
Much
Choice?

Drive behavior?
Predict market impact?
Influence key opinion?
What if you could:
Create brand love?
Power long-term success?
Deliver value to customers?
Build relationships that matter?

Our Goals
Their
Goals

Personas
Who are these people anyway?
Don’t we care about manydifferent kinds of customer,prospect, developer, influencer?
What are they like? How do they think? What are their challenges, motivations, decision criteria?
Make it personal:understand them as people.

Lets assume you’ve researched and created personas for your key customers andmarketing stakeholders
Creating personas is outside the scope of this presentation, so….
And then a miracle happened…

Anton – Enterprise Developer
“Give me the right tools, get out of my way, and I’ll deliver.”
“Application security keeps me up at night. Theconsequences of failure are pretty awful, and getting it rightis hard work.”
34 years old, MS in Comp Sci or EE.
Technical certification from Oracle, Microsoft,or other big platform vendor.
Lives in Eclipse, codes mostly in Java.
Contributes weekends and evenings to open source projects that create software he wants to use.

What do you want him to
think,
feel,
and do?

Anton – Enterprise Developer
Think:
“SecureCo’sapplication APIs make it easy for me to incorporate proven security into my projects. When I use SecureCoproducts, I know it is battle-tested technology, and the company has my back with demos, comprehensive documentation, community, and support!”
Feel:Empowered, understood, cared for, productive, smarter.
Do:
Evaluate SecureCoapplication APIs to include in his projects.
Join SecureCoDeveloperZoneor another developercommunity, create a profile.
Read and participate in forums.
Sign up for a newsletter.
Tell colleagues about the SecureCoAPIs he’s using,encouragethem to try them out.

Wendy – Thought Leader, Security Geek, Open Source Committer
“Open Source is not just about bits and code and flamesand forums. It is about passion and community and doingsomething that matters.”
“If I can’t see the source, I can’t trust the security.”
30s, advanced degree in Computer Science,works at a small OEM.
Blogger, author, frequently quoted.
A natural at development. Very fast, efficient.
Knows how to work with people, leads withtechnical will and skill.
Started building and contributing parts of GnuPG as an undergrad.
Spends her free time coding, and in IRC.

Wendy – Thought Leader, Security Geek, Open Source Committer
Think:
“Lets give SecureCothe benefit of the doubt. They’re trying to reach out to developers and they’re making it easy to participate. They’re listening!”
Feel:Curious, hopeful, included, positive, impressed, pleasantly surprised, participatory.
Do:
Join SecureCoDeveloperZone or another developercommunity, evaluate SecureCo’s motives and abilityto execute.
Read and participate in forums.
Sign up for a newsletter.
Blog about SecureCo’spositive example, talk aboutSecureCo’sdeveloper initiatives with press andanalysts, with other thought leaders at conferences.

John – Industry Analyst
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“So many companies think they’re doing ‘strategic’ stuff,but its just more of the same. Doesn’t anyone thinkthrough the business implications of all this tech stuffanymore?”
40s, has worked as a developer or ITarchitect but moved on.
Under extreme pressure to writestories/analysis to capture reader interest.
Eager to look informed, intelligent, hungry fornew information, ideas.
Deeply skeptical.

John – Industry Analyst
Think:
“SecureCohas their developer mojo back! Its about time – the industry needs a grown-up that can mix it up with the geeks and help make our whole world more secure.”
Feel: Positive, impressed, pleasantly surprised, engaged, curious, investigative, smart, consulted.
Do:
Write articles, positive reports.
Tweet what he’s heard.
Tell his clients that SecureCo’s developer programs havepromise and they should get involved.

. . .
Activities

“Lets do a Tweetup roadshowfor our Twitterfollowers around thecountry!”

. . .
Activities
?

Metrics and Analysis
Some marketing programs arenotoriously hard to measure.
Temptation is to measurewhat you can, even if it isirrelevant to your goals.
ROI: direct causal relationship between a marketing initiative and sales – often is not measurable.
You get what you measure: if you measure something convenient but dumb, you’ll drive bad behavior!

A Bad Metric: Downloads
Why measure downloads?Because you can!
Why is it bad? Developersoften download, take a look,and move on. Downloadsdon’t equal engagement!
At one company I know of, marketing management got bonuses on meeting a download target. They gave away iPods to random downloaders at the end of the quarter.
The count DID go up!
Download Now

Some Good Metrics

Don’t succumb! Measure only what matters, not just what is easy.
(Easier said than done,but you must try!)

The Challenge

Can challenge expectations
Isn’t always measurable
Doesn’t always directly deliver $
Good Marketing…
Can ruffle some feathers
Can expose incompetence
May upset some partners
Puts customers first

Marketing Can’t Fix Everything

Our Goals
Their
Goals

Rich Sands
http://RSandsConsulting.com
Email: rich@RSandsConsulting.com
Twitter: @richsands

Think
Feel
Do
Product Marketing That Matters

Think-Feel-Do: Product Marketing That Matters - Rich Sands at ProductCamp Boston, April 2011

by ProductCamp Boston on Apr 04, 2011

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Think-Feel-Do: Product Marketing That Matters - Rich Sands at ProductCamp Boston, April 2011 — Presentation Transcript